An Accidental Manifesto

I got into a debate with a coworker. He was of the perspective that if you’re not a member of a community, then you’re out of place to be helping that community. In other words, communities have to be the ones to help themselves. As a believer in empowerment, there’s truth to that. But let’s go deeper and get personal here. Full disclosure: I am a white, college-educated* American with two non-divorced lawyer parents, an excessively cute dog, and idyllic childhood memories of summer camp with a brother I worshipped. Hell, I’m even kind of blonde. And I can’t change any of those clichés. Point is, if my community is the socioeconomic structure I grew up in, then my “community” really doesn’t need much help. So was I out of place going to India to lend whatever post-college skills and abilities I had to organizations empowering disenfranchised groups outside my “community”? After you take in that mouthful, I want to delve into the issues. Two of which are identity and upbringing.

On Identity

Does it matter that I was not a “member” of the communities I was working with in India? I just can’t frame it that way. I believe that identity based on nationality, ethnicity, neighborhood, or pretty much anything, often creates unnecessary separation. When in reality, everybody has the capacity to relate to anyone. Pain feels the same; love feels the same no matter who you are or where you live. Of course it’s not just about relatability; it does make sense to work with groups you know and understand. But what if you can connect to others outside your circle through the shared traits of existing on this planet as an individual with emotions? To be clear, the community development work I’m talking about is NOT going to a foreign country and imposing American solutions (ehem, Peace Corps philosophy. No offense). I’m talking about working with a local organization, learning from those on the ground, and responding to their requested needs. No personal, preconceived notions of solutions or answers. No hero desires. And back to the broader points here, I truly believe that regardless of legal or political or community boundaries, each person is worthy of equal respect and concern. That, as Anthony Appiah, a philosopher from Ghana wrote, “No local loyalties can justify forgetting that each human being has responsibilities to each other.” And I feel that obligation deeply. My far-reaching rights as a citizen of the richest and most powerful country in the world yield responsibilities as a global citizen that go far beyond our boundaries. I’m not saying community identification is a bad thing – it’s a human inclination to surround oneself with the familiar and the shared. I am saying, however, that community does not have to be defined by geography. Community can come to mean something that doesn't blind us from the commonalities of being human.

On Upbringing

I am going to put this on the table: we are uncomfortable with “privilege” as a launch pad for working on social change. But why is that when nobody can change their background or their upbringing? First of all, everyone should grow up with access to quality education, healthcare, and respect for human rights to say the least, but not everyone is so lucky. As a result, sometimes adversity is a painful and powerful catalyst for social change. And there can be other catalysts in our upbringings as well. Quite personally, I regret my chagrin about how I was raised- which was a different kind of catalyst. I have even wished for a childhood of a few more hardships so that I’d be able to connect and relate more in community development work. ISN’T THAT MESSED UP? Yes, but I have. I even wished that I was part of a different socioeconomic group so that I could better explain my passion for empowerment and social justice. Seriously, I deserve a slap in the face. These wishes are ludicrous, not productive, and degrading to others! But I want to be honest here. I’ve had it pretty good, and I cannot change or apologize for or lament the social check box I grew up in, so my legitimacy in this type of work has to arise from another source. Or does it? Do I have to shy away from the fact that it’s precisely because I have been incredibly, unjustifiably fortunate that I cannot stand to live in a world that is exceedingly unfair to so so many?

Deep sigh, it is more than identity and upbringing. It comes down to beliefs, to passions, to insatiable desires for a more equitable world. It’s people are people, and sometimes that’s enough.

* If the world were a village of 100, one person would have a college education and 99 people would not.

                                                                                                     

With an Entrepreneur in Gujarat

Change

“To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor alone in a series of originating in and repeated to infinity.”

-James Joyce, Ulysses

As unique as my time abroad feels to me, I believe that many foreigners who have moved to India walk away with similar emotions, lessons, and experiences.* I have avoided summing up my year and half in India because for this reason it feels trite, and because I’ve been crippled by the immense weight of the questions: how have you changed, and what have you learned?

But today I decided to get over it. To do so, I’m going to focus on the predominant theme of my Indian life. I could weave this theme quasi-poetically throughout the writing, but instead, I’m going to be direct. As Ira Glass, my close friend whom I’ve never met and does not know that I exist, would say: the theme of today’s show is change, and it will be coming to you in three acts…

Act I: Delusion of Permanence

Act II: Growth

Act III: The World

Act I: Delusion of Permanence

To start at the beginning briefly, it was pretty easy for me to move to India, so don’t give me too much credit. It wasn’t hard for two reasons: 1). I really wanted it. 2). I embrace change like a great airport farewell. This tendency began when I heard the Buddhist tenet: “all suffering results from the delusion of permanence.” Since then, I not only recognize change’s inevitability, but I specifically seek change out. This is a self-defense mechanism: aha! If you’re so inevitable Sir Change, I am going to beat you to the punch! Yet, this also makes me feel like I’m Thoreau, sucking all the marrow out of life. (Who doesn’t love allusions to transcendentalism?) Getting back on track here, I easily adjusted to the starkly different life in rural India. Yes, yes I had challenges - did I tell you that in Maharashtra I was sleeping on the concrete floor of a room with no electricity or running water but plenty of insects, critters, and extreme heat? But so what? One billion people live like that and you don’t hear them whine like a spoiled expat. I put a lot of effort into assimilation (remember the double doors?), but I loved it. I really really loved it.

So when it comes to change, if you can’t avoid it, create it.

Act II: Growth

There is no doubt that I moved to India to visit the Taj Mahal. Nope. Didn’t see it. However, I did move so that I could try using business to combat poverty and so that I could grow and improve as a person. So did I change? The truth of the matter is that I’m still me. Only I have a few more lessons in my pocket, a broader worldview in my head, and an awareness in my heart that the world is so, so good to me, and so, so harsh to many.

