The System is Rigged--Higher Education and My Discontents

Is it worth it to go to grad school? This is a question I have been grappling with for many years now. I knew from a young age that I was interested in people--what made them think and behave. I was committed to studying psychology and pursuing advanced degrees to be able to practice therapy. So I went to college, like most privileged white children--it wasn’t a question that I would head straight to college after high school. It was necessary--a no-brainer. In fact, people who did not go straight to college in my small town were looked down upon.

I wish I would have put more thought into the opportunistic time in life that was--being 18, without debt or any financial commitments. What a perfect time to travel, see the world, meet some interesting people, have your views challenged. But instead I trudged on the path laid out for me by my highly educated parents.

I worked hard in college, maintained a 4.0 GPA and graduated in 3 years. I chose to go to a school where I could get a scholarship, and ended up with minimal amounts of student loan debt--about $20,000. I wish someone would have explained to me better about the realities of debt--what that looks like on a daily basis after you start working. When I was making the choice to go to college, all the adults around me kept saying “Don’t worry about the money! Go to a good school and it will pay off! Everyone has student loan debt, it is an investment!”

And maybe all those adults were speaking on behalf of their experience attending undergrad in a time where that degree meant a lot more. An undergrad degree nowadays is practically equivalent to a high-school diploma. It doesn’t make you stand out, it just allows you to pass certain ‘qualification’ gates in the job-search.

Don’t get me wrong, I am happy I went to college. I definitely learned so much, met some lifelong friends, and partied enough to have stories to recount for many years. And I am thankful my amount of debt is not so overwhelming, but it is still significant, considering the average pay in my field.

With a psychology bachelors, there aren’t many entry level fields with high-paying jobs to get into. I was drawn the social work, so my first job out of college was at a transitional housing facility where I essentially ‘worked the door’ and made sure clients got their meds, broke up fights--that kind of thing. My starting wage with my expensive degree? $12.75/hr. And it was only a 32/hr a week position.

Essentially, I was taking home around $1,300/mo from this job and living in a fastly growing city--Portland, OR--this was barely enough to squeak by on, without having to think about debt repayment. Because of my student loan payment of about $250/mo (which is affordable comparably) I had to get a second job at a coffee shop where I made $10/hr in base wages and around $6/hr in cash tips on top of that.

I was baffled at the easy money I made working as a barista--a job I definitely did not need to have a degree for, in fact I worked as a barista all through high-school and during college. I made between $16-$18/hr at this coffee shop--granted I did not get PTO or benefits, but it seemed so twisted that the ‘field-related’ job I worked so hard to actualize truly wasn’t enough to live off of.

I live in a city full of service-industry workers with colorful academic letters pinned to their names--M.S, M.A., M.B.A, PhD even. Why are they serving sushi or pouring your nightly IPA and not working 9-5 in their prospective fields of study? This is obviously rhetorical--because it does not pay to get a higher education in many fields.

But many of us feel stuck, unable to grow our career without those credentials. As a social worker or psychologist--it is necessary to get at least your masters to have a chance at promotion. And even those ‘higher-wage’ positions awarded to masters-level workers aren’t significantly better pay, maybe between $33,000-$40,000 as opposed to $24,000+ for us with bachelors.

How is my generational workforce expected to move through the conventional life-course without a livable, stable wage and adequate health benefits? None of us can afford to have children. No one would green-light us for a mortgage with that atrocious debt-to-income ratio. And yet we are seemingly unable to move-up in our careers without taking on the higher education debt commitments with a laughable ROI.

I read everywhere that you shouldn’t take on more student loans than your expected first-year of work salary. I’m sorry, but what kind of advice is this? Does anyone know where they can complete a grad-program for less than $50,000? Except for you PhD-research brainiacs who seem to get grad-school paid for because of your research grants. Getting a masters level education with a smart ROI is not possible for us in social service. The system has set us up for failure.

