The Day I Met This Girl

It was the third day of my visit to the operational areas of my organization, and was also the day when I had a scheduled trip back to the City where I am staying for the duration of my assignment in India.

It was the day I met this girl.

Sanya (not her real name) holds a position in my organization but that day and since the day I arrived there, she had been tasked to make sure that I have my meals ready and my accommodation ventilated enough to keep me cool from the warm days of Monsoon season. Apparently, it has not rained for months in that part of Orissa despite the Monsoon season.

If I had known any better I would have thought Sanya was treating me like a VIP, so on that day when she ordered for my early lunch so I would not be hungry during my 7 hours train ride back to the city, I asked her to sit down and have the meal with me, to which she graciously agreed.

She then asked me if we also eat rice in the Philippines, and I said yes, like in India, rice is also a staple food in my country. She smiled and said “ok”. She asked me again if we also take 3 meals a day like they do and I also said yes. She asked if we also have rice and dal for lunch, to which I ignorantly replied, that I do not think we have dal in the Philippines but we do have rice all the time. She then said that rice and dal is a staple food for them and they also have it for dinner with roti. I simply asked,”everyday?” and she simply replied, “ha!” which means “yes” in Hindi or Oriya.

I asked Sanya if she has ever been outside the small town where she grew up, and she said no with a smile. She explained that her family lives there and she does not have any reason to leave her hometown. She was happy where she was and her face lit up as she smiled again.

At that point I took a moment and tried to reflect on the small talk Sanya and I shared that day. I was so overwhelmed with what I was feeling at that moment that I found myself questioning my own meandering ideals.

What is really important? To be out there seeing the world and getting a place in the sky and still feel like you have not gone anywhere so far and the insatiable thirst to be somewhere and be someone still haunt you at night? And be asked by someone like Sanya, “so how do you sleep at night?” or just be like her, happy and contented where she is, as simple as that.

As I write this I am reminded again of my favorite line in the Bible, when I used to read it for my theology classes. I came across these lines from Mathew 16 ( I do not recall which verse), “for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Indeed what are we willing to give up in search for the world? or to reach for the stars?

Was it her ignorance? That she was afraid to see what it is like outside her hometown?

I do not know with certainty.

One thing is for sure though, at this point in my life I envy her. I was 25 too not too long ago and I was unstoppable. I left home when I was 17 to go to college and I blew a wish into the sea as I took that boat ride out of that small island where I grew up. I wished for freedom. Free to fly like a bird, not caring where and when to stop. My wish did come true and then I was sitting across a table with someone like Sanya and I feel nothing but envy.

I wish there is a way to make amends for the mistakes you make in a lifetime but facing the truth is so much easier than taking all the time and energy running away from it.

Thanks to this girl I met, I have also found reasons to be thankful for.

RAKHI DAY

A boy proudly shows off his rakhi on Rakhi Day

24^th of August is a special day in India especially among brothers and sisters. It is a ceremonial day when brothers vow to protect their sisters and the latter would tie a “rakhi” or a bracelet to symbolize the bond between them.

It was indeed an exciting day in the villages I have visited, as every man, adult or child I have met showed me their wrists with the colorful rakhis.  One rakhi represents one sister.  It did not matter if they were blood related, for as long as they treat each other as brothers and sisters.

I asked one member of the staff of my organization if she did perform the ceremony that morning, and she told me she did not have brothers, but she and her four sisters exchanged rakhis just the same as they will protect each other anyway even if they do not have brothers to protect them.

Coming from a small town where she grew up, it must have been hard for their family to raise them, and eventually to marry all five of them should they decide to follow the norms of the society and be subjected to the traditions and cultures of the dowry system, and of the position of women in the society. 

Who am I to judge? But the fact that they have been raised to be good people of the society, loving and caring and protective of each other, I find that admirable and inspiring.

Hers is a story that should overshadow the horror stories on gender inequalities I have heard when I first arrived in India.

Being the youngest in my family with no sisters and four older brothers, I have found a new way of seeing things differently regarding my relationship with my brothers.  I do not have colorful rakhis to tie around their wrists when I get home but I would definitely say hello if only to mean I love them.  

My Salwar Kameez

My current disposition is taking a toll on me 

and so I wore my brand new Salwar Kameez to make it even more dramatic.

I have been debating with my mind, 

about where I should be and where I have to be.  

The question just honestly drained my energy 

and it has somehow negated the motivational factors

that made me decide to come to where I physically am, in the first place.

I have put on my brand new Salwar Kameez today

to help me absorb things as they currently are, 

physically, mentally and emotionally.

My Kameez is green with pink and blue decorated stitches, 

and gold bling bling that actually pricks my skin making it so uncomfortable.

The Salwar is lose for my shape and long for my height, makes walking on it a tedious task.