Besides knowing how fortunate I am, what are some of those personal lessons I’ve pocketed away? I’ve learned that everything is a process, so accept the ebbs and flows. I’ve learned that you don’t have to possess a lot to be generous and a place is not a home without people you love to be around. I’ve learned to shift my perspectives and frameworks to be able to recognize when a problem is just not that bad. I’d love to be able to say that every time running water comes out of the sink and the a/c turns on, I feel appreciative. But I don’t. The enormity of what we have in America makes it so easy to forget the little things. Quite often I forget to pause, look around, realize my problems are not really problems, and that I have everything at my finger tips to be happy.

I learned so much more than what’s here, compressed and wrapped in tidy paragraph bows. I learned from the people who moved me and the moments that thrilled me, but my experience wasn’t about what I can sum up nicely. I’m still learning, because everything is always changing and you have to be willing to change yourself.

Act III: The World (caveat - it's just a preview)

I look around and see how the world could be a better place. But by better, I mean more equitable and kind. Am I telling you to do anything or change any behavior? NOPE! Everyone has to make decisions that make them happy (each to their own)! I’m just talking about myself and how a year and half in India has helped me figure out what I need to do to be happy…to be continued…

* This article is a great example of the similarity of experiences because I felt EXACTLY like the author in Mumbai

The Business World

“The 4P’s,” the trainer explains, “stand for product, price, place and promotion. They are the key tools to marketing.” The saree-clad women nod attentively to the Marathi translation, and my mouth falls to the ground. Having heard this lesson repeatedly during my days at the McCombs School of Business, it startles me to hear it in the middle of a rural village where children play with tires and cow poop is collected for fuel. It’s the context contrast. I see the women around me, and I feel the hard ground that I’m sitting on, but my mind flies back to a cushiony chair at McCombs.

I am comfortably seated in the laptop and polo shirt saturated classroom, listening to a marketing lecture on the 4Ps. I’m only half listening, too busy asking myself what on earth I’m doing in business school if I want to protect the environment and help reduce poverty. The professor, failing to read my mind, carries on about how to use these marketing tools to increase profits for corporate shareholders. I writhe under the school’s definition of success as profits. A definition, in my mind, frustratingly flawed. I’m ready to leave the business world.

“Leave your tiffins over there, and divide into groups based on your village,” the business trainer instructs. He is having the village women form their own companies for the day to prepare and sell Indian snacks in their local market. They will have to source raw materials, produce the food, price the items, choose a location to sell, and keep records of profit and loss. This activity is part of a rural business training curriculum. It is designed to teach basic business skills to village women with low literacy rates and education levels. The women, despite the heat of the day, are motivated to start their businesses. I, on the other hand, am wondering how they manage the sweltering temperatures as the sweat slowly drips down my back and my eyelids droop in the oppressive heat.

The air conditioning blows in the McCombs classroom, and I shudder in the August manufactured wintriness. Again, I’m not really listening to the lecture, but one year later, my thoughts are of a different nature. This is because I made peace with the business school when I stopped asking, “What I am I doing here?” And started asking, “What can I do here?” I raise my hand to ask the professor about social marketing, a way to use business ‘for good.’ I feel charged about all the potential, alternative applications of business. I’m convinced that business can be used to make the world a better place for those that ought to have a better life.

“Now, how can you use the 4Ps to increase your monthly income?” the trainer asks the group of women. It’s been 5 days of this rural business training, and the women are quick to answer with their newfound business knowledge. I stop thinking about McCombs right then. I am Chariots-of-Fire inspired by the women’s eagerness. They don’t just want improved lives; they’re willing to work for it. They’re willing to convince their husbands to allow them to leave the house for this training; they’re willing to go against a male-dominated culture to start women-owned businesses; they’re willing to face the risks and challenges of entrepreneurship so that their families and communities can get out of poverty. I stop thinking about McCombs and multinational corporations and air-conditioning because this right here is the business world I want to be in.

I feel incredibly lucky to be working with SSP, an organization that develops and strengthens the economic, social, and political competencies of grassroots women’s collectives. With SSP, I get to help launch a rural business school that aims to educate, inspire, and help women and youth grow socially-minded micro-businesses in their villages. We are currently testing potential rural business curricula in the villages of central Maharashtra.

http://www.sspindia.org/

http://www.fortefoundation.org/site/PageServer?pagename=cc_guest_lippman

(an article published by Forte Foundation from a few months ago with a similar theme)

Training

Village Where the Training Happens

My Home Life in Osmanabad

Journeys And Destinations

Part I: An Almost Rant

For twelve months, India has been my home. Nine of those months were spent immersing myself into the little town of Bhuj, Kachchh, Gujarat, India. And when I say immerse, I am referring to the identity shedding, soul-baring, language learning, taboo avoiding, relationship redefining, comfort affronting, intestinal churning process of becoming part of the local community. I was Bhuj’s Pinocchio, and I wanted to become a real Bhujie. And then, like Pinocchio, I went astray. To glide the glittery and gritty surface of India, as a tourist.

Yes, I saw beautiful things. (A sunrise over Darjeeling, a sunset on the backwaters of Kerala)

Yes, I met fascinating people. (A French circus performer, a UN employee based in Afghanistan)

Yes, I had magical chance experiences that travel often brings. (Carolers on a roof top, riding on top of a bus)

However, despite the fun times, the touristy side of India leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This is because it’s a curry-coated façade: an imitated ‘India’ manufactured in response to tourists that lap it up (the romanticizers) or turn their noses (the stigmatizers)…

… I could get carried away with a rant here. And in fact I did, but I’m not posting it. Instead I’ll just say that one (often unavoidable) problem is that to be a tourist in this complicated country is merely to scratch a surface that shrouds complexities and beauties missed by a transient itinerary. And that sucks.

But, I’ll let it go and replace my criticism with a little travel anecdote. It’s happier.