I have some friends in marketing who are making over $60,000 in their first few years out of undergrad. And I just can’t believe the disparity and how discouraging is it that people working to promote giant company interests make 150% more money than clinical social workers and mental health counselors doing therapy, case management, crisis relief, trauma-informed care--working for the betterment of society as a whole. Maybe I just chose the wrong field--of course I don’t mean that. I love my work and I feel just as passionate about psychology as ever, but I do feel as though I am in a precarious position.

I have been thinking for many years about going to graduate school. I’ve wanted to get my masters so I can work as a certified counselor and run a private practice. I’ve even researched the programs I’d like to attend and narrowed it down. Every year I think I will apply, because it just ‘feels like it’s time.’

I say this because there is a certain ‘ceiling’ you will hit in the social work field with just an undergrad degree. I love the organization I work for, I make a sustainable wage (for a privileged single woman) and have good benefits. But I know that I can’t keep making this amount of money and accomplish the things I’d like to in life--buy a house, have some children, work towards retirement.

A rock and a hard place. Most masters level counseling programs are going to put me in 6-figures of debt, and yet the median starting wage for certified counselors is around $45,000 (optimistically). It’s not sustainable. And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life paying off my education when I could be investing that money elsewhere.

I am sure there are countless others who ride the ‘grad-school’ mental rollercoaster like I do. And after chewing through these laments day-in and day-out--I don’t have any good answers. A fellow social worker I was speaking with the other day told me, “You’ve gotta partner up with someone who makes money--that’s the only sustainable way to do this work.”

Now I won’t go into all the feminist issues I have with that statement, but what this person said does carry weight. Is that really the only option available to those of us called to social service? Partner-up or live in poverty?

Something’s gotta give.

Crisp

Yesterday, I spent almost an entire shift scrolling down Anthropologie’s sale section, swooning over velvet curtains and bohemian blouses. I was not actively engaging with my clients, I was not writing my notes for billing, I was not researching affordable housing, and I most certainly was not having any clinically significant interactions. And I didn't feel a god damn thing.

So this is what burnout looks like: dread, hopelessness, and automated empathy. Everything feels like a chore. Time before work is soured by the looming countdown to clock-in.  How else would I ever find out that I am not meant to be a Social Worker unless I actually chipped away at it, for a full year.

It’s literally sucking the life-force out of me. I used to think and now I just plan. I used to be present and now I just show up. I am doing everyone a disservice around me by staying in a job I feel numb to. I would rather slave away in food service than work for a program I don’t respect.

I live in a house of three 20-something ladies. All with solid degrees, no drug addictions, show-up type ladies. And we all hate our jobs. How has this come to be? My generation feels the pressure to get a job, get the paycheck, and the the ‘things.’ Or the pressure to pay off student-loans or even cover the bar tabs stacked to keep ourselves numb from the harsh face of adulthood.

It is so clear to me how people get trapped in that 9-to-5 grind in a field they are ambivalent towards. We get fooled into realizing a vision of success that doesn't make us particularly happy. We take that job, we work those hours, we weather ourselves into capitalist worker bees too wrenched to taste honey.

Comb by comb, we build hives around our minds--trapped to believe we have no way out. Excuses pour over cracked soil where possibility is left to dry.

So how do we change? How do we muster the courage to say fuck it all? How do we find work that doesn't squeeze the light out of us?

James and I were walking Koba the other day, enjoying blooms and (rare) sunshine, when we began to play the “if you won the lottery” game. Of course, it always goes: “I would travel, and give money to this or that charity, and buy those Frye boots I've been swooning over, and go to Whole Foods and go HAM.” But the bit of substance in the mental experiment is this: what comes after the splurge? How do you fill your days? If money wasn't an issue, what would you be doing?

Here we go: I would build a kickass tiny house and get some property not too far from Portland, maybe Linnton or Hood River. I would be a doggie foster mom. I would do yoga every day. I would knit. I would read. I would make coffee. I would grow succulents. I would take a wood-shop class. I would babysit taft. I would write my heart out.  