I bought it in Delhi's famous Sarogini Market when I thought I had to blend in,

and it was the first step to adapting the Indian culture.

I thought the price was right and trying it on was not even an option.

Here, you just make calculated estimations.

Later could mean it is not going to happen, or tomorrow could mean the day following that.

Of course, I did not know any difference.

My Salwar Kameez is on and I am starting to feel the discomfort, but I intend to wear it for twenty four hours.

This will be my way of telling myself, 

that I will get used to it, 

that I will learn to live with it, 

and that I might actually like it eventually.

The colours should brighten my yet another gloomy day 

and to remind me that tomorrow can be a better day than today.

The Day I Start Counting 1-2-3

In a place where procrastination seems like a way of life

there seems to be an almost perfect but debatable excuse,

there is no rush, no need to hurry because

tomorrow is another day.

Counting 1-2-3 or three seconds of breathing in and then out 

before losing it

makes patience indeed the greatest of prayers.

But for someone who's days are numbered due to the calculated indecisions 

she has made in her life,

time is of the essence,

and she cannot help it today,

she starts counting

the number of days left, the money spent, the friends made, the lessons learned.

Hopefully tomorrow is better than today. 

Food Trip

Tripping on food is what I miss most with good friends back home.  I love cooking and I love it more when they want for more. I find cooking therapeutic.  I get to be calm and somehow I find peaceful moments when I cook. 

This time, in a faraway land, where everything is new and local food seems hard to chew because I miss home, I let a new found friend, Jennisa cook for me and it was good.  She has been saving her dried salted fish and a few cubed beef she smuggled from a nearby City for this occasion. It is not yet Christmas, but it somehow felt like it was. 

I savored Filipino dishes like I have never tasted them before.  Now it makes a lot of sense being away from home and learning to appreciate even the littlest of things, like eating dried salted fish with bare hands and a plateful of rice.  Cebuano is not even my mother tongue but I speak it like a pro now and liking it. 

It has been a good week talking in the vernacular.  I have been teaching a local guy from my new friend's work how to talk in Cebuano, and finding him very interested in learning the language I find myself challenged in learning his native Oriya too. 

We also went to the market place and she made me taste all the different street foods for a few rupees.  I cannot even remember what they were called and although it was unhygienic, it was a good experience just the same.

Good food, good company, good way to start a whole new week of experiences, this time at work in Balangir.

All is well.

Monthsary

Today marks my first month in India and I am celebrating it with 2 slices of pork luncheon meat from a tin, and mixed veg with rice.

My roommate left this morning for her holidays and I have never felt so alone in my life, in a foreign land, without a working mobile, and my saliva is just about to go sour from not talking at all.

This is the path I have chosen, well at least for now.

I miss my mama's home cooked meals, just as I miss the taste of fast food and pizza home delivery. Most of all, I miss going to the cinemas alone with a big bag of popcorn and iced green tea, enjoying my alone-time immensely.

Maybe my second month will be better, when I have finally adjusted to everything that is different from the usual back home. When I have finally started working and I will not have time to think about what I miss and when at last I am going home.

Maybe then I will stop counting the days.

Until then, one month and two days so far.

When A Man Loves A Woman

Shah Jahan was a Mughal King who had three wives.

Among the three, it was the third wife he loved the most. His first two wives did not give him any children, but Mumtaj, the third wife, not only was she the most beautiful, she also gave him 14 children.

When Mumtaj died, Shah Jahan decided to erect a monument of his love for her and built the magnificent white Taj Mahal in pure marble, a perfect symmetrical structure that is truly fit for a dearly beloved queen. 

In there his queen will lay to rest and her beauty to be admired by the world for years to come.

It took twenty two years and the people’s money to build it. 

When at last the Taj Mahal was finished standing tall in the heart of Agra, Shah Jahan so admired his work that he wanted to build a black version of it for himself, to be built right across the river that flows from Delhi and in perfect symmetry to be face to face with the white Taj Mahal. 

One of his sons however, successfully overthrew him and physically stopped him from further spending the people’s money for another tomb replicating the one already standing tall. Shah Jahan was then put to prison in Agra Fort and from a small cell through a small window; he spent the remaining 8 years of his life looking at his Taj Mahal.

I am sure that if you google the story of the Taj Mahal, it will provide you with details and perhaps better words describing it. I am only retelling it as it was told to us by our tour guide when we visited one of the world’s greatest man-made structures. Foreign and local tourists armed with cameras flock to the City of Agra in India to see this monument. As most tourists, I did my fair share of touristy things too and did the Princess Diana pose. I went to Agra however, not just to take photos but to actually see for myself how magnificent and beautiful a man’s love for a woman can be immortalized.