Parents Hiking in Tea Plantations of Darjeeling

Backwaters of Kerala

Part II: How Fortuitous

Like a little kid insatiably wants to go to Disney Land, Bertina (my brother’s girl friend), wanted to go to a “real” Indian wedding while she and my brother were in India. Despite the fact that I had no idea how to make this happen, I told them that I’d take care of it. So on my 19 hour overnight train ride to meet them in Jaipur, I still hadn’t sorted it out. I didn’t know anyone getting married, and I had no idea where to just ‘happen upon’ a wedding in the city. I was mulling over this as the young couple sharing my train compartment struck up a conversation. Turns out, they just had their wedding in Jaipur. Long story shorter, the fantastic couple told me about a popular wedding venue in the city. If we just turned up there, they said, we could crash whatever wedding was going on. Excellent!

So, on my first night with Scott and Bertina, we headed to the prescribed wedding location. Our hopes were high, our Indian clothes were new, and our minds flashed pictures of the glamorous affair so famously depicted in the West. But when we pulled up to the venue, there were no red carpets, no caravans of camels and elephants, no loud music or throes of people dancing in shiny sarees and suits. Not only was there not a wedding, the venue was completely closed. Dangit! Even though it had been a long shot, we were gloomy as we headed back to our hotel. And then something happened. More specifically, a piercing, thunderous sound happened. Fireworks! I popped my head out of the rickshaw and squealed as I spotted a blimp-size elephant painted up to the nines. Fireworks and an elephant?! A wedding must be nearby! And to be sure, a little further up the road we spotted the red carpet and tented entrance. Ecstatic, we jumped out of the rickshaw and dashed towards the glittering lights and pulsing music. When I realized that we all had absurd, indiscreet grins on our indiscreet white faces, I paused our exultant gait and put my hand on Scott and Bertina’s shoulders. Guys, Be Cool. A collusive head nod followed by a nonchalant saunter. An Indian wedding would be crashed.

Scott and Bertina in Jodhpur

Part III: It’s Not All Roses / But Can You Just Grow a Rose Garden?

So the wedding was a pretty fantastic success, and there were a number of other wonderful moments, especially since a) my family came all the way over to visit b) I got to go trekking in the Nepal Himalayas, a huge dream come true. But it’d be like saying success is easy if I didn’t share some of the tough stuff of travel. Like how because of strikes Dafnah and I twice got trapped in the kind of towns you’d drive through and purposefully avoid getting out of your car. Or how I acquired some vicious amoebas that wanted to hang out in my intestines, i.e. amoebiosis and the lovely dysentery. Or how my parents had to fend off fist-sized insects all night when their mosquito net didn’t fit over their bed. And then there was the constant challenge of simply getting from A to B. Flights were delayed, trains were missed, and buses never showed. Although I know it’s the journey not the destination, let’s be honest, sometimes the journey can be a bitch.

But hey, I wonder if that makes destination sweeter. (What? As though I have the capacity to end on a non-optimistic note.) With a new project in a new part of India, I’ve arrived at a really good place. I guess the more I travelled, the more it reinforced that it’s living in India, not touring India that I’m partial to. There’s no sight that feels as good to me as the hard-earned, little triumphs of life in India. Crossing the street with confidence and a body intact; having enough local knowledge to prevent the rickshaw driver from ripping me off; eating spicy food without wanting to tear out my tongue (ok that one is just not true; I still can’t eat spicy food). Yesterday, I felt on top of the world simply because I took the local Mumbai train to my office. I think it’s the familiarity feel-good. The transition from being insanely intimidated by something the first time to the confidence of knowing what to do and how to do it. I’m aware that I’m not a local by a long shot, but this is my home for now. And it feels good to be back.*

*For those of you cringing and I know who you are, I’ll be back in Texas by the end of May.

Approaching Base Camp

Nepal's Annapurna Range

Typical Local Bus in India

Mom and Dad visiting Bhuj

Graciousness

We walk down her village’s dirt road. It’s lined on each side by concrete huts connected in a row like rustic Legos. I gaze through doorways and windows, catching moments that slow down time – a man hunched over a loom weaving shawls, a woman crouched over a fire making roti (the Indian tortilla), a goat tied to a make-shift fence, kids playing in the dirt with sticks and tires…

We are sitting in a circle.

On the floor of Rajjiben’s village home.

A simple, one-room hut with the dimensions of a queen bed. Not that there’s any space, money, or real need for furniture.

The number of kids sitting with us increases with each minute I’m there. I conjure up every last word of Gujarati I know to communicate and interact. But not before I spend a few surreptitious minutes listening in on what they’re saying about me. How white my skin; how light my hair. When they discover I can speak their language I might as well have brought them a toy store.

But a toy store in this simple village would fit in about as well as a horse-drawn carriage on a U.S. highway. From his own personal toy store pocket, a boy brings out five worn, grey stones. They start playing a game and want to teach me. Something seems familiar, and then I realize. It’s Jacks. I smile as my mind carries me back to a childhood of playing Jacks with my mom, and our own neon-colored, plastic version. When it’s my turn with the rocks, I fail horribly. The kids relish my ineptitude. My mom always did beat me at the game.

After my friend and host Rajjiben, a weaver working with KHAMIR, comments on my earrings, I’ve spent enough time in Kachchh that I immediately want to offer them to her. She refuses even though I emphatically insist (see Open Arms). But then she’s telling me in Gujarati that her husband is gone. I had forgotten that it goes against custom for widows to wear jewelry. Instead I take off my earrings and hand them to one of her daughters. Grinning, she puts them in her ears and steps over little kids to strut around the room, not minding how out of place the earrings seem to be with her traditional clothes. We laugh. She’s then shuffling through their closet space, the plastic bags in a corner. She comes out with earrings and puts them in my hand. Then, to my growing dismay, another girl finds her own pair and gives them to me. I want to refuse any of their so few possessions, but I know that I have to accept. I wear one of each pair and tell them they’re beautiful.