Ah-Ha! Then, paralysis. A deluge of “I would’s” strangled by these inculcated ideas-- that we are unable to make a living off of ‘hobbies.’ What the fuck is a hobby anyway? Hobbies are for people who hate their jobs. If you’re passionate about it, pursue it. Become a master of whatever that is and it will not be in vain.

It takes courage to leap out of societal bounds. I am a person who is constantly trying to justify what I am ‘doing,’ as opposed to focusing on who I am ‘being.’

Here’s to pointing our sails to the “would’s” of life…..and to the eternal job hunt (yeesh).  


photography: Julie Blackmon

Start Where You Are

I find myself swimming

In an infinity pool—

logging the miles

for some outside demand.

Is this life? Just a series

of punch-ins-punch-outs-

happyhours-and-feelings

oftimelost?

I did it: I got a great place to live, great roommates; a job in my field that is challenging and constantly expanding my skillset; a city I’ve come to know and love that surprises me with her hidden gems; a fellow social-justice aficionado boyfriend who tells me I’m a goddess and refills my jameson without pause. I make enough money to be comfortable, but still tight enough to feel like a ‘struggling (I don’t want to say artist).’ Still on my parents health insurance. Fucking killing it, right?

Then why

am I choking

on tar,

impending doom?

‘You’re wasting time,

You’re stagnant.

You’re not peterpan.

grow up.’

 ‘a single moment is all we need to establish our human will and attain truth.’

fuck yeah

you can change everything in a moment!

But what  about sustainability?

Fucking zen masters—cherry blossoms in a blizzard.

‘DO MORE!’

she says--How guilt-ridden and pathetic,

negating the real truth

that I was born whole

and that nondoing

is a more powerful currency

than any form of accomplishment

in this society built on objectification.

I cherish those moments late at night before I get off my swing shift when I zip up my raincoat and meander outside to breathe fresh air. I watch people utilizing their street-skills—charisma to snag a pull on the bottle; resourcefulness to pick up half-smoked cigarette off the concrete; audacity to snag someone’s tarp from their neatly stacked pile to secure their own survival.

We have moments of pure truth and understanding.

They tell me of their home planets,

That justice will be served for WWII,

That Jesus is coming.

I glimpse into their world and it all makes sense.

These homeless angels are crippled by their ability to feel

—pain, suffering, prejudice, and institutionalized oppression.

The rest of us numb in heated homes with ‘could-be-better’ wages and expensive hobbies.

It doesn’t add up. The people doing all the work

—the cooking, cleaning, building, nurturing, counseling, advocating, caretaking—

get fucked by the system. What an exhausting insight to behold—breathing new definitions.

Social Work: the art of balancing self-preserving ignorance while kindling fire for change.

With this awareness, I too feel crippled by the depth of corruption

Crippled by the paradox of change-within and change-without.

The yogis say to ‘make yourself whole,’

—how can one integrate when surrounded by souls swept out to sea by tides outside their control?

‘Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate, they are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose and to turn the course of our action either towards the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant it utterly critical to the whole world.’

Paralysis by questions of purpose

direction, and intent—a diagnosis met by many aficionados before me.

The answer is there is no answer.

The fact is we are all alone—

single islands of consciousness

in this vast illusion of import.

The only meaning we can glean

are the stories we tell ourselves of ‘truth.’

Sometimes I drink chardonnay in the afternoon like my mother and sisters before me and gaze over the precipice, contemplating the time it would take me to fall and the feeling of inertia and gravity and time suspended. Even for a short while…

Sometimes I sit by the window like my jade bonsai, phototropic, growing towards the light in the shade of doug-firs during my 15 minute meditations and I feel like ‘I got this, I am whole.’

up, down, same thing. 

