Do You Know Her?

At the orphanage down the road from Chacko Homes, there is a new volunteer. She arrived last week and will be staying for about a month before returning to Calcutta, where she is completing other forms of service. Like me, she is a lone white woman in a sea of Indian men, women, and children; unlike me, she is from Germany.

That, however, means very little to the Indian men, women, and children who have had the chance to see these two white women occupying space in the same room at the same time. The minute they saw her, my friends from the college turned to me and said, “Do you know her?” Why this assumption that every white person in the entire world knows every other white person in the entire world? And why the assumption that, because we share a skin color, we will become instant and best friends?

Well, I have no idea, but everyone at the orphanage was convinced that, if this girl and I didn’t know each other already, we ought to get to know each other right away. People kept pointing to us and gesturing for us to come together to strike up a conversation, followed by a friendship. Eventually we did, but, despite outward appearances, we actually had a hard time communicating. I appreciate my friends’ desire to find me another friend with whom I have something in common, but what does that commonality really mean? Yes, we’re both white, but we don’t share a mother tongue, a native country, or even a continent. Silly Indian friends, I thought with a little smile on my face, as I repeated over and over, “No, I don’t know her; by the way, she’s form Germany.”