More neighbors come pouring in. Did I mention the house was about ten feet by seven feet? I understand them telling each other who I am, why I’m here, how bad I am at Jacks. They tease me for not having a husband, but insist they’ll find me one so I can have a house here with them in their village. A rustic Lego next door.

As we all sit together, chai and contentment are being passed around and shared.

Milk is boiling.

Kids are laughing.

There’s nothing really to do.

Which somehow is fantastic. We’re left to enjoy each other’s company in the simplest form.

I know that I’ll never be the same. The realization rammed into me while time was slowing down. But I can’t exactly explain why the recognition arose. Reflecting on it now, it probably has to do with what I’ve gained through exposure to worlds so different from my home. A new awareness.

Of how little we really need in life

And what it actually means to need.

They’re asking me to stay for dinner and spend the night in their home. This warm generosity takes my mind for a wander again. If the situation was reversed, would I have been as willing to share my possessions, my time, my world?

As my act in Kachchh approaches its finale, I think about Legos, Jacks, and sharing. And about how of all the contagious things going around here, it’s the graciousness of people that is the most catching. 

Jai Maata Ji!

If you had come to India this past weekend, you would have found me on a 100 kilometer pilgrimage. You didn’t, so come take a walk in my shoes. And you just walked the distance of almost two and a half marathons in 48 hours with a total sleep time of 6 hours. You’re kind of exhausted.

Let’s start from the top.

It’s that time of year when pious Hindus make a pilgrimage to the temple of the goddess Ashapura in the village Mata Nu Madh. They take on the strenuous journey to thank and give offerings to Ashapura for fulfilling their wish or to ask that she grants them one. You journeyed with four friends from the office not for religious purposes, but because:

a) You’re not one to turn down once in a lifetime experiences

b) You liked that it coincided with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year

c) You loooove to walk

So you and your friends leave Friday night at 9pm from Bhuj with all the energy and enthusiasm in the world. One of them is fairly certain that you are the first foreigner to do this pilgrimage, but she was also pretty sure that America was part of Europe. Either way, over the next 48 hours you won’t see any non-Indian faces among the 700,000 on this journey.

You walk all Friday night without sleeping, a little drowsy but happy the darkness comes with stars, privacy from curious eyes, and cool temperatures. Along the way, thousands of people are helping you reach the temple … water and snacks are being handed out almost every 30 minutes, camps are set up for sleeping, eating, and sometimes even for wrapping your feet in bandages. A service you will need to avail yourself of come kilometer number fifty. (Why are these people spending their time and money to help? It’s their offering to Ashapura. Or, god points). You rest your legs at some of these camps at midnight, 3am, and 4:45am. When the sun begins to invade the night around 6am, you dread the heat and your bright visibility as a foreigner. But it’s okay.

Around 9am and 30 kilometers (18.6 miles), you take a detour to your friend’s cousin’s house. They are opening their home for you to rest. The five of you pile into a room, and sleep four glorious hours on the floor. At 2pm (it’s Saturday), you groggily wake for lunch. Avoiding the heat of the day, you don’t mobilize to leave until 5pm.

That your legs already ache, that your feet are COVERED in blisters, and that you’re only one third of the way done, feels a bit demoralizing. But it’s nothing compared to how dreadfully drained you feel at the half way point. Which you reach around 10:30pm.

It’s a big camp, and you are so grateful for the doctors (were they doctors?) that take needles to your blisters to drain blood and puss and then wrap your feet in so much bandage that they look like mummies. But you’re not complaining. It could be a lot worse. And each of the tens of thousands of people around you has the same pain. Most are even walking in flip flops or barefoot and have bags balanced on their heads. You don’t know how.

Thanks to the rest and bandages, you’re feeling recharged. The low-point is over. You keep walking until 2:30am when you finally stop to sleep. You’ve been going a fairly good pace because fast or slow, the pain is the same. You’re exhausted and don’t mind sleeping like sardines with 50 other men and women on [a fairly filthy] ground. At 4:00am, you wake up and note the irony that when you looked at your watch you thought, ‘ooo that was a lot of rest.’

Walkers Sleeping Along the Way

Here you carry on without the group, eager to cover a lot of distance before the sun and the heat ambush you. With your second sunrise, you wonder where the hell you’re going to go to the bathroom. On the side of the road is fine, but you don’t have a friend to keep watch and cover you, and you’re not going to risk having the staring eyes follow you behind the bushes. So you stop drinking water for a bit. Meanwhile, you don’t realize how slow your friends are moving today, and the distance between you and them keeps increasing. But for now, you’re enjoying the solitude and mostly adjusted to the curious stares and commentary.

Foreigner?!

What is your name please?

Jai Maata Ji! (roughly translating to ‘long live the goddess,’ it’s shouted a lot along the way)

At noon, you stop at a big camp for a power nap and for your friends to catch up. An hour and a half later, you are all reunited and feeling pretty good. There’s only fifteen kilometers to go. You wait out some of the heat and start walking again around 3pm. In another five kilometers, you’re going to stop for a bath at a water pipe. It’ll be one of your most interesting shower experiences, topping the time you accidently showered in the men’s bathroom in Sydney. But anyways.

The last 10km are fantastic. You’re all in good spirits, joking around with each other, and laughing at the hobbling that’s taken the place of walking. Because sometimes all you can do with pain is laugh at it. Your friends are making fun of all the people who try to talk to you. And you love them more than ever.

The arrival at Mata Nu Madh around 9pm Sunday night is chaos. 15,000 people have ascended the tiny village and temple that night, and it’s a mad house. The collective spirituality of the journey gave way to an individualistic selfishness of pushing and shoving to reach Ashapura. The experience includes walking your blistered, sore feet barefoot (because no shoes in the temple) through the muddy, filthy village, being herded like cattle, the worst [barefoot] bathroom experience ever, and then standing in line for two hours (after 62 miles of walking) waiting for a bus back to Bhuj.