*The quotes in italics are taken from the character Jiko, a 104 year-old zen buddhist/feminist nun in the book A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Crazy Adaptive

 

             The first day I came to the facility I walked briskly through the neighborhood, scared of homeless people hollering at my interview outfit. I sat uncomfortably straight in the common area—politely smiling to a man talking to himself two tables down. I answered all the questions with poise and a conscientious grace, but in reality I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had never worked with this population and frankly, I was naïve about the state of homelessness in this country. My ‘exposure’ was limited to armchair debates in upper level social work classes where most discussion circumvents an idyllic upheaval of the current system. Turns out, “there has to be a top-tier revolution” doesn’t comfort people receiving services on the ground. Similarly, knowing the DSM symptom criterion for a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder doesn’t prepare you for deescalating a client who believes the CIA has their room cased. The work—in reality— is a whole lot messier and difficult bear witness to. 

            As a residential counselor at a facility focused on supporting individuals with chronic mental health issues transition from homelessness into independent living, each day, in every hour, I am confronted with stigmas engrained in myself by society. People suffering from homelessness and/or severe mental health issues, ,as the two routinely occur in concert, are severely dehumanized in our culture. I see it on the street—people switching sidewalks to avoid the woman in a garish outfit mumbling to herself; using deprecating words to describe an interaction with a ‘bum;’ blaming social ills on these individuals or flat-out ‘othering’ their existence—a fascinating sociological phenomenon.

            These cultural constructs are fed by fear—fear of a reflecting humanness. It makes sense that people wouldn’t want to empathize with this population who suffers so greatly on a daily basis because people don’t want to believe that— if given the right combination of trauma, socio-economic circumstances, and lack of support—they too might find themselves ‘on the street.’

Trauma is the common denominator for most everyone suffering from homelessness and/or mental illness. A client I was having a conversation with last night couldn’t have put it better, “It doesn’t matter if it’s one big trauma or a bunch of little ones that culminate. Trauma is trauma,”—and it does wacky things to the mind and body. As a staff member, I have access to all of our client’s case files—their mental health assessments, family history, previous incidents at the facility—and it is heartbreaking to digest the vast history of even one person’s story. I can’t help but think, “No wonder their symptoms are so severe, given what they’ve been through.”

Our society labels these behaviors as ‘severely disturbing,’ and ‘unnatural’ to create a space between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ If we make a mental blockade around ourselves in which, all the thoughts and behaviors we exhibit are ‘okay,’ then we aren’t ‘crazy.’ Welp, if there is one thing I am learning with this job (which is a joke, I learn a million things a minute from these people), it’s that we all have the capacity to be ‘crazy.’ In other words, our mental landscapes are comprised of sedimentary experience layers that, if put under enough heat and pressure, will transform into dark metamorphic rock, or molten magma that will burn up your very understanding of your self in the world. What we forget to recognize, as “functioning” society members at large, is that our mental states are all made up of the same ‘rock stuff,’ so to speak, we’ve just all been exposed to different elements and to varying degrees of intensity.

When you start to think about symptoms and behaviors in context of the trauma in which the fragmentation was formed, it all makes sense. Viewing behaviors from the perspective of the person and their particular life-story, symptoms and behaviors to counteract those symptoms are easier to empathize with. Thoughts and behaviors in one circumstance may have been adaptive— dissociation, self-harm, or hypervigilance. When those behaviors become the ‘ctl-alt-dlt’ for any triggering situation after the trauma has ceased, therapy and social support can help re-write those patterns.  

Mental health professional Eleanor Longden gives a unique insider’s perspective into voice-hearing during her TED talk. Eleanor identified her symptoms as, “a survival strategy, a sane reaction to insane circumstances, not as an aberrant symptom of schizophrenia to be endured, but a complex, significant and meaningful experience to be explored.” I appreciate how Eleanor uses 'the voices' as a source of insight into trauma as opposed to demonizing them as 'abnormal' or 'crazy. I am fascinated by the idea of working with 'the devils' inside of us to unify the good, the bad, the ugly, and the traumatized into a whole person with whole experiences. Eleanor's eloquent commentary continues; “My voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events, particularly childhood events, and as such were not my enemies but a source of insight into solvable emotional problems… The important question in psychiatry shouldn't be what's wrong with you but rather what's happened to you?”
              In psychiatry and society alike, a shift needs to happen with the way we approach 'crazy.' I would like to challenge people to simply have more empathy for the humanness in us all. Everyone has incomprehensible stories to share and everyone deserves the space, free of judgement, to actualize their wholeness. How can we expect to heal and progress as a society if a huge portion of us are cast out as social untouchables by virtue of our expression of pain, our calls for help?

