She Goes Away From Me

 

She goes away from me.
We call it traveling.
We say it makes us grow to be apart.
Something is dull around my heart.
She calls me every night.
Though she left in the light,
in the morning I am formal
I make the day seem normal.

Women want to speak, to trust
with knowledge every loss,
to follow thread from the needle's eye
straight to the lucid sky.
Andrea speaks of sexual intelligence.
One to another we hold evidence.
Sewn in the corners of our samplers
we tell the underside of what appears.
Thus we grow together like grass,
wind singing and tuned, we are a mass.

Karin likens you and me to family,
our leaving like the failing of a village
without a name, and not yet mapped.
Or like a young death; infant wrapped
into the ground. What is this for,
this little life, nothing more
than brief breathing? And yet, it's not from pity
that mothers christen for eternity.
Women brought communion
to every effort in the West.
Men spoke of softening but this was less
than we intended. What we mean by root
is metaphor and real, buried essence, truth.
Somewhere in the circle of each mind
is every detail, bliss, suffering, kind.

She goes away from me
but someone in her does not leave.
And I am pulled out there.
This is called pain, called missing, loss.
But keeping this, one can go anywhere.
All I've lost is what I have not grieved.

---Susan Griffin--from Unremembered Country

Masks that Kill

These are some previews for documentaries highlighting the nefarious undertones of Western gender roles. Both men and women are forced to embody an unattainable or destructive version of themselves to feel worthy in society. Awareness is the road to change.

Photo-cred---The Sartorialist

A Wise Woman on Love and Relationships

 

Since very early this morning my mind has been reviewing my history with relationships, spurred by Amanda asking about how I've navigated certain relational terrain.  I didn't say much at the time she asked, due to my own uncertainty of how much to share at that moment.  Its an interesting and important line to walk as a therapist/facilitator of how and when to share my personal story or history.  I always ask myself whether doing so is truly in the service of the group, or client, and I have to really be clear on that.  I am pretty sure that for at least some of you, it could be helpful to hear an honest account of the important learning and growth I have experienced through relationships.  So, I will write more here.  If you don't feel that would be helpful to you, trust yourself on that and feel free to stop here!  I won't write an autobiography, but will try to speak to some of the topics and questions that came up last night in our group, and how they surfaced for me, and how I found my way through them.  And really, I feel like I have nothing to hide about any part of my life or myself, so do know that I am open to questions and will continue to be open with you, while listening to and honoring my own boundaries in the moment. 

In my twenties I had several serious relationships with men, interspersed by long periods of time spent being single.  I am pretty comfortable on my own, and enjoy my independence, so that was OK with me.  I also really love connection and relationship, and knew that I wanted a partner and put a lot of energy into relationships when I was in them.  During my twenties I was also moving forward with my career path, and along with that came embarking on my own therapy, and a lot of personal work as I was becoming a therapist.  My relationships during that time were under a lot of reflection.

My time single was critical for developing my sense of my self, getting clear on who I was and who I was becoming, and moving my own life forward.  It really helped build my strength and confidence in many areas, although at times I felt lonely and unsure if I would ever find a relationship that would sustain over time.

When I was 28, a relationship I had been very invested in ended, despite me doing everything I knew how to do to keep it going.  I was devastated.  I was in the midst of graduate school at Naropa, though, and had an amazingly supportive situation amongst my peers, and a therapist that I still feel so grateful for.   And probably because I was so well supported, for the first time I was able to consciously feel what was one of my core woundings: a fear that I was unloveable.  I feel sad even writing that now, that I lived so long with this deep fear, rather unaware of it, but it was always operating on some level.  It all made sense given my family dynamics, and how I functioned for so long, but to really feel it was a whole other deal.

I started to see how I chose men who were rather unavailable in some way, and my unconscious hope was that by getting them to love me, I would then feel loveable.  Because they were unavailable or "hard to get" in some way, my unconscious hope was that I would really feel loveable and special if I got the "hard to get" guy to commit, open up, and love me.  I was actually setting myself up, without knowing it, to be disappointed, and to be thrown back on my own unresolved pain, and face my fear as it seemed that these relationships were confirming my worst fear of being unworthy of love.  The genius in my approach was that I did have to eventually deal with myself, which is what needed to happen all along, and to attend to this fear I was carrying without expecting or needing someone else to do it for me (which no one can, anyway, I found out as well).  So, I spent more than a year picking up the pieces of myself that had been so disowned and gradually, somehow, using every tool I knew, came to a new way of being in myself that felt more grounded, safe, and reliable.  I now am actually grateful to all those men for not rescuing me (which they actually couldn't have anyway) from my own work that I needed to do to restore my own wholeness.