But you made it. And for whatever reason, the chaotic culmination doesn’t take away from the experience, it only adds to it. Maybe it’s the feeling of accomplishment, maybe it’s the camaraderie, or maybe it’s Ashapura and your earned god points, because you feel gooood.

Snapshots

I’m sitting at my desk in the KHAMIR Craft Resource Center. The hot wind approaches brazenly through the window, yet again knocking the papers off my table like a jerk. Sweet, steamy, milky chai arrives. It must be 3:30pm. I’m working on the craft-based newsletter we’ve decided to launch for the artisans of the region. A weaver from a nearby village comes in.

Namaste ben.

Namaste bhai. Kem cho?

Mujama.Tuhme?

Mujama.

Pankajbhai, a director, comes over.

Jamieben, can you help fill out this grant application?

Of course. When’s it due?

Yesterday.

***********

In the doorstep of our flat, I sit reading Mind Without Measure by J. Krishnamurti. A philosophical text given to me by an Indian friend happy to expand my western mind. Having finally arrived home from work before 8pm, I’m feeling calmly exhilarated. I look up from the page to watch evening life ensue on my little lane in Nooton Colony. I smile at the materialization of stereotypical images. Vendors are strolling by with their vegetable carts. Women are taking saris off the clotheslines. Boys are playing cricket. A grandmother is sitting on a terrace. Cows are being cows.

I’m unexpectedly struck by how fortunate I feel to have the chance to live here. To have this be my life for one year. How different and temporary it is for me, but how very real it is for my neighbors. The only life they know.

Then I think of how my brother would probably make fun of me for this dramatic train of thought, and I laugh at myself and at twilight for always making me feel reflective.

I hear my name. Pratik and Vishal have rolled up on their bicycles. I put down J.Krishnamurti and smile at my friends.

Come Jamie, let’s go play badminton. Yea?

Do I ever say no?

***********

There is NPR’s This American Life in my ears and Kachchh landscape in my gaze. It’s Sunday, our one day off from work, so I’m on my weekly extended stroll around Bhuj. Hearing America. Seeing India. I have no set path or destination because I’m a sucker for fortuitous finds. I become thirsty in the heat and stop at a juicer’s cart. For forty cents, I watch a guy slice a pineapple, peel a pomegranate, and use a hand cranked metal machine from the 18^th century to squeeze delight into a cup. It’s delicious.

I decide to take a right at the crossroad that normally pulls me left. While Ira Glass is telling me a story about Chicago’s classified ads, I suddenly come across a sight that diverts my pliant path.I’ve found a park with a walking trail, something quite rare for Bhuj.

YESSSS!!

On the way home, I stop by my favorite sweet shop. Feeling a bit smugly like a local. The owner hands me a good-lookin samosa fresh out of the oven and won’t let me pay. It’s delicious.

A bahu saru che. Abhar.

[It’s too good. Thank you]

I say it to him, but my mind applies it broadly.

**********

It's an Artisan's Life for Me

With the last dusty turn of the desert road with no name, we reach the village of Ajrakhpur. There’s a lot to see.

Okay wait.

I can’t remember it all that well, but do you know the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean ride? How as the ride leisurely takes you along, you witness little scenes of the life of pirates?

So there’s zero resemblance to a pirate’s life in Ajrakhpur.

BUT I’m reminded of the ride because as we slowly drive through and catch a snapshot of all the different ongoing activities, that’s what it feels like. [Now if you will please exit the world of Disney and enter the village of Ajrakhpur.]

To my left, men are knee deep in a concrete water tank pounding, ringing, and rinsing cotton material. Next to them, meters and meters of fabric are being laid out on the dirt ground to bake in the Kachchh desert solar oven. To my right, fabric is being dipped into barrels of dark midnight dye. Dye that’s mixed over the blazing fires being stoked nearby. It’s only a few more meters before we pass the crops of indigo cultivated to make that dye.

The car stops. Outside the home of the artisan we’re here to meet, a man is sitting on the ground carving intricate designs into a block of wood with rudimentary tools. Inside the house, a number of artisans are printing, block by intricately carved block, beautiful patterns onto the textiles that will be rinsed in those concrete tanks, dyed in those barrels, and dried in that sun as many times as the colors and patterns of the design requires. It will eventually become garments sold and worn around India.

To travel a fifty yard stretch of Ajrakhpur is to observe an entire village engaged and dedicated to the craft of creating block printed textiles.

Why am I telling you this?

Because you [theoretically] wanted to know what it is that I do here. And I’m volunteering for an NGO that exists to revitalize, reposition, and promote the traditional crafts of Kachchh so that they remain viable and sustainable livelihoods for the region’s 30,000 artisan families.

Why do crafts matter?

They matter because after agriculture, craft constitutes the largest sector of the Indian economy. Craft is a way of life here. Yet traditional crafts are dying out, and “when a craft dies, it’s not only a business that dies. With it dies an entire history, a legacy, a tradition, a knowledge.”

Why does Ajrakhpur matter?

It matters because it’s at the heart of these villages that the consequences of globalization are felt. Where the confluences of modernity and tradition tug at the fabric of livelihoods.*

How does this hit home?

After witnessing firsthand that for generations an entire village has been dedicated to and dependent on the painstaking production and variable sale of these (beautiful!) textile handicrafts, conscientious consumerism resonates in a deeper way. Even if we have little individual power in the world, we at least have choice. And some money.
And it’s just that our dollar is our vote.
And it’s kinda nice to vote for sustaining the livelihoods of rural communities that really need it instead of the bank accounts of corporations that don’t. Besides, thanks to the regrettably refreshing and stupidly tasty diet coke, some corporations already have my money. So does Disney, but that seems alright.

