A Walking Dollar Sign

Two days ago in Goa, a young Indian man perched on his motorcycle jumped up when I walked by.  “Excuse me ma’am, I have a question for you.”

Ugh.  I don’t want to buy anything and I don’t want to go to your shop and I don't need a taxi ride and I don’t need a scooter or drums or marijuana, I thought.

I stopped and waited for the solicitation.

“Why don’t foreign people want to stop and talk to Indians?  Why do you always think we’re trying to sell you something?”

Hah!  He caught me!  But seriously, because I’m a walking dollar sign in a tourist town like Goa.  If cash registers still made the “chi-ching” noise and I were a cartoon person, that noise would be my personal sound effect.

“Because, typically, Indian people are trying to sell me something.” I replied.

“You come here and you stay in hotels and you never get to know Indian people!”  He protested.

Awesome.  I come to Goa to relax after visiting Mavelikara, where I lived for a year, and I get harassed by an oily-haired motorcycle-dude for not knowing any Indians.  He is messing with the wrong foreign chick.

“I lived in Kerala for a year, I…”

“I know, I know,” He interjected nonsensically.

“Wait a minute buddy, you stop me on the street to ask me a question and then interrupt me while I’m respectfully answering you?!  No way!  You listen to me finish my sentence if you want to ask questions!”  I berated him.

Silenced, he let me continue.  

I explained that I have lived here and I do have Indian friends who I care about.  But, if he were to walk down the Goan streets in my shoes, he would not feel surrounded by friends, rather people whose income is desperately dependent on my dollar bills.  So yes, in Goa I don’t stop and talk to Indian people because, mainly, they just want me to buy something. 

I walked away in a huff, frustrated at being blamed for something I have no control over in a place I came to seeking relaxation. 

I also immediately considered immigrants to my country, a land of immigrants that often welcomes them with judgment and even fear, especially if they are Muslim. 

While living in Chicago, I met many immigrants who were struggling to survive in an unfamiliar land.  I will never walk in a new immigrant’s shoes, but one of the greatest gifts living in India gave me, was the ability to imagine what it might be like.   

I felt like a helpless child each time I tried to go shopping for basic necessities, when I stood at the bus stand not being able to read a single sign, when I didn’t know how to flush the toilet or how to find personal medication that I’d rather not have to ask everyone and their brother how to find.

I felt torn when I people harped on American foreign policy, wanting to defend my country but knowing I probably wouldn’t defend it if I heard the same in Chicago.

When I expressed frustrations about gender relations in Mavelikara, or religious intolerance at Bishop Moore College, it was met with defensiveness and distain.  Fair enough.  I was here for only a short time, enough to get my feet wet.  How dare I express frustration about things I was only beginning to understand?   

I had a few people I consistently went to for advice and help.  It was comforting to have those close friends, but I realized that they would never know who I really am.  How can you imagine someone being successful and independent when that person doesn’t even know that there is more than one type of mango?   

And, it took me until this return trip to realize that, when random people on the street asked me if I had bathed, they were really just saying hi.

I’m only realizing now, upon my return, many of the things I learned while living in Mavelikara.  

"You Are Not a Guest, You Are Family"

It was a joyous return to Mavelikara, with lots of laughter and love.  People showed me that they cared by remembering stories, bringing out photographs of us together and sharing homemade meals.  Many remembered my favorite food, aapam, which was a huge surprise and a repeated treat for me. 

I also felt the frustrations of the year return in an unexpected way, condensed into one-week as if time were flying by and I was experiencing the year all over again. 

I kept imagining the unending, spiraling embrace in Dante's Inferno.  They loved each other, but they desperately needed some breathing room.

During my second night staying at the ladies’ hostel, I sat down to email my Mom and my Joe.  A few of the hostel girls hovered a few feet away chattering together.  Then they came up behind me, so they could see the computer screen and still be able to ask me questions.

“What is your name?” 

I stretched my neck around to say, “Cate.”

“Where are you from?”

“I’m from Chicago.”

Then they whispered to each other and I heard one of them say, “Dear Mama,” as she read the first paragraph of my email to her friends before they scampered up the stairs.

The next morning I saw Kochamma for the first time during my visit.  An ancient matriarch, at least 200-hundred-years old, she was married to a Church of South India (CSI) pastor who died years ago (“Kochamma” is a title that means pastor’s wife). 