When I finally met my now husband, I was 29, in a much more comfortable place in myself, and ready to start again.  And of course, he was somewhat unavailable!  It was about a year from our first meeting before we actually started dating, and in that year I was just watching how I would have moments of being interested in him, then be completely turned off by his lack of availability, that before would only have made me doubt myself and then be more interested in him.  So I was happy that finally, I was not attracted to someone who kept himself at a distance. 

When we finally started dating, he was more ready and available and I was so much more clear that I didn't need his love to feel loveable.  It was a good start!  But we still both had more work to do.  In 3 and half years, we broke up twice, very painfully, him not ready to commit more fully and needing to do more work on himself, and me having to grieve and feel the loss despite thinking that it should work out since I had really done my work!  I was angry, heartbroken, and completely at a loss.  I finally was able to see that on a very subtle level, I STILL wanted him to love me and commit to me so that I could confirm my worthiness of love.  It was still there, and once again it took losing the relationship, TWICE, for me to see that and really get it. 

Still working with the same therapist, I just kept going with my own work, using the friendships I had cultivated for support, too.  After our second break up something really shifted in me, I was angry and I also felt my own certainty, finally, that the relationship was over NOT because I was unworthy of love.  I finally just knew it very deeply, that I was loveable, regardless of whether he--or anyone--loved me or not.  I wish I could say how exactly that occurred but I just think it was an accumulation of staying with my experience, for years, with really solid and skilled support around me, that I was able to shift how I felt about myself.  That simple, and that hard.

When we did get engaged, about a month after our second break up, we both had learned big pieces for ourselves.  I learned that I was OK without him, and he learned that was OK with me (his fears were more around losing himself, being engulfed, being abandoned).  So, then we were ready!  I laugh as I write this, what we had to go through to get to being Ok with ourselves.  The human journey is rich, challenging....and kind of funny. :)

Some of my friends and family were supportive of us getting married, and some were openly opposed, given our roller coaster of break ups, etc.  That was disappointing, but I also knew again that even if he decided to end the relationship on our wedding day, that I would be sad, AND that I would be OK, was very comforting to me.  Knowing I will be OK, whatever happens, allows me to take the risks in my life that lead to fulfillment.

We have an amazing marriage, I must say, and I think a lot of it is due to getting a lot cleared up before we committed to each other.  We both continue to work on ourselves, and take responsibility for our feelings, insecurities, fears, etc.  We support each other with doing our personal work.  We have a strong community of support, too.  We are both committed to and highly value personal/spiritual growth, and our relationship is a spiritual path for us.  We both work at staying connected to ourselves, and each other, and have a low tolerance for checking out.  And we have fun and laugh a lot.

There is so much more I could say but I hope that gives an overview of the path I have walked when it comes to creating a committed relationship for myself.  There is no right way, but I do believe that relationship is a path to growth, healing, and if we use all the opportunities that come our way, we will have no way to go but to evolve.  And that is fulfilling, whether it leads us to partnership or not.

SIDENOTE:  I just had Jayson (my husband) read this, and he added that he really felt something shift energetically and spiritually for him when I landed solidly in myself and my self love after our second break up.  He feels that shift, in combination with him doing his own work, allowed us to finally come together.  He also says I was more attractive to him after that shift in myself, however subtle it was, he noticed it, for what that is worth.  For me, whether it was attractive to him or not, I am grateful for the growth that I experienced.

Last thing!  All those years, in my twenties, struggling through relationships, I was "doing" self care.  Journaling, extensive time in nature, movement, yoga, meditation, social support, all the stuff we think of.....it was supportive to a point: none of it was touching the deeper work that needed to happen.  Relationship is what helped bring out my deeper work, which was so helpful, and feeling everything in my being as fully as I could, with support and awareness, is really what helped me grow and evolve.  So for me, self care is REALLY about feeling my experience fully, and doing whatever helps me to do so.  I think that is important to know so that we all make it a priority to figure out what actually is caring for ourselves, in a deep and meaningful way, that helps our life be as fulfilling as we will let it be.

Women Weave the Web

Exciting news! I just got recruited to work on a campaign with Word Pulse , an activist organization based in Portland, called Women Weave the Web , which is focused on breaking down the digital divide for women to get their voices heard globally. Here is a blurb about it from the website:

World Pulse is the leading network using the power of digital media to connect women on the ground around the world and bring them a global voice. We are powered by a network of 50,000 including women from 190 countries. Our mission is to lift and unite women’s voices to accelerate their impact for the world. 

Through our growing, web-based platform, women are speaking out and connecting to create solutions from the frontlines of today’s most pressing issues. With a focus on grassroots women change leaders, our programs nurture community, provide media and empowerment training, and broadcast rising voices to influential forums. 

With an online, global community of grassroots women leaders, World Pulse has developed a methodology to rally their voices around the issues that they say matter most. Our digital action campaigns elicit powerful content from women on the ground, strengthen their confidence, and ensure that influencers and powerful institutions hear their stories. 