*There’s a lot to be said on these three things (globalization, modernization, and tradition) and the tensions they create. But that will not happen right here. I’ll just say that - as an example - with the onset of mechanized production of textiles and other crafts, declining local markets, and wage labor to be found in the industrial factories that have popped up thanks to Gujarat’s SEZs (Special Economic Zones), traditional craft occupations are being left behind.

photos taken for KHAMIR by Studio Firefly

Assimilation, or Symbolism in Improbable Places

There are two doors.

Behind one is a Western toilet; behind the other is an Indian squat toilet.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

To begin with, you should know that I’ve adjusted to a relatively typical life in Bhuj. I spend Monday through Saturday at the office managing both projects and the 115 degree heat; I buy groceries from a store competing in ‘Who Can Cram the Most Items into the Smallest Spaces’*; I go watch Bollywood movies in Hindi, munching on twenty cent masala popcorn. Life here feels part social experiment, part feel-good movie, and part abnormally normal.

Mostly abnormally normal, though.

Because I embrace the idea, ‘Don’t cling to comfort and everything will be comfortable.’ In a less Taoist form, this translates into my current adjustment approach:
a. Don’t assume anything will be like it is at home (because it won’t)
b. Never be in a hurry (because nothing will happen as quickly or efficiently as you’re used to)
c. Form relationships (they are the foundation of everything here)
d. Learn the language (and use it)

e. Say ‘yes’ (unless you really shouldn’t)

Yet, adjustment is only half the battle of living and working abroad. The second part is harder: assimilation.

Which brings me to the doors.

The Choice

They’re located in my office. Every day, I have to choose between the Indian and Western toilet. Despite the fact that this choice may seem easy to you, the overt symbolism of the situation is almost preposterous. It’s a tangible manifestation of the questions I’m continually asking myself: How much of my “Americanness” do I let go of? How much “Indianness” do I take on? These questions arise because when you’re thrown into an entirely different culture, you realize just how much of yourself is a result of growing up in the place, the society that you did. It goes beyond choosing between Indian preferences and American partialities. To assimilate is to question your identity. To determine which aspects of yourself you can shed for the better and which aspects are here to stay (even if they’re not culturally apt). It’s like an identity detox.

But anyways. About those toilets.

The decision is indeed expectedly easy; I just didn’t expect my choice. Still recovering from my ashram toilet aversion (see A Day in Orientation), I was so excited when I discovered the Western toilet here. Yet as it turns out, I haven’t wanted to use the American side since about week three. Which goes to show I need to add a platitude to my adjustment approach:

f. Expect the unexpected

And maybe also:

g. Must you always elevate mundane things into something symbolic of your Indian experience?

* If I fortuitously take my gaze towards the right hand corner of the second shelf from the top on the third aisle of the store in between the bag of lentils and the jar of pineapple jam, I’ll find a luxury item like Oreos.

Personification, Sort of

If the city of Bhuj were a woman, she’d be petite and unassuming, but noticeably radiant each evening when the sun saunters towards the horizon, taking the heat with it like a consolation prize. You’d want her to like you, so you’ll assure her that you of course don’t drink or smoke or have boyfriends and definitely don’t eat meat or eggs.* She’ll be reserved and distant the first time you meet her, but she’s friendlier during the second interaction. By the third, you’re so pleased to receive an invitation to her home that you don’t mind when she calls you “Jenny” and your roommate Shulie, “Lucy.”

To get to her home, you will go around the skittles colored temple, wind past the sacred cricket field, and turn left at the sign (uncommonly in English): "Dr. Jignesh. Certified. Physician and Gunecologist.” Her flat will be a snug shade of small with floor cushions for furniture and neighborhood children for entertainment. Beholden to tradition, she does all the cooking and cleaning for her family; aligned with modernization, she also works for a local NGO.  She will speak as much English as you do Gujarati, so despite the education you’ve both received, the conversation will humbly be reduced to baby talk and body language. “Your house. Nice.” Smile exchange. “Food good.  Please, no more.” Motion towards full stomach. When you hear her daughter does “marketing,” you will excitedly begin to tell her that’s what you studied in school. You loooove commonalities.

You will later discover that “marketing” means to go buy things - in the market.

You will be mortified that people think you earned a degree in shopping.

You follow up dinner by experiencing the zenith of Bhuj social life … going out for ice cream. Litchi fruit, mango, fig, black current, saffron, rose – the flavors are so tantalizingly intoxicating and the company of your friends (yes, local Bhujians are your friends), so scrumptious that you don’t miss the giant margarita that you would’ve given an arm, a leg, and definitely at the very least your appendix (because really what use is it anyways?) for an hour ago. Everyone gets a scoop and shares.

For a moment, you detach from the conversation on arranged marriages, admiring Bhuj for her taste in warm people and cool nights. You make a mental note to always appreciate them. To live life to the fullest here. To get out of your comfort zone. To say you studied commerce instead of marketing. A tap on your shoulder brings you back. “What are you thinking about?” a friend gently inquires.

You announce, under the influence of sweet, sweet litchi, “The second round..is on me.”

*Bhuj is in Gujarat and as Gandhi’s home state, it is both a dry state and a vegetarian state.

With Friends at an Ice Cream Stand in Bhuj

Open Arms

I sit on my bed. Sweating. Body sore from wretching all afternoon. Our makeshift curtain billows before a subtle, stereotypical breeze brushes my face - bringing with it the characteristic smells of wives cooking dinner with coriander, turmeric, and chili powder. Spices I will be avoiding for a time. Considering the inevitability of illness, I forgive my stomach for its angry and cruel rejections. Besides, it is another example of the two-sidedness that pervades here (and everywhere) – like how the tanner I try to get my skin so that I “blend in”, the blonder my hair becomes - but more to the point, how bad is accompanied by good.     