It’s true; some stories are difficult to relate to, because they are so outside our own realm of experience. I honestly couldn’t imagine what it is like to hear voices or see things or constantly feel threatened and judged and persecuted, but I can resonate with the need to numb my own bag o’ anxious goodies with unhealthy habits or thinking patterns. I am learning that my role in this field is to offer a space in which unremitting positive support can be a grounding stone for hope in lives defined by instability. In the words of Becky Blanton, "The human spirit can overcome anything, if it has hope." 

Nuggets of West Bengal

Some pics from the last few days in the intoxicatingly exotic post capital of the British Raj---Kolkata, in West Bengal. After a 35 hour jam-packed train ride up the eastern coast of India--through rural Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, I arrived here with colleagues from MCCSS to help reintegrate a woman who had been trafficked with her family, whom she hadn't seen for 9 years. These images capture the dizzying alleyways, spicy Bengali cuisine, vibrant markets, and crumbling edifices of British reign.

Rice paddy fields in Odissa--views from the train

Channa masala and yummy train snacks

A trafficking survivor and her family after reintegration

Fruit markets in Kolkata

Queen Victoria Memorial--Kolkata

Yummy Bengali thalhi

Street wanderin--Kolkata

New Market Square--Kolkata

Queen Victoria's gate

Waitin for the train

Alleyways upon alleyways

College St. second-hand book market

books for days

More Bengali food!!!!!--dhal bhat n' subje allllllday

street capture

check-out the cabs

Day 11 in Chennai

street goat munchin

I would like you to envision your daily routine: rolling out of bed in the morning, having breakfast, typing in the office, running errands, chatting with a neighbor, picking up your kids from school, making dinner, settling down to a book or the paper. Now I would like you to envision going about this very day, but in heat that would test even the most enthusiastic Bikram attendees. This is life in southern India before the monsoons. 

My mind and body have been in a haze--I'd say that an 'angst-ridden-sweaty-lethargy' sums up my first week and a half in Chennai. Have you not heard of it? It is when you lie under fans as if you were attending mandatory prayer morning, noon, and night. When you wake up to the feeling like your innards are cooking along with the burning trash and fresh chai brewing on the streets below. When the spice in your belly from a fresh masala dosa covered in coconut chutney with bits of red chili flakes like the way granite is speckled rummages through your intestines like embers of a dwindling fire and you chug liters of water only to watch it immediately evaporate out of you through pores you didn't even realize existed. You feel like fainting with any sudden movement and like sleeping with any lull of activity. Hunger flies out the window with most other bodily functions besides the incessant need to hydrate. Needless to say, the tepid heat is extreme down here, and the locals just smile at your soggy kurti and sullen mien.

I can finally say, at the close of day 11 that I am finally getting my energy back and feeling more accustomed to the climate. My first weekend was spent at Premavasem Orphanage on the outskirts of Chennai-- the 4th biggest city in India with a population of about 6 million. Did you hear that Montana? 6 times as many people as the 406 squeezed into probably one hundredth of the square kilometers. Of course these numbers are paltry compared to Delhi, of around 21 million and counting. There are so many people here! And you can feel it, vibrating through each jam-packed city street and alleyway. Even in the villages you drive past, chai-wallahs are all booming with business, customers donning the classic Tamil sarong-style wrap of all respectable gentlemen. Women are mostly in vibrantly colored saris, with a rope fresh-jasmine flowers tied in their slick-black braids. The people are much darker down here, many of them assume I am from the North because of my lighter tan skin, punjabi-style salwar kameez, and hindi tattoo. Obviously I crush any assumptions as soon as I open my mouth, usually with the words, "Sorry I don't speak Tamil."