Past campaigns have facilitated opportunities for grassroots women to advise the new UN Women agency on its strategy, Silicon Valley executives on increasing women’s access to the Internet, world leaders at the Rio+20 ‘Earth Summit’ on ensuring gender inclusive outcomes, and at the 57th Commission on the Status of Women on ending violence against women. These campaigns have produced two primary benefits: 

 Increased individual empowerment through new opportunities for grassroots women to be heard at global forums and represent their communities as vocal leaders. Women who participate frequently report newfound self-confidence and leadership, as well as new relationships, opportunities, and mentors through interacting with the online community and World Pulse partners. They also gain social media skills and broadened knowledge of the issue through the content generated by the campaign. 

 Increased effectiveness for advocacy work reported by our partners who have enriched their quantitative data with the powerful narrative from our community of grassroots women leaders. Our campaigns have motivated UN leaders to visit refugee camps and send out urgent alerts, drawn the attention of media, politicians and celebrities, and helped move forward important legislation and policies. 

WWW: Women Weave the Web 

World Pulse is excited to announce the launch of our WWW: Women Weave the Web Campaign! You are joining World Pulse in supporting women who are using the Internet to transform the world. From the streets of Nairobi to the plazas of Buenos Aires, women are logging on and sparking change. Now is the time to break down the digital divide. 

Our newly launched campaign will crowd-source the wisdom of grassroots women leaders on issues related to digital inclusion and empowerment. Through the three phases of our Campaign (Digital Access, Digital Literacy, and Digital Empowerment), women and their allies around the world will speak out on challenges they have accessing the Internet, the solutions communities are developing, and the ways in which the Internet empowers them to create change on the ground. World Pulse will analyze the submitted testimonies and, in conjunction with our partners, present them to important international forums, policy leaders, media outlets, and technology companies in order to better advocate for digital inclusion and empowerment for women. 


You can support me by checking into the Word Pulse platform from time to time, reading women's stories, signing up for their free emagazine, and following World Pulse on Twitter or on Facebook.

Inherited Insecurity

             Holidays bombard the mind--the sweets and meat sweats, the nog-fueled family games and consequential brawls. It is without a doubt, the most haywire time of any year. Everything seems magnified—feasts, gifts, love, loneliness. For anyone teetering on insanity, this is the time to go ham. I’ve surfed this holiday season high like a pro. But, as Newton assured us, there is always a come down; it’s science. 
             I write this at our breakfast bar on another bluebird Colorado morning. The parental units have made their exit to the daily grind in an agro-rush, to-do lists abounding, while I take my time with the morning, make another cup of coffee and let that feeling sink in. You know, the feeling when everyone else in your life seems to have a plan, a purpose, even if it makes them miserable and you sit, twiddling thumbs, eerily content yet maddeningly concerned. I wonder if the Germans have a word for this (they have a word for everything); I shall simply call it ‘postcollegiateangst.’

            If there were such a place in which this psychosocial state would be less of a burden, my hometown should be up there. In fact, I will admit that Glenwood Springs, Colorado is quite exquisite—with landscapes worthy of Ansel Adams’ praise for days and colorful people to fill the space between takes. Living in this high mountain valley of Colorado is a dream, for anyone but those who grew up here.

            You know how it is, coming home. It is the kind of place where everyone knows your name, and that of your parents, and grandparents. And the whole time you’ve been gone, some grand tale has been squeezed down the gossip drain of work-out mom groups and hockey dads as to what you’ve been up to. University is an easy scapegoat; it’s like a coupon for four years out of their microscope of scrutiny. But man, once you dawn that cap, get ready for the firing squad of interrogators. I suppose this—what I like to call ‘small-town syndrome’—and a mélange of my sociocultural upbringing is the reason why every time I come home, no matter what time or space in life I occupy, I feel like a failure.

            I have made the habit of jittering my way through daily tasks with the kind of subtle anxiety that follows hyper-caffeination. A few nights ago, my Dad arrived home from work and I was a veritable mess—cooking, crying, laughing, making excel spreadsheets to map out my life.

            “Hey Kendall Nicole,” he beamed, “how was your day?”

            I shrugged my shoulders and broke down, “I feel worthless Pops.” He enveloped me in a bear hug. I shared with him my fears of this space in my life—where everything is uncertain and responsibilities are endless. I had recently made the decision to move to Portland, Oregon. All prodigious decisions ensue rippling doubt in their wake—did I make the right choice, how will I find work, I don’t have a network—etc.

            My father quelled my discontent with a dose of perspective, as he always does, “Kendall, I can’t imagine much else in the world should scare you considering where you have been and what you have accomplished.”