Since falling ill (the bad part), my phone has been ringing and the door has been knocking with people concerned about me (the good part). Making sure I’m drinking “electric water*” and insisting they can take me to a doctor. In America, the customer may be king, but here in Kachchh, there’s an expression that says, ‘Guest is God.’ The warmth and hospitality I’ve received as a newcomer living in Bhuj makes me feel like I do at the end of watching Rudy. Neighbors insist on feeding us and feeding us, our hunger levels completely irrelevant; friends take us under their wings and on their bikes for errands and escapades into the desert; co-workers include me in the laughs and clue me in on the plans. I’ve had to stop complimenting jewelry because twice, despite my firm resistance, the owners have taken it off and given it to me.

The Salt Deserts - I'm Far Left

So, with a pretty bracelet and ring on my hand, I think about the bad and good of being an outsider - how hard it is to be different, but how nice it is to feel special. And not just because of the jewelry. People so generously take care of us and include us. Although I don’t know exactly why, there are at least a few reasons I can surmise: a. the duty of being a good host is very important b. they want us to love their country (it’s working) c. because perhaps happiness, like everything under the sun here, is something meant to be shared.** From food to joyous occasions to personal space, the attitude is ‘what is mine, is yours.’ As an American, I may be stereotyped and stared at, but the eyes that open towards me are nothing compared to the arms that have opened for me.

* I believe they were referring to electrolyte drinks like Gatorade. Speaking of funny [Foer-like] mis-translations, I saw a sign for gift baskets : “Festive Hampers Available.”

** Generosity permeates the culture. On your birthday, it is customary not to receive gifts, but to give them. At work, any food brought from home is shared with everyone. Yesterday, our friend came over to our house (and all his friends’ houses) with sweets because his brother had a baby. 

Celebrating Holi with my Wonderful Coworkers

Bhuj from a Terrace as the Sun Fades

The Spectacle

My Side of the Room

Caveat #1: I’m finding that, as an American outsider, little is simple in India. So to write about life here is anything but easy. However, I will try to convey a small bit of what my first couple of weeks in Bhuj have been like.

Caveat #2: Talking about life in Bhuj is not the same thing as talking about life in India. Bhuj is its own unique place in the massive, complex country that is India. If you’re looking at a map of Texas, Bhuj is geographically the El Paso of India. It is tucked away in the deserts of the far western state of Gujarat. And Bhuj is as different from Mumbai or New Delhi as El Paso is from Houston or Austin.

                     

Our Street

Nestled cozily on a dirt road between colorful flats and wandering cows, Shulie (another Fellow) and I share a minimalistic room, kitchen, and bathroom in an area called Nootan Colony. The quaintness, however, is simply a facade for the circus of noise that happens every morning outside our door. Shrieking children, shouting mothers, barking dogs, revving motorcycles, clanking pots, and yelling milk men are just a few of the Nootan Colony Circus attractions. The greatest spectacle, however, has just arrived … Shulie and I are now very evidently the main attraction. We can tell by all the gazing eyes, gaping mouths, and giggling children. We are just so…white.

From our flat, I can walk almost anywhere I need to (although invariably I will be the only woman walking by herself on the roads): shops, markets, fruit stands, tailors, and some restaurants - of which our choices are Indian, North Indian, or Indian food. Compared to home, everything is inexpensive. To eat Gujarati Thali (famous local cuisine) at the nicest and fanciest restaurant in Bhuj costs 100 to 150 Rupees, or about $2 to $3.

Our Neighbor Waits Outside Our Door

I live in a corner of the world that has escaped the grasp of McDonalds and Starbucks. Off of the major tourist routes, there are few westerners in Bhuj. It’s part of the reason that Shulie and I get so much attention. I don’t particularly enjoy being stared at, but I find satisfaction in knowing that I’m not just a tourist – that I’m rooted here for almost a year. And soon enough I will be a familiar face in the Bhuj community. Already the gregarious man that sells us vegetables from his stand (who we like because he doesn’t rip us off) knows us and chuckles at my Gujarati, the local language. I’m trying to pick it up as quickly as I can because a little goes a long way on the lengthy road of cross-cultural communication. And until I can get the pronunciation down, I’m quite comfortable with people laughing at my expense. At least there’s laughing.

Overall, each day here at the circus has been an intense roller coaster of highs and lows, but the ride usually leaves me smiling. Because despite the staring, people have been incredibly warm, welcoming, and generous. And when it comes down to it, it’s exciting albeit exhausting, often hilarious, and at least educational to live in a place that’s so different from home.

A Day in Orientation

In Ahmedabad, India, nine World Partners Fellows spent a month-long orientation living in the Kocharb Ashram - a place where Gandhi once lived. It still operates according to Gandhi’s principles, and it is an oasis of calm in an otherwise chaotic, chaotic city. We are the first group of foreigners the Ashram has ever hosted. It is nearly impossible to sum up this intense, wonderful experience concisely. So below is an example of a day in the life…

WPF '09a in Kocharb Ashram

8:10am One of the girls I’m sharing a small room comprised of four cots, one window, one fan, and one light bulb shuffles out of bed. I ignore the wake up signs and keep sleeping.

8:45am I’ve now piled out of my cot, rolled up my sleep sack and mosquito net, and washed my face and teeth with some bucket water. I have to pee, but I can’t muster the motivation to walk to the outhouse and squat over a toilet hole.

8:50am Everyone is standing (because there are no chairs) around a table munching on a breakfast of bananas, stale white bread, and processed cheese.

9:05am We are now in Gandhi’s library for our first orientation session of the day. Sitting in hard wood chairs around a table, there is a portrait of Gandhi looking over us and his collection of books encircling us. I should have peed.

9:45am Sunita, the program officer (a.k.a. our Indian Mother), is giving us an overview of the Indian political system and national NGOs. We are wearing the Salwaar Kameez that Sunita helped us bargain for in the market.

10:30am We break for chai, sunshine, and stretching.