For many who have seen the Taj Mahal, it was a perfect symmetrical structure, and I will only confuse myself with architectural and engineering technical terms as to why it is so. But what I saw was a love story and what a sad love story it was indeed. Upon exiting the Taj, we saw two identical tombs that appear to stand guards at the gate of the great white tomb. They were in fact, the resting grounds for the first two wives of Shah Jahan. They stood like bridesmaids to one beautiful bride that stole their husband’s heart.

The Taj Mahal hides in the heart of Agra and its color changes from sunrise to sunset. It stands beautifully right in the middle of a gorgeous garden and yet, as I stood still facing it from the eastern gate amidst the crowd for the very first time, lonely is the word I could think of to describe it. The Taj Mahal is lonely. She seems restful and quiet but lonely. As we took a view of the place where the foundation of the supposed black Taj Mahal was to be laid, I could not help but think that if Shah Jahan was not imprisoned and the construction of the black version was not halted, maybe the magnificent white Taj Mahal would not seem lonely.

The story of the Taj Mahal ironically is a backdrop to the still existing tradition and culture of India where a woman is but a man’s wife, a sister or a mother, not to be known as herself, where her name is to be known as her husband’s name when she is married. A woman’s desire to be a wife is measured by the amount of dowry her family can afford to offer. A village woman’s success is dependent on a husband she can find to marry her. This is a society where baby boys are preferred over baby girls during pregnancy and after. These are facts we can find, or we were told, or we may have read about, but Taj Mahal tells me something else.

It is a monument of love. It knocks the anvil of a man’s devotion for a woman immortalized for the naked eye to appreciate from one generation after another. A proof that somehow, there was once this King who ruled a nation and built this one magnificent structure to tell the world for years to come, that he lived to love a woman and her name was Mumtaj Mahal.

Division by Context

A question was asked, and it had me thinking.

"Who else has been to a third-world country before?"

As a new volunteer, I suppose I have yet to meet the bigger challenges in my place of assignment. I have not even started working. Yet being a new volunteer, fresh from the rigorous pre-departure trainings, that question still haunts me.

The person who asked the question probably did not mean to be offensive by saying it, and maybe he was just being naive.  However it is not an excuse for being callous. 

As a new volunteer, I look up to the serving volunteers with high respects, for doing what they do, for actually in the placement for a period of time now, for everything they have given up back home in order to serve as volunteers.  But callousness is just not one of the dimensions this volunteering is all about.

How is political correctness present in a question when you already know by way of introduction from the very first day of orientation and even prior to departure, that one would be coming from a third-world country.

Third-world is a Western concept just as terrorism is another Western concept.

I see a divide here and this division is only a matter of context.

But as volunteers we are trained to be flexible and adaptable.  To be sensitive to the needs of others.  to be committed to learning.  To have a positive and realistic commitment.  To be self-assured. to work with others.

Now, when we cannot bear the heat and tolerance of the culture seems unbearable, do we buy air-conditioner and say fuckem 'all?

Maybe I am just being idealistic, being new and all that jazz.

No apologies.

Now I am sure brows will be raised and murmurs will be heard.  To those who would feel affected by my opinion, please understand that this is an exercise of freedom of speech. It is another copied concept by a third-world country like the Philippines, and is very much alive since even before the Declaration of Philippine Independence. 

There is indeed a divide by way of context.  It is a process I am chewing bit by bit, morsel by morsel.  

As for us third-world volunteers, flex those facial muscles and smile.  We are here.  Make the Filipinos proud.   

ACTUALLY

In three days it will be exactly a month since I first arrived in India.  It has all been a well-deserved break if I may say, from the hustle and bustle of Metro Manila, and from my otherwise erratic sense of belongingness to nowhere in particular.  The endless quest to chase some open door has somehow come to a halt, and I am actually exercising the greatest of all prayer, patience.

Here, that is all I have done so far, being patient and taking my time.  I kind of miss the days when I did not have time to actually smell the flowers (I never thought sampaguita, our national flower actually smells wonderful!), and sleeping was just something I had to do so as to keep my sanity intact. Sleep was usually induced, and it was not at all restful.  Here, I have enjoyed sleeping without actually taking anything at all. I have also started mastering an Indian dish called Shahi Paneer (Shahi for tomatoes and paneer for cottage cheese) and I am actually learning to appreciate eating plain vegetable dishes.  Here, I am also taking long walks not only to familiarize myself with the different turns and roundabouts of the streets, but to just actually enjoy walking while chatting with my roommate as we talk about India in general and smell the street foods and incense along the way.

Yes, I think that my roommate Jen and I could actually be potential good friends not only because we both love dogs and that we love Big Mac quarter pounder with extra cheese, but also because we both feel the same for India and that it was India that chose us not the other way around.  She arrived here at the start of winter season last year, while, I on the other hand, have arrived here at the end of summer here, and supposedly the beginning of Monsoon. At the time she was probably weighing things to come up with a concrete decision to actually say yes to India, I was on the brink of calling it quits with the whole idea of holding on and hoping and dreaming was something I did not do in the waking. And for some reasons, she found me, just as I was looking for someone to talk to about a possible placement in Orissa. 