            This comment really got me thinking about the unsettling aura that has taken refuge in the folds of my prefrontal cortex. It is a societal script of inadequacy that women internalize. We are taught to become smaller, grow inward not outward— never give ourselves well-deserved credit or the benefit of the doubt. There is a self-esteem epidemic among my fellow ladies of the West and I think it is insidiously impeding our progress as humans with incredible talent for change and success.

            How peculiar is that I am so much more comfortable being abroad? I am not afraid to make mistakes or a fool out of myself; I have faith that everything will work out because it has to. In harsh juxtaposition, my home environment makes me question everything—my future, my body, my life-choices. Granted, women are treated atrociously in India, but there is certainly something about our society that degenerates women’s/human’s confidence.

            Perhaps it is a matter of context and this space carries age-old triggers specific to my conditioning, while being in a foreign land allows one to form a new self-concept irrespective of place, people, and past. When you are participating in another society you can always distance yourself from the cultural problems you witness; you can throw up your hands in surrender and think, “this place is crazy.” But when observing social issues at home, it is not something so easily ignored because it is in our mother cultures that we see a reflection of ourselves.

            One aspect of our culture that I find pressures young adults into settling for a safe,  ‘correct’ life (by societal standards), as opposed to pursuing their unique passions, is the premium placed on absolutes. Whether or not we are willing to admit it, we are dualists who thrive on certainty. I blame the religion of science for this mode of thinking—and consumerism. We categorically organize our world because that is what our culture values—a box and complementary explanation for everything. This mental technique, although extremely efficient, doesn’t allow a space for revering the unknown. If us ladies don’t fit into the ‘box’ of perfection as laid out by advertising companies and pop-culture, we render ourselves worthless as individuals.

            Perhaps us Westerners have become accustomed to playing God, but one of many things I learned in India is that we have little control over our lives in terms of macro-level planning. We must submit to the moment and trust that this is exactly where we need to be. Isn’t it true that most genuinely good things in life come to fruition at the whim of what some may call fate? The trick here is learning to have faith in said fate.

            I believe that we only have control insofar as our attitudes, emotions, and thought patterns. Opportunities will only present themselves when the mind is receptive. Thoughts are not innocuous; they have immense energy, carving neural pathways in their wake. These patterns have the ability to create Grand Canyons of mental dysfunction, from whose valley belly we can no longer see the sun. It is truly an amazing magic trick—telling yourself something enough times that you become convinced of its validity—regardless of its basis in rationale. Only if we learn to bolster self-love and dam destructive alleys can we lessen the grip of toxic cultural bombardment. That said, the ability to control mental erosion is a talent of Buddhaesque proportions, although certainly a skill worth cultivating.

            No matter how ‘zen’ the mind, women can’t help but internalize the patriarchal scaffolding of our society. With increased spelunking into the folds of my prefrontal cortex, I have called forth the unsettling aura of self-doubt, interrogating to reveal its nascence. The cultural dogma that assigns greater value to masculinity and objectifies femininity quietly traumatizes female psyches across the world. It is a dialogue of inadequacy that women internalize upon comparing themselves to ‘what women should be.’ We are taught to become smaller, grow inward not outward— never give ourselves well-deserved credit or the benefit of the doubt. The end result is a chronic self-depreciating epidemic, fostered in a soil of shame, that is insidiously impeding women’s progress to be recognized (within and without) as humans who hold up ‘half the sky’.  

            Dr.Gershan Kaufman writes about the psychology of shame and its roots in three American cultural scripts of success, independence, and conformity. The success script values those who ‘pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. As Kaufman writes, “competing for success and achieving by external standards of performance are the clarion calls of culture,” and eventually, “achievement becomes the measure of self-esteem, of one’s intrinsic worth or adequacy.” Dr. Kaufman continues to elaborate on the idea that if individuals don’t achieve the American-dream level of success, they are immediately viewed as failures; “simply being average must seem a curse.” The independence script values the ‘lone-rangers’ who don’t burden others with issues or accept help. The ‘go-it-alone’ attitude hinders the expression of our very essence as social beings. The conformity script is simple enough to understand; our culture doesn’t accept people who are different, in the minority, or outside our high expectations of mental/physical/professional/emotional/familial perfection.

            If you noticed, the aforementioned scripts generating our shame-culture involve the praise of hyper-masculinity and condemnation of care, vulnerability, patience, trust, community, and empathy—all feminine attributes that psychologists believe are rudimentary to combating shame.

            Dr.Brene Brown, a social worker from Texas—a fantastic lady whose work I have been a fan of for a while now—is a shame reseracher. Brown defines shame as,

“an intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. Women often experience shame when they are entangled in a web of layered, conflicting and competing social-community expectations. Shame creates feelings of fear, blame and disconnection.”

