I know there is a philosopher that believed everyone has a place, an identity that they are meant to fulfill…some people happen to stumble upon the main road early on while others spend many of their formative years meandering up tedious mountains only to discover another detour half way up. Maybe it was Plato but at this moment I can’t remember.
Well, since I’m definitely the latter but how I so wish at times that I were the former, many nights have been spent wondering when I will stop taking these detours. It can be a pretty inadequate and lonely feeling…but lately, I’m beginning to accept that perhaps this penchant towards the side roads and detours is, in a way, my main road.
…I’ve been brainstorming on an idea for an advertisement I came across in the NY Times by Nicholas Kristof…one of those amazing humanitarians/writers that I look up to…he is asking a masochist to accompany him on a reporting trip in Africa…it’s the opportunity of a lifetime…So I must apply…it would be absolutely unjust if I didn’t…all I need is 700 words…
And that’s where I come to a standstill…why should he choose me? When I read this advertisement, I had a familiar sensation run through my veins…I’ve only felt this one other time…one fortuitous afternoon, when I was fifteen, I decided to attend a high school Spanish club meeting. That day there was a girl with a video that probably changed me for the rest of my life. It was a video about a program called Amigos de las Americas…I was transfixed…I don’t know why…the humbleness of the one-room adobe, thatched roof homes, the humility in the mother’s charcoal eyes, the sun baked children running through the dirt yard in their tattered hand-me-down Save the Children clothes…though the colors were faded and tired, a certain, peaceful glow illuminated the scene…I just knew that I had to volunteer…it felt so right…and that’s a lot coming from me because I’m a perpetually confused person… and reading this advertisement, it was that sensation all over again….
…but now I’m trying to answer the “why?” Why do I want this more than my J.D.? (Well that doesn’t say a lot but you know what I mean.) I don’t know what to tell him except the truth except the truth sounds so trite…I doubt everything that comes onto the screen…it’s all been written before when experiencing some mood or emotion, in some shape or form…
…I want to tell him about 1995, a cold, starry night in Puerto de Nieto, Guanajuato, Mexico when my partner and I were standing mid-calf deep in a cool, grainy mixture of horse manure, dirt, and sand…it was 10:00 at night, only half-way through the construction of the fifth lorena estufa (wood/coal burning adobe stove with a chimney) that week and we were delirious! So I grabbed one of the tin chimneys and started doing some weird dance in the middle of the all the horse shit (for those of you who have seen my “dancing queen” video, you’ll know what I’m talking about)…and first the goats (really), Oscar, the kids, and then my partner followed suit…we laughed so hard…I thought my empty stomach, from amoebas and diarrhea, would cave inwards in exhaustion…
…I want to tell Mr. Kristof about this pure amazing rush when I feel inextricably linked to the human race…those moments when we are not strangers that measure each other’s worth because we are insecure…those moments when we are united by compassion and not the ticking clock of places to be, people to see, and impressions to be made… 1998, las montanas rurales de Lempira, Honduras, dark, overcast sky pouring down in sheets around a very scared nineteen year old girl…I was supposed to be a supervisor and I didn’t even know where the hell I was. The hitchhiking truck to brought me to this middle of nowhere lonesome tree could no longer be heard. I was supposed to survey a village, los Tablones, but far into the distance, all that could be seen was more of the narrow, harrowing mountain pass…not a single adobe home, yellow squawking chicken, or humble compesino. For a moment, I gazed at the sky only to be greeted by torrential rain…it wasn’t the kind of fear that slowly creeps up your spine with a scary movie…it was a completely pervasive trepidation that permeates your cells and the air you breathe with dark, lonesome solitude. It was the kind of fear that will only let you curl up in a ball and pray (after you’ve finished crying and realized that your tears were only adding to the obstacle)…you know the times when you were concentrating so deeply on your prayers that you lost track of the minutes? I don’t know if it was only one minute or ten minutes later…but I heard something…a friendly chicken squawking in the background…I quickly staggered to my feet and turned around…high above there was a single thatch roofed hut…I could see the warm smoke swirling around the tin chimney…I half ran, half stumbled up the hill…ten minutes later, this poor Honduran grandmother was offering me warm corn tortillas out of the modest stack on a cracked plastic plate…someone to whom I was a complete, mud-drenched, teary eyed stranger…but all I had to say was estoy perdida…puedes ayudarme?
…the less they had, the more they improvised…the less there was left to measure, the more worthy I felt. I’m just another Gujarati-American twenty-six year old girl…but I want to work in solidarity in order to make sense of this world spinning around me…I wonder what Nick Kristof is looking for in his companion? I spent my Friday afternoon deconstructing a UN Commission on Human Rights Report that documented the situation of detainees at Guantanamo Bay…there was no tangible purpose and I even wondered why I wasn’t studying when finals are five weeks away…but understanding how the hell it is possible for the United States to get away with subjecting prisoners not of war to inhumane, stomach churning conditions when it is a party to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant Against Torture took precedence over writing an appellate brief on Miranda rights…
…like you, my emotional reactions to the monstrosities visualized are searing…torture inflicted through hot tongs shoved up a twelve year old vagina…from an idealist point of view, what action can be taken to stop words from forming such horrid depictions? The cancer of oppression is no less widespread today than it was during the
…think about Sajana Singh, a young Muslim woman with a tenth grade education that believes in the children in her Mumbai slum community…take away her squalid environment and abusive husband and instead, imagine her as a young Muslim woman attending the tenth grade at your neighborhood high school. She has ambitions just like you and me…the only difference is that education was so easily available to us…but despite her limitations, she is changing lives…
…think about Geeta, a prostitute in the red light district of Calcutta…take away her garish make-up and skimpy clothing and instead, imagine her standing in your closet, selecting today’s outfit from amongst your countless designer clothes and standing in your bathroom, looking at her beautiful face in your mirror, deciding whether or not she wants to wear make-up that day…she wants to be respected and admired, feel attractive and intelligent just like you and me…the only difference is that she was kidnapped while walking to school one day, and then drugged and forced into prostitution…there is no walk-in closet or brightly lit bathroom mirror to examine her blemishes when no one is watching…instead, she is surrounded by the smell of cheap, forced sex and filthy men that force themselves on her before she could even dream of being held by someone that loves and respects her…
…think about Mayur…when I met him five years ago, he was only a ten year old boy who walked me through his “neighborhood”…he hopped over ponds of sewage and turned around to make sure my sandals stayed clean…he led me to his home, a one room tin box filled with a weary, creaking cot, not a single book except the one give to him by Pratham, and a lot of love. He held his mother’s hand and without a hint of doubt in his eyes, he explained to me why he desired an education. His dream was to become a doctor in order to give his mother injections when she became old and sick…
…why do I want to meet people like this and tell their stories? I realize there is no selfless reason…on the contrary, I am a selfish individual like everyone else. Because their stories amaze and inspire me and because the details of their struggles imbue my mind with vivid imagery, I can’t wait to share with you what I have learned…