Tamil is the official language of this state, Tamil Nadu; it is also the national language in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore. Locals claim it is the oldest spoken language in the world; historians date it back around 2000 years. This language and Tamil's rich culture originates from the Dravidian civilization, original inhabitants of north India who were pushed south by Aryan tribes from Afghanistan and Central Asia around 1500 BC. On paper it looks like professional swirlies neatly organized in a row punctuated with occasional dots and swoops. In other words, the most beautiful doodly gibberish--I reckon every Tamil person could get good work as a calligrapher in the states. Dr. Suess would have died to hear the way these people twist their vowels and flip their consonants. All I keep thinking is, "Joke's on you all those days in Spanish class you bitched about erroneous vocab, at least you had the same alphabet for pronunciation!"

Trupti and Akbar

Back to the orphanage, Premavasem. I was accompanied by Rachel, a volunteer from Nashville, in a maddeningly long rickshaw excursion. The driver nodded enthusiastically when we handed him the paper with the address (in Tamil, mind you), "yes!yes! getin! 150 madame! getin!" We should have known the price was too good to be true. We got lost in peak traffic and were charged double what it would have cost to hire a private car--hence, live and learn! Always double, no, triple confirm your rickshaw driver understands where you want to go and negotiate a price BEFORE you get in.

We were greeted with a wave of kids shrieking, "Welcome sister! Which country? Which country? Sister!" They wrapped a garland of jasmine around my neck and gifted me with janglin' bangle anklets, murmuring, "Welcome akka," the tamil word for big sister, "we are so blessed to have you here." I had merely laid my bag down when it was time for 'feeding.' Rachel guided me down a corridor past the main office, and into a room that wreaked of stale bodies and urine, the accommodation for disabled kids.

munchin on chappati and curried subji--

I was handed a plate of soggy rice and pointed in the direction of a child, twisting his already contorted limbs and shrieking as if this was the only sound he could force out, claiming his presence. I was told to sit with him between my legs while he lay on his back, eyes blankly staring back at me, the intermittent shrieks continued. I watched the others, mimicking how they balled up the rice (with their right hand only of course) and stuffed it into the other children's mouths. With shaky fingers, it seemed like I managed to get more food on the child's face, shirt, and my clothes than in his stomach. But the cries died down after a few bites and a child a few rows down from me was pushed to the side of his bed as he ferociously vomited up his dinner, blood and bile. I must have looked like a deer in headlights because the women shuffled me out of the room and told me to go 'take my meal' with the others. I peeked back to observe the scene, children squirming in their own food-scraps, urine, sweat, and feces, helpless in their own bodies as others tended to immediate needs in a chaotic, yet quotidian manner. This is how meals are handled at the orphanage-- first you feed the helpless, then you feed yourself. 

Idly and dosa with sambar and coconut chutney. YUMMM

Over the next few days, I observed their routine--interacted with the kids, attended a dance recital the girls put on, helped out in 'special school' and physio. The feeding got easier once you became a bit desensitized to the pungent influx of human odors. The people of the orphanage embraced me like family, calling me 'Kendallakka' and giving me hugs every morning. Selvyn, the founder of the orphanage, inquired about my tattoo, smiled and immediately pulled up his sleeve to show off a tattoo of Barack Obama on his bicep, "He is my hero," he mused. Selvyn would take my sticky hands after we gorged on fresh mango, exalting how life brings people together; he is the most genuine person I've ever met. He never married, which in India is almost sacrilege, choosing instead to dedicate his life to the children.