            We all know shame very well; that gut-feeling of “I’m not worthy” that can ruin your whole day. It limits opportunities of exposing yourself or taking chances at greatness due to a festering fear of failure or rejection.  Dr. Brown calls for women especially to start practicing authenticity in their lives—and the path to authentic living is through the forest of vulnerability where shame needs to be recognized, shared, and combated with genuine love for the self, as-is. She recognizes that,

“To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn’t come with guarantees – these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. But, I’m learning that recognizing and leaning into the discomfort of vulnerability teaches us how to live with joy, gratitude and grace.”

            Dr. Brown’s call for humanity to live ‘whole-heartedly’ is liberating. I fully recommend reading any of her books, but my personal favorite is The Gifts of Imperfection.

            In the words of Ross Rosenburg , it all comes down to the question, “are you a human doing or a human being?” When we measure our self-worth by what we ‘do’ rather than who we ‘are,’ shame is bound to rule our lives because the proverbial carrots of our society are simply unattainable. We, as humans, must learn to embrace this culturally inherited insecurity as a condition of living a genuine life. Fear will always continue to lurk in the corners of our mind, and shame will burrow its way into our consciousness, but recognizing these emotions and thought patterns as part of the dark that attracts the light allows us to live genuine lives. As Dr. Brown so eloquently states: 

“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows… To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that "I'm only human" does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality.”

for women who are 'difficult' to love-- Warsan Shire

you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

Shrinking Women-- Lily Myers

 A fellow female friend who struggles with the classic melange of body-image-food-guilt-shitshow shared this slam poem with me; I think it is raw and empowering.

The Farm

It's a balancing act

Jergu and Verakka

Distributing compost to newly planted trees, baby on the hip

Gettin ready for the day! 

Selma and her son, Rehan

We plant trees (about 4,000 in the first week), harvest crops, weed, pluck caterpillars off plants, haul compost, process grains, sit in the shade chewing tambac, and do it all over again. It has been incredible to get my hands in the dirt. I have become aware of my lifelong amnesia with regards to food processes--how and where I get my life's energy. I have learned to recognize fruits, veggies, grains, legumes, spices, and herbs, which I have been consuming my whole life but could only envision the aisle they occupy in the local grocery store: cashew, black peppercorn, pomegranate, eucalyptus, cilantro, eggplant, tomato, millet, peanuts, spinach, cauliflower, cucumber, allspice, tumeric, bay leaves, curry plants, et al.

After the first few weeks, once my body woke up from its city-induced stupor, my days at the farm began to blend into a harmonious waltz of working and eating, working and eating, working and more eating--and isn't that just the bare-bones essence of life? 

I feel as if a certain meditative effect occurs with this type of existence, being so involved in the production and consumption processes of mere bodily functioning. When I sit down to a meal I can envision the patch of ground from which this vegetable grew; I can feel the aching muscles in my back and the blisters on my hand regaining the energy they expended to produce this meal; I have made a family with the women whose hands grew, harvested, and cooked this energy. I can fully understand now why organic produce costs so much--the human costs it takes to successfully and carefully grow these plants and get them to market is incredible. Luckily, the people here get more than a livable wage and are very well-off for farmhands. 

During the day when my back hurts and the mosquitos are eating me alive and the greenhouse feels like a sauna, I can't help but think of all those people who are slaving away to run the food industry who have to work in much harsher conditions for insufficient wages. I swear if anyone came and spent one week here at this farm they would never again bitch about the cost of food, once they realize that wholesome food is not something that just appears out of thin air. 

Do you ever once, while you are pushing your cart down the aisles of your local Safeway, contemplate the hands that watered and plucked those spinach leaves? We take our food for granted, because we don't even have a connection to this essential life energy in the way that nature intended. Food takes the backseat to money and pilates and WalMart and advertising. 

What if we actually cultivated or personally cooked everything we consumed? I know, it sounds a little "animal, vegetable, miracle," and somewhat insane given our culture. But being in a place where that is the norm. Everyone in this village grows their own crops, have cows for dairy and raise livestock if they eat meat. Things they buy from town consist of bulk oil, wheat flour, rice, sugar, and random spices.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

This is what a day in the life of the women I work with looks like: 

You wake-up before dawn, when the rooster makes its first movements--, make multiple trips to the well, filling up buckets of water for the day. Milk the goat, or cow, or both. come back to the house, start a fire with wood you gathered last night on the floor in the corner of your one bedroom shack; the stove is a pyramid of rocks above the small fire upon which pots and pans can be heated. Breastfeed your rousing babies. Walk to the allspice trees to gather leaves for tea. Pour some water,milk, and chopped tea leaves in a pot, make chai for your husband. Warm some water for your loved ones to bathe with in the bushes. Put some rice on the fire. Walk back into the forest to gather vegetables for breakfast and lunch--green beans, tomato, eggplant, onion, cilantro, coconut, lime, passionfruit, greens, green chillies, okra, curry leaves, mustard seeds (this could take up to an hour to find the right fruiting plants in a permaculture plot). 