I have never been a firm believer of fate since I first had a broken heart over a dream, but so far, things have been leading me towards believing the possibility of it.  I cannot even repeat the word twice for fear that I might actually convince myself that it does happen, and that it can actually happen even to someone as cynical as I am.  Maybe it is just a twisted definition for an accidental event or a coincidence.  Whatever it is, it is actually giving me a small tug in the stomach.

I must also admit that I hate the honking of vehicles in the streets and I think that there should be a proper place to keep the cows from roaming around, and that it is rude to stare at strangers, but these are just a few things that would eventually lead me to what I must have come here for in the first place.

I can say that you can actually smell a cow’s dung when you cross the streets, and gender inequality seems like a way of life out here, but then at the end of the day, there is always a reason for everything.  I may not like it but who is to say that it is not right.

I can bitch all day about how my day is just as boring as the day before, or worse than the previous day, and I can be unstoppable doing just that because my very nature would dictate that I should, but then that would defeat the purpose of my reason for being actually here and actually living here for a year.

It is not being politically correct, or that I may have instilled in me the preparing for change training that we all had to attend in order to understand somehow the meaning of volunteerism.  I am not trying to be politically correct and this is not a disclaimer.  This is actually an exercise of free speech, and I am only thinking out loud.

Eventually, when all else fail, and when I have to succumb to my being just as human as everyone else, at least I have something to remind me that it will pass, that we all go through it, and that it is nothing like what I have been through before coming over.

I am here to experience India and hopefully be able to share what little experiences I have earned from working with WWF-Philippines back home in a small island southernmost part of the Philippine islands, and including those experiences I have had from living away from home in the metropolis of the National Capital Region of my beloved country.

Jen, my Irish roommate once asked me, after I told her about a third-world country comment made by one of the serving volunteers, that coming from a third-world country myself, what indeed brought me here? I could have given her a Miss Universe-like answer and snap back world peace as my answer, but I told her that I have my professional and personal reasons.

I came to share an experience, live an experience and bring back home the lessons I have learned, and to heal and be patient.

It is not about the color of the skin.  It is not even about the height.  As for the serving Filipino volunteers, we can always take the small table for buffet-like lunches prepared mostly by Filipinos, without a grain of salt, but always with a grin.   

It is a give and take journey for me and I intend to make the most out of it no matter what.  I have been warned not to be all heart in fulfilling my assignment here or else I would just disappoint myself when I return home.  I have been warned not to take things seriously, and to just enjoy the whole experience.  I intend to do just that too and hopefully more than just that. 

I shall taste it and chew it bit by bit, like the yellow dal.  I cannot understand what it is made of and sometimes it does taste a bit funny, but it is a fusion of spices and color.  You may not like it at first, but eventually you will get used to its chilliness, saltiness and spiciness, and your taste buds will adjust to it eventually, and then to your surprise, you might actually like it.  India is actually like the yellow dal to me. I may not like it at first, but eventually I will.  I think I will. I know I will.

  

Sleeper Train

1 August 2010

SLEEPER TRAIN

It is my first time on a sleeper train and it feels like seeing things in a different perspective.  Coming from three weeks of orientation and hearing only descriptions, imagining them as I have understood them, it is only now that I have come to feel that I have finally arrived in India.

Today starts the day of reckoning, the day when I am actually starting my true journey.  It seems surreal.  I must be mad for coming this far, but I guess one has to be to dangerously live and live fully.

I have had my fair share of complains like any other stranger since I arrived in Delhi, and not just once did I wish I was home comfortably watching cable television while surfing the internet in an island not many of my own countrymen even know exactly where it is located.

But now, right here in my cot, I am actually enjoying the view from my sleeper train window and realizing that I am actually here makes me nervous and excited.

I am having a cheese sandwich with some local non-veg deli with my hot chai for an afternoon snack, while I write down my thoughts.  I am indeed enjoying this sleeper train ride that I initially thought of keeping the tea kit as a souvenir from my first sleeper train ride, but on second thought, I am not here as a tourist and actually drinking the tea makes the journey indelibly more memorable.

I have come here supposedly to change lives with what skills I have learned in my home country, and sharing them with the locals in my place of assignment, but surely and with life’s changing uncertainties, if there is one life that is about to be changed, it is going to be mine.

More than I can give to India, She is going to give me something and more.  I shall seize every moment that I am here and in giving and learning at the same time, I am hope to bring back home not just pictures and memories, but the whole life altering experiences.

Now I am taking one last bite of my cheese sandwich and one last sip of my chai to celebrate the beginning of my journey.

All is well.