11:00am It’s our third session of the day and we are sitting on the floor discussing globalization and rights-based international development in small groups. Dave says, “Life is a struggle to resist complacency.”

12:30pm We are sitting outside, cross-legged on the grass eating lunch in a circle as we always do. With our hands as utensils, we eat white rice, daal, chapatti and a vegetable dish that is so spicy, mushy, and oily it surely can no longer be classified as a vegetable. It’s tasty.

1:30pm Another session has begun and we have an outside speaker talking to us about the (still in existence) caste system in India. He is the founder of an Indian NGO dedicated to Dalit rights, and he is incredibly inspiring.

3:30pm Sunita gives us a lesson on cultural dos and don’ts, and Lani, our program director, goes over ethical and responsible volunteering.

4:30pm Sessions are over, and we venture outside the Ashram gates into the pandemonium that is Ahmedabad to do some shopping. Dodging all paces of life in the forms of auto rickshaws, motorcycles, rickety buses, bikes, carts, cars, cows, camels, stray dogs, poop, trash, and the lone elephant, we cross a street which seems to have no traffic rules or regulations.

4:34pm We are still alive and can’t help but notice that every single person is staring at us. The staring continues incessantly and unabashedly everywhere we go. It becomes clear that our whiteness makes us very, very different. We smile.

5:45pm Every challenging aspect of accomplishing an errand is a reminder that India is quite different from home.

6:00pm Our friendly auto rickshaw driver talks to us, or at least the male in the group. After finding out we’re Americans he excitedly shouts, “Obama!” We excitedly respond, “Obama!”

6:02pm I smile remembering that everywhere and anywhere, people are people. And we at least have that in common.

6:30pm Back inside the gates, we recuperate from the venture by lying on the grass soaking in the calmness of the Ashram, looking up into the empty, blue sky, and doing a few yoga poses. I contemplate how it makes total sense that yoga was invented here – with all the chaos going on outside, one must find an internal calm.

6:35pm Oops. Our Indian mother has politely told us that in India women do not just lie on the grass or do exercise out in public and if they do they drape their scarves over themselves for modesty.

6:38pm I lament the cultural differences and all the “rules” for women.

6:40pm I adapt, get over it, and move inside to Gandhi’s study for yoga poses. We are pretty sure he’d approve.

The "Shower"

7:00pm I take a shower with a bucket of water, a pitcher, and a drain. (see above)

7:30 pm Dinner mimics lunch. As always, we wash our own plates.

9:00pm While our group sits and chats, I notice the young Indian men who are the groundskeepers of the Ashram playing a simple game with a whiffle ball. Although they keep their distance from us and I’m pretty sure I’m crossing some cultural boundary that I don’t really understand, I work up the nerve to ask if I can join. They look a bit taken aback.

9:25pm With a smile on my face and sweat on my brow, I am thrilled that games allow for cross-cultural interaction, especially when there’s a language barrier. All those hours I played paddle ball are coming in very handy.

11:00pm Despite the fact that we all spent most of the day talking and discussing and listening, the nine of us are piled in one room swapping stories. I’m loving the other fellows.

12:30am With the light of my head lamp, I attempt to write down all the lessons, experiences, and emotions covered in just one day here. I close my eyes, smile, and brace myself to do it again tomorrow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashram

The International Terminal

I’m 24.

I’m at the airport.

And I’m moving to India.

I’m waiting to board a flight to (literally) the other side of the world, and the weight of this decision, while two years in the works, is finally settling in. My head is in a million places - scattered like those little hand held puzzles where you try to get the ball in the hole but it goes around and forward and backwards and sideways stubbornly resisting settling in one place. I can’t seem to pick one emotion and hold onto it.

At the airport in the international terminal there are so many languages being spoken, so many differences to observe. It reminds me how big the world is. It’s easy to forget, especially when the world, as it sometimes does, revolves around you. It’s one of the wonderful things about travelling. One of many. You are part of something bigger than yourself. Bigger than your concerns or worries or joys or problems. Our lives are important, incredibly so, of course. But so are the lives of others – our families, friends, neighbors, and those strangers on the other side of the world. College graduates are forced to decide what it is we want to do with our lives. And the answer is so much bigger than the job - that’s just one facet. It’s about how we lead our lives. It’s about what we choose as important – what values, what choices, what guidelines, what relationships matter. The answers are personal. I believe I know what matters and what’s important to me. It’s constantly evolving, but whatever it is, it’s lead me to here. Right now. Witnessing my own microcosm of multiculturalism in the international airport terminal. Moving to India.

Through the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), I’ve received the World Partners Fellowship. AJWS is dedicated to alleviating poverty, hunger, and disease among people of the developing world regardless of race, religion, or nationality. The fellowship places me with a local, grassroots, Indian non-governmental organization (NGO) for one year. I will be working for an NGO that helps empower artisans to create sustainable livelihoods off of their traditional craft work. It is located in a small town named Bhuj in the desert of Western India. Bhuj will be my home for a year.

It’s difficult to answer exactly why I’m doing this, and the reasons are many and involved. But as I get served pretzels and wine on the airplane, I think about how luxurious my life is. I have everything I could possible need and a thousand times more. I’m not trying to run away from it, but I am attempting to remove myself so that I can better understand the world and the problems that need to be solved. I want to understand through experiences; statistics can only convey so much. I know that ultimately it will be me who gets the most out of this volunteer work, but hopefully along the way I can do some good for others.

* Postscript 7/29/09

I think my brother put it best when he said in response to this post, "Don't you think you're being a little dramatic, Jamie?" He's right. And even though I'm a tad embarassed, it remains since it's pretty much exactly what I was thinking and feeling at the time. Historical accuracy trumps chagrin.

http://www.khamir.org/

http://ajws.org/

http://ajws.org/what_we_do/service_and_travel_opportunities/world_partners_fellowship/