Come back, start to make breakfast-- chappati: take a bunch of wheat flour, water, salt, and roll out dough ball pancakes. Set aside. Make whatever subje you had planned. Chop up all your veggies, simmer them in a curry broth with onion, garlic, green chillies. Feed your crying babies. Feed your husband--another round of chai for him. Clean up the dishes by hand with a bucket of water outside your house with crushed soap leaves you gathered last week. Get your older kids washed and dressed for school. Walk them to the bus. Come back. Eat whatever food is left over for yourself. Take the rice for lunch off the fire. Make some tambac to chew--betel nut and leaf, with a dab of tobacco. Take the goats and cows to the fields to graze, let the chickens out with the baby on your hip. Come back. Check to see if the electricity is on at its assigned hour--from 8-9. It is. Fight with the neighbors for the community plug to charge your family mobile. 

At 9am, it is time for work. Labor all day in the fields, gardens, and greenhouses. Planting, hoeing, sowing, harvesting, plucking, stripping, digging, all with your baby on the hip or suckling the breast while you crouch to weed. At 2pm you head back to the house and prepare lunch. Chop. Simmer. Roll. Beat. Serve. Wash. Repeat. You always eat last, usually around 2:45 after everyone around you is good and fed. Sit for 15min, chatting with the neighbors or chewing betel nut, making sure your husbands chai cup is full. At 3pm, work starts again. So its babies and bosoms and blossoms and bounty for another three hours, till 6pm, when you will head home again to begin your slew of chores.

 Refill water buckets if you do washing or sweep the dirt floors of your home, clean the ash piles out of your makeshift kitchen, make chai. Before it gets dark you head to the pasture to retrieve the animals, sometimes your little kiddos will help shepherd with you, the young calves are the hardest to guide. On the way you will gather veggies, fruits, and spices from the jungle or gardens, depending on what catches your eye. 

Around 7:30 or 8, you begin to make dinner. By this time your babies are grumpy and are most definitely vying for a spot in your lap, they will suckle you while you crouch over the fire or shave fresh coconut for a chutney. After your baby is drugged with breast milk you place them in a dupatta you hung from the rafters to sleep--a makeshift crib. Anytime between 9 or 10 you will have dinner ready. If there are guests you would have already served them a cornucopia of fried snacks, biscuits, and sweet tea while they sit crisscrossed on your floor, sharing pains and gains and gossip. You serve the guests first, heaping mounds of food which they have to finish. You will force a second serving on them and offer a third. 

Amidst the chitchat you try to calm your children down and get them to sleep despite the constant racket that is communal living. You clear all the dishes, sweep the floor, and wait for your husband, who is watching TV two shacks over or who is drinking at the village Tasmac. He'll come home for food around 10 or 11, after serving him chai you will be permitted to eat the leftovers. At this point you will make any preparations for the morning and prepare to sleep. You have already rolled out mats on the floor for your children and husband. After washing yourself with cold water outside, you lay down in your nightie next to your husband, placing your hand on your pregnant belly and fall into dreams of Bollywood stars only to be snapped back to reality in 5 hours start all over again. 

I now challenge you to imagine the kind of life you would live if you had to grow all of your own food-- think about that while you contemplate spending the extra dollar or two on your fair-trade, local, and/or organic foodstuffs. 

Beautiful Women Unite

This day was full of firsts. I walked with trepidation to the Perambur Loco train station, clutching my purse and covering my head with my dupatta. I missed the first train because I didn't see any identification as to its destination--little did I know that trains in India hardly have physical cues for where they are going, most of the time you have to count on strangers to tell you the way. After riding to Central Station in a men's cart, seeing as I didn't know there were women only carts, I had my blank poker face on like I knew what I was doing, but there's nothing more unnerving than 100+ eyes following your every move when you aren't sure of where you are headed. I traced my zig-zagged way from Central to Park--the suburban train track, called Devi numerous times to make sure I was in the right direction, and finally found her at the Egmore bus stop. 

Cities can be so overwhelming when you have no earthly idea of where you are or how to get around. I am very pleased to say that I feel comfortable getting just about anywhere in Chennai at this point via public transport and if all else fails---there's always auto-rickshaws. And hey, even if you get ripped off, at least you aren't getting groped on an over-capacity city-bus. By the way, there is a women's side on the bus as well--when in doubt, find the huddle of ladies and they will most certainly be glad to protect you and help you on your way. Every woman in a saree will most likely treat you like a demanding mother, correcting your posture or removing pieces of jewelry she doesn't approve of, even if you are a stranger! That said, women's camaraderie extends especially to foreigners here. Most ladies are just concerned that I am so far away from home, my family, and they want to show me hospitality and ensure my safety. 