Me, Trupti, and Mynoor

After the orphanage I moved on to MCCSS, a social work organization I will be working with for the next few months. This organization is multi-faceted and should provide many opportunities to learn about how a foreign NGO tackles the very issues I am most passionate about. They have multiple projects at the moment all aimed at women's empowerment-- a family counseling center, a protection home, short-stay home, elder's home, microfinance federations founded by local women, self-help groups, and vocational training. The project I am most interested in is Ujjawala, the anti-trafficking department, aimed at the rescue, prevention, rehabilitation, and reintegration of victims of human trafficking. If you are unaware about human trafficking and how it works, take a gander on google. This method of organized crime is on the rise, soon to pass the illegal drug and arms trade markets in profit margins. Human trafficking is a unique business in that its resource, vulnerable humans, will never be depleted on a planet of over 6 billion people (or is it 7?). Young adults, particularly young women, ages 16-24, are often lured into the business by the promise of lucrative livelihood; sometimes they are betrayed by their boyfriends, husbands, or parents, who sell them to traffickers. 

some women from the prison--all victims of trafficking

Prostitution is the common line of work for trafficked victims in India, but globally trafficked victims also work as modern-day slaves in the service industry, agriculture, and for multinational corporations. A scenario observed often in the United States occurs when migrant women from Central America hire a 'guide' to help them cross the border who ends up trafficking them into farm labor jobs where they perform back-breaking work 24/7, all the while being told they are 'paying back their debt' accrued whilst crossing. Traffickers collect the checks while victims are kept in line via threats to hand them over to the authorities or burn their documentation.

women of the protection home

Many trafficked victims at the protection home here, at MCCSS, are far from home, with ladies from Nepal, Bangladesh, Kalkutta, Mumbai, Karnataka, and Andra Pradesh. Most of them grew up in small, poor villages where their prospects for social mobility were nonexistent. Some of them were lured into the sex industry by friends to make money. Some of them fled from domestic violence; some were sold by their parents--with girls usually seen as a financial strain with no benefit since they will be eventually married into another family entirely. One woman was targeted by her brother's friend. He wooed her, then manipulatively drugged her and video-recorded her rape--later showing it to her family. They beat her and threw her out of the house, telling her to never return. She, not knowing her boyfriend was the culprit of the unrest, turned to him for help. He suggested that they run away together to Bangalore and sold her into the flesh trade, promising he would meet her at the destination.

Another woman, only 18 years old from Bangladesh, fell in love and married a Muslim man who already had a wife and child (Muslim men are permitted by the Quran to be married to 3 different women). Her parents hesitantly agreed to the matrimony seeing as their daughter was elated and the man seemed to be of good status. Soon after their wedding, her new husband suggested they go on a trip to India together, she cheerfully agreed. After preparations were made, he stuffed her in a car, broke her mobile SIM card and bagged her head while paying a lady trafficking broker to take her to Chennai for sex work. She cried to the trafficker in Bengali, her only language, and in reply was threatened with a pistol. A team of MCCSS staff, along with members from the Crime Investigations Bureau organized a rescue operation of this girl in Madurai, a city near Chennai. Two social workers from MCCSS posed as a trafficked girl from North India and a man trying to sell her for sex to a renowned broker. Upon payment, the police swept in and arrested the trafficker, taking the young Bengali girl into custody of the state. Charged with prostitution offenses, she was sent to Vigilance Home, a women's prison in Chennai. MCCSS petitioned to bring her into the protection home with the hope of rehabilitating and eventually reintegrating her with her family one day. 

A woman in the prison

She has been in the protection home for a few months, but has trouble communicating with the staff as she speaks only Bengali and some Hindi after learning it from her work. She has no way of contacting her family in Bangladesh since she doesn't have their mobile numbers; she has no address since she lived in a slum. MCCSS has had contact from various 'family-members' who we've found out to be traffickers trying to get her back. The danger with reintegration is verifying that the family didn't sell the victim in the first place, or ensuring that home is even a safe place for them to go. Sometimes social workers in other parts of India are paid off to report that the woman has made it home, when in reality she was merely sold into the flesh trade again. We just recently got contact with a social worker in Kolkutta who claims to be familiar with the case and her family, but processes such as these are held up by red tape like molasses; it will surely be a long time until she can prospectively be accompanied back to her village. This particular young eighteen year old, who is no taller than my 10 year old brother, with bright amber eyes and a contagious grin, is lost among the thousands and thousands of rescued trafficked women who are unable to find security again in a world of harsh poverty and rampant corruption.

