Halfway

February marks the halfway point of my year in India and I have mixed feelings. I am excited to return to the U.S. to live, for the first time in three years (having spent the last two years carbing up in Italy). I’m excited to celebrate holidays in the U.S. and I might bake myself a pecan pie everyday for the rest of my life to make up for lost time. I miss my family. I’m excited to be in the U.S. for the upcoming Presidential election. I’m excited for fall colors and winter snow. I miss my bed and my music, red wine and pasta, libraries and blue jeans. But I know when I return, I will miss so much about India. It is the people who have made this experience truly profound. Here are a few tid bits about my most trusted friends and mentors.

-Anne Miss, an English professor at Bishop Moore College, invited me to her home for an early Christmas celebration, the day after which we spent five hours in the grips of Jane Austen (or was it Colin Firth?) watching Pride & Prejudice. I finished a can of Indian-brand peanut butter by the spoonful as we watched. It was a special treat for both of us!

-Beena Miss and Salama Miss, sisters and teachers at the Lower Primary school who are very open with me. Yesterday we talked for over an hour about Indian methods of child delivery, sexual harassment and sex education. We laugh together and make fun of ourselves and each other. “When you marry, bring your husband here and I’ll cook Kerala food for him,” said Salama Miss, a jab at my vehement “waiting for marriage” mantra. “Then he’ll leave me and stay with you,” I retorted, to which her head flopped back with laughter and she slapped the table with glee. “Yes!” she cried and repeated what I said to Lillyammamma, who cooks Kanyee and peas for the 110 children. Lillyammamma laughed, she wants me to marry so much it makes me uncomfortable. “I will go with you and your husband to cook for you,” she suggested with frightening sincerity. “But who will stay with my husband?” she naughtily asks. “Lillyammamma!” she cries and looks to Lillyammamma, a new grandmother, who laughs and nods.

-Prabhaa Miss, the head of the English department at the college and my on-site supervisor. She and I discuss literature and feminism, cultural norms and music, Mavelikara gossip and human rights issues. It’s a gift to watch her as a professor, woman, wife, mother and community leader.

-Binu Chetan, the son of my country supervisor, who is a Ph.D. candidate in New Delhi. Binu Chetan listens as well as his mother, challenges society as well as his father and plays to Bob Marley on his guitar as he sings under the Che Guevara poster in his room.

-Ashwati, the tiny 4th grader who has stolen my heart. The daughter of a single mother and one of the poorest families in Mavelikara. She calls me Cate Chechee (older sister), she loves her cow, she loves to dance and she hates peas. Her mother serves me tea when I visit and I worry that it’s a burden, but rules of hospitality pressure me to accept. I brought a cake for Christmas, take family photos and listen to her talk about her life. She was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, soon after which her husband left her for another woman, offering no child support for their three children.

These folks are my Indian family. They are my teachers and my friends. They are making India an experience for me much deeper than cinnamon skies and backwaters boat rides. My Jesuit education challenged me to “Set the World on Fire,” but it is these people who are sparking the flame.

Hotel Bliss

"How has your faith changed?" "Do you have A/C?" "Will you feel disdain when you return Western culture?" "What are your greatest struggles?" The five volunteers joined a group of Presbyterians from Sacramento's Joining Hands Against Hunger program for a week in Andra Pradesh hosted by Chethana, an NGO in India that empowers agricultural workers, etc. The Presbyterians asked us difficult questions and we struggled to answer, a foretaste of our future re-entry to the United States!

Together we visited villages in the most rural areas of Andra Pradesh, traveling over roads most traversed by water buffalo and chickens than by black jeeps. In each of the five villages we visited, a band of drummers welcomed us and women presented us with handmade flower necklaces. It was overwhelming and ornate; I felt horrendously Western, like a celebrity receiving undue respect. We followed the drummers to the village meeting place: a church, an office, under a tree, in a hut. Then we listened. We listened to their struggles: handloom weavers who spend four days weaving one sari to make 250 rupees (about $5) while the middle man sells it for 500 rupees (the suicide rate of weavers in that particular village hit 100 weavers during one month); farmers who don’t own land, or who bought land only to find it doesn’t exist; farmers who buy hybrid seeds from corporations who genetically mutate the seeds to produce seedless crops, requiring the farmers to buy seeds each year; farmers who are so caught in a capitalist market that subsistence farming seems fruitless when in reality it is a stable venture lacking the risks of cash crops. We listened to women who finally own land and Dalits (lowest caste) who are learning about their rights for the first time.

As volunteers, the five of us reveled in these six days for a few reasons. It was heartening to learn about an NGO that empowers. Chethana means “life force” (sanskrit origins) and as an organization it truly opens doors for people to take on life with a new energy. We enjoyed spending time together; it had been a month since our last reunion and during our 26-hour train ride north we updated each other on our sites, our struggles, our joys and our toilet traumas. And finally we were treated to comforts felt for the first time in five months: A/C hotel rooms, soft mattresses, hot water to shower, room service, HBO, toast and jelly, beer and Merlot, soda and an abundance of cold, bottled water. We felt like royalty! Our last hotel was called Hotel Bliss (I’m not joking) and I will attest to the accuracy of its name. The elevator (elevator!) music was soft “Om shanties” and the floors were marble.

But I also felt a tinge of frustration as we shared a week in Andra Pradesh with a group of Americans visiting for a short twelve days. I think Cammy put it best, our new friends were witnessing India through the eyes of Chethana. We learned about the struggles of those villagers who are lucky enough to be connected to an organization focused on empowerment. Our Presbyterian friends smile as they recall the moments of joy they experienced with the villagers: the exuberant welcomes, the hearty smiles, the excited children. I’ve experienced great joy here as well; five months of great joy. But it is mingled and meshed with an overtone of anguish, frustration, futitility and anger smacking like a 9-meter sari against a rock on laundry day. In Mavelikara, after leaving Hotel Bliss, I will teach at a Lower Primary School for Dalit children that has only 2 teachers for 4 grades and desperately needs a facelift, but there is no NGO jumping to help.

My faith now stands on solid ground. I don’t have A/C. I, instead of disdain for the U.S., will re-enter my country as a proud citizen ready to continue learning and challenging. My greatest struggles in India are: my skin color, my feeling of uselessness, and my desire to be a functioning part of a community of which I can never, under these circumstances, be an equal part.

I have returned to Mavelikara, with a new friend called “Loose Motion” (the runs) and she and I are getting reacquainted with life in the village. Ruby, a hostel girl, brought me two books of transliterated hymns in Malayalam. Ammamma sat on my bed yesterday morning as I was waking up and told me her happy news, that she’s been given a week leave to visit her sister and her young nephew. She had tears in her eyes when she told me, she was so happy. Eechay in the kitchen has made me lots of black tea for my friend, Loose Motion. I leave for Sri Lanka in a few days.

I can’t believe I’m in India.