One time, on a bus, which looked like a mechanical centipede, with a melange of human limbs and carry-ons poking out of every door and window, I saw a woman being subtly groped by a greasy dude, who was taking advantage of the crowd to rub up against her. I tried to make room and motion for her to move closer to me, away from this dude. My attempts caught the attention of some ladies in front of me, who immediately understood the situation and seethed. They started shouting and beating the man off the bus with their tiny purses, shuffling the young lady under their silk wings. I've found this to be such a contrast to my society, where women see every other female as a competition or simply cast strangers off as 'dumb bitches' because of their outfits or mannerisms. 

This was my rumination as the 27D bus roared down Chennai's streets with unsettling speed. Devi put her arm around me, "I am glad Kand, to teach you these ways so you can go freely," she smiled broadly, turning up her Hindi-jams on her tiny Nokia and did a mini-shoulder dance, "I'll show you all the tricks, na? And when I come your place, you show me all the things. So we can go happily, isn't it?" 

"Without you Devi, I dunno what I would do," I said in between jarring stops, the bus slamming on brakes, missing pedestrians by a arms length.

"And me too, without you Kand. We make it a cheerful life, na?" She was interrupted by a lady who dropped her purse in Devi's lap, for safekeeping. "The women at the Vigilance Home will be so glad to meet you." 

The first time I went to the Vigilance Home, a woman's prison in Chennai, I was nervous. I was about to interact with women who had been arrested for sex work, most of them trafficked into the trade. I didn't know what to expect. I had prepared in my head a list of games and activities in case things got awkward. I spent the whole morning practicing my key Hindi phrases, since Devi told me many of the women come from North India. 

We walked down the tree lined driveway leading to a dilapidated building, with bars lining the walk-ways and cats everywhere.

"The warden treats her cats better than the women," Devi whispered, nodding to a gang of kittens devouring a giant plate of pongal. I smiled and observed some women peaking through the bars on the second floor, giggling. After taking my prints, passport sized photo, and letter from the Executive of MCCSS requesting my passage, the gates were unlocked and we entered. Devi led me upstairs to the common room, where the women spend most of their day doing crafts, sleeping, playing games, or primping each other. 

All of the ladies greeted Devi, a group of Hindi women fluttering around her, "Devi-didi! Devi-didi!" For many of these ladies, Devi is their sole hope, as the only social worker in Chennai who visits the Vigilance Home who speaks Hindi. They were all prying here with questions about court dates, petitions, if she could contact their boyfriends and babies. 

She introduced me, "Kendall se mi-li-ye." And they immediately flooded upon me, pinching my face, stroking my arms, asking me questions too fast for Devi to translate.

"Ye larkee bahut sundare naa? This girl is so beautiful, no?"

"Which country bahen?" 

"Tum ka kaam kyaa ho? What is your work?"

"Kyaa tum hindi le-tee ho? Does she speak Hindi?"

"Paribar? Family? Marriage? Boyfriend?"  

  They pulled me down and engaged me in a game--the Indian version of checkers. We all clicked immediately. Over the next few weeks, every Tuesday and Friday, Devi and I would bounce our way to Santhome to visit with these ladies. We would play games, share life-stories, teach each other songs, make up silly dances--sometimes I would listen to their pains as we held hands, sorrow never needs to be translated. They spoke of their babies left in the brothels, their boyfriends far away, their sex-work, their sicknesses, their girl-fights, their loneliness--how their broker calls them in jail, how their parents were murdered in religious riots, how they bribe the guards to use their mobiles to call home, how they hate the prison food, how they are beaten, how they feel like dying. 

"Life achaa naheen bahen, life is no good sister" one woman, Lakshmi lamented, "come prison, life stop." Lakshmi had been in the Vigilance Home for almost two years. She got into sex-work in Mumbai when she had limited options to help get her crippled father out of debt with some slum-goondas. 

Every time I came, she would have some new infection or scary high fever. She can't walk properly anymore and has lost half her weight since being there. Despite her problems, she was more worried about her pregnant sister, who recently joined the  VH and was due soon (no one knew exactly when). Lakshmi and her sister had to deal with their health problems on their own since doctors never came to visit. They would bribe the warden and guards to sneak them tablets; I would often inquire on their behalf, telling those in charge how sick these ladies were and how pregnancies need to be carefully watched over, especially in the last trimester, but to no avail. The ladies stayed sick, and the wardens stayed indifferent to their pains. Devi told me that Hindi girls are treated the worst in the prison because of widespread prejudice Tamils have against Northerners. 