the women in vocational training

the staff of MCCSS

Chennai is a big transport hub for trafficking in India because it is strategically connected to major cities by air, train, bus, and sea. The drastic change in language from the North helps keeps victims under control in brothels since they can't communicate with locals or coordinate an escape. As described before, MCCSS intercepts the victims with calls from the police and the Criminal Investigation Bureau who accompanies undercover social workers into the brothels. Sometimes women are arrested in the streets and brought to MCCSS, sometimes they are referred by locals for counseling. The organization is very reputable for its work with women and the empowerment of urban slum dwellers in the city. Once with MCCSS, women can stay at the protection home for up to 3 years, where they receive therapy, vocational training, medical care, legal aid, education and social support within the agency. Most of them express a desire to return to their families, but are unable to locate or contact them without phone numbers or even an address--there aren't conveniently marked mailboxes in the slums or rural villages of India and Southeast Asia. They often find work in service industry jobs around Chennai, with MCCSS's help in contacting employers, filling out applications, boosting their self-confidence and customer service skills. Some women escape and return to the business; some get re-trafficked in their attempts to return home--it is a difficult cycle. Whenever possible, MCCSS will initiate contact with the young woman's family, if she desires this, and proceed to reintegrate her back into her home society. Most of the time the family never finds out that she was trafficked, as the girls will lie out of shame--claiming they ran away for better work or followed a friend to the city. In India, marriage is seen as the apex of one's achievement in life.  Reputation is everything, especially for women. No one wants to marry a trafficked victim of the flesh trade.

Guru, my favorite little Nepali boy

One difference between this NGO and one like the YWCA-Missoula, who I worked with before coming here, is the lack of boundary between personal and professional. Everyone, clients, orphans, directors, and social workers are like a big family. Work and home life is very much intertwined, so much so that the director of the program also lives at the protection home so that she can better counsel the women and girls who live there. The short-stay home where orphans and runaways live is just downstairs next to the main offices. I share a room on the top floor with Georgie, a Kiwi student from Christchurch. The kids often barge into our quarters after they get home from school, "Hello sister! Dance party! Come!" They drag us downstairs and teach us bollywood moves or braid our hair, asking about our family and whether we have boyfriends.

I am still getting oriented to the programs, being taken to the protection home to interact with the survivors, hear their stories, and learn from their resilience. On my first day, I bounced into the office at 9:00am on the dot, ready to be put to work. Luckily I brought my book as 9:30.....10:00...10:15 rolled around when my supervisor casually strolled up on his bicycle. He finished his breakfast at the desk by 10:45 and we chatted till about 11:00. The Indian way of doing business is very relaxed--after reading 2 or 3 files of the women I was told to, "Go, take rest, and come back in the afternoon once you've taken lunch." Me, of course very schedule oriented asked, "Well, what time is lunch over?" They waved their hands at me, "Go, go. We will meet in the afternoon--2..2:30. Yes. Yes, take rest."

I am eager to spend the next few months with this organization, soaking up as much of their knowledge and methods as I can.  I am recognizing that Indians build relationships before they do business. And all of this 'sitting around' as I sometimes feel has a purpose in that I am establishing rapport with the people here. Sometimes the greatest moments of learning happen in those empty moments between tasks and conversation, when you shyly giggle to fill the space or let it be, opening up opportunities for nuanced cultural exchange. 

with the women of a local self-help group

cuties

at a self-help group federation meeting

what I wake up to :)

boys at the short stay home, killin it

me in my general sweatiness....georgie's look of disgust before our meal-- a 'bread omlette'