One day when I was sitting with Lakshmi, she was telling me about her boyfriend in Mumbai, how he was the same color as me.

"He's American?" I asked, grinning. 

She smiled, "Amereecain naheen bahen. But white, bahut sundare! So beautiful!"

I continued by telling her how beautiful she was, and she shook her head in disgust,

"Naheen sundare, not beautiful" She tugged at her skin. "Me black-- you white. Black--bad, white--good." The women around her clucked in acquiescence. "Me, thin. I want be fat, naa? Thin naheen sundare. Thin isn't beautiful." 

At this point I called Devi over to translate for me. I continued to tell the ladies how women in the west try to darken their skin, and how they starve themselves to be thin--because they think this is beautiful. Giggles and tisks resounded; they would ask again and again, "Kyoo? Why?" They were incredulous as to how women would actually want to have darker skin or not love their curves.

On our way back to MCCSS, I couldn't help but ponder the true malleability in societal conceptions of beauty. Coming from a woman who used to have an eating disorder, and whose close friends and family members have also struggled with self-love/body acceptance/eating and weight issues, I was literally flabbergasted by the polarity of my culture compared to theirs. Think about how ludicrous it would sound to a group of 20-something American girls if you told them that being pasty-white, having love-handles, and wearing at least three layers of cloth over your breasts was considered exquisitely beautiful. Think about how much easier our lives would be if we wore moo-moos every day and eating carbs wasn't sacrilege. 

Every morning when I open the paper, over a pot of sweet chai and biscuits of course, I am fascinated by the ads and Indian tabloids. There are ads for skin-whitening cream and snapshots of hit-movies, with voluptuous dancers lined up around a greasy hero-figure. The articles speak of how Bollywood stars are hounded about being too thin. That this or that lady is always told by her producers to eat more. "She couldn't walk the catwalk because she was swimming in her saree. A woman has to have some substance." Don't get me wrong, Indians aren't into obesity, they just like a little substance on a lady. I have a theory that it is because this is a country where people still do literally starve everyday and having the means to have a little pudge in your belly is a signal that you are well-off. Plus I have heard personally from Indian men, who are all thin as sticks, that they want something soft to cuddle up to. "See Kand? Bones aren't beautiful," a friend, Dinesh once told me while we were watching a Hindi movie.

I recollect having a conservation about ideas of beauty with Rachel, a lovely lady from Arkansas who was working at Premavasem, the orphanage earlier mentioned. We were on the train to Bangalore, sitting across from a muslim family. The mother in her black dress with her head covered in a colorful scarf, her daughter fully covered except for her eyes, even with gloves and socks despite the tepid heat. We were talking about how some folks back home view conservative cultures or religions as oppressive towards women. And certainly there is a part of me that advocates free-dress for all! Come on, man. I'm a feminist, I'm all for owning your body and working whatever club-wear you rock. But being in a place where the more covered you are, the more respect you receive, I have come to appreciate the reasoning behind modesty. 

"I mean think about it, when we 'dress-up' in the West, we don't leave much to the imagination," Rachel mused amidst the roaring train engine and intermittent wallah-drawls for dosai or masala chai, "but women here, they keep parts of themselves sacred--its like their own beautiful little secret." She continued to tell me about an article she read where a burkah-clad woman was questioned about how it feels to be oppressed by her religion and she wisely replied,

"Frankly, I feel that women in the West are oppressed in that their are treated like sex-objects by their society. People view woman in terms of their bodies and clothes instead of who they really are as humans. I will take being modest in public any day over being objectified by those around me." 

At that very moment, the little muslim girl sitting across from us who had been sharing her hot-ground nuts with us and inquiring about our countries, lifted up her black overdress to reveal an vibrantly beaded hot-pink kurta, with chiffon and intricate flower designs. She pointed to herself with pride, communicating that she did the bead-work. She was startled by the conductor calling out the next stop, sweeping her fashionable secrets up in her traditional covering--she waved with her black gloves and smiled with her eyes, following her mother out of the carriage. 

Being in a culture where the norms and expectations of women and sexuality are so mind-bogglingly opposite, where women save the most intimate parts of themselves for their private life, and being around such amazing women in the Vigilance Home who inspire me with their strength and resilience, yet who are dissatisfied with the very skin and figure that would land them on the cover of Elle magazine in the states, has made me realize, however cliche this sounds, that beauty is something you create in your mind--it is something you own. If you look outwards for validation, you will always find something to dislike, because everyone is so unique and different. Random societal norms, which cause so many awesome women to hate themselves--literally loathe their god-given figure and form, should not be the fucking baseline from which you measure yourself. So many of the internalized beauty ideals are deleterious to self-love. You have to surrender to the idea that beauty is something that you live, and practice, it is not a goal or destination and has to be embodied by your very own unique self. 

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'