She now has a mysterious job at the hostel.  No one is quite sure what she does, but she visits a few times every week to tell people what to do and scowl purposefully as she scans the hostel budget books.

When she saw me she made an “aww” noise and pinched my chin.  Unsure of how to proceed with adult conversation after commencing that like, I went with, “Hi Kochamma.”

She asked the obligatory questions and then disappeared into her office to do important-looking but unnecessary things.

On my last day in Mavelikara, Ammamma asked lots of questions about where I was going and what I was doing, astonished that I was alone. 

She wrote down the name and phone number of the homestay I was bunking at for the next week and I shuddered.  Will she call me daily?  Will she check up on me?

At 29-years-old, I felt like I had returned to high school, except this time my mother is a voyeuristic nun who is very concerned for my well-being but knows very little about the capabilities appropriate to a near 30-year-old. 

If I were married and had children, very reasonable for my age, I would be treated quite differently.  Adulthood in Mavelikara isn’t reached until you’re hitched.

But, now that I’m in Goa watching the sunset over the waves of the sea, I can recognize that I was given an immeasurable gift to have a bundle of Indian friends with whom I’ve shared laughs and tears, who all want the best for me and I for them. 

“You are not a guest, you are family,” Ammamma said when I thanked her for making up my old room so nicely. 

No Such Thing as an Uneventful Massage

I fell into a relaxing routine while in Alleppey.  I woke up late and ate a delicious breakfast curry, made by the woman who owns the house, and then grabbed a rickshaw to head to my 10:30 Ayurveda massage. 

Sushila, my masseuse greeted me with a smile and led me through an array of loud construction to a hut out back.  I took off my shoes and walked into the room. 

When you sign up for a massage, you are never quite sure what you are in for until you’re lying naked on a table, a vulnerable proposition to say the least.

In Chicago, I was gifted a birthday massage by a generous friend.  The masseuse was a gentle giant with soft hands and an equally soft voice.  He seemed almost timid about the whole process so much so that I wondered if it was his first massage. 

At one point he stood at my head massaging my shoulders so hard that he had to catch me in his arms as I fell off the table.   Both of us ended up in a giggle fest that lasted the rest of the 30 minutes.  He left so I could dress and returned with a glass of water, apologizing profusely but still laughing.

“This was probably your worst massage ever!”  He said with embarrassment. 

In Italy I visited a spa somewhere between Pisa and Florence.  It was off the beaten trail and nearly empty minus staff, maybe for a reason.  I chose both a massage and a scented oil (lavender) and followed my masseuse to the room. 

For this massage, I was given a pair of disposable underwear that were made of the same material as the hair nets the cafeteria ladies wore at Leader Heights Elementary School. 

My masseuse turned on Enya and got working.  Afterwards, she left the room to give me a few moments of relaxation, during which time the Enya CD started to skip. 

I wondered as I lay there, do I get up and turn of the CD or is this a test of my ability to truly meditate no matter what the distraction?  The woman would inevitably return as I’m standing there in my poofy, cafeteria hair net underwear fumbling with the CD player.

With this in mind, I hesitated before entering the hut the first time, wondering what I would find.  

It was a small room with thatched walls, the centerpiece of which was a huge slab of oiled wood in the shape of a person, sloping down in the center with raised sides. 

Using hand gestures and broken English, she told me to undress.  Then she made me a loincloth by taking a long piece of white cloth, ripping the sides down nearly the entire length of the cloth, making strings that would tie around my waist.  She tucked the long centerpiece between my legs and hooked it around the strings at my back.  Brilliant.

Sushila pulled out a dirty plastic stool and beckoned me to sit down for a soothing head massage.  Every now and then she let out an airy belch, which only added to my own relaxation.

In a few minutes she patted the side of the wooden person, asking me to lie down.  It was cold, dirty and a little slippery.  It smelled like wood and medicinal oils.

It was a wonderfully uneventful massage until she stuck her thumb in my armpit.  I flinched and tried to prevent smiling, which made me burst into laughter.  She smiled, but continued and soon we were both giggling. 

To indicate she was finished, she drummed my bum with a pa-rum-pum-pum pat and put a towel on the door to the bathroom, clearly indicating it was time to shower.

Traveler’s note:

I found the cost of staying at an Ayurveda hospital far too high for my tight budget, so I opted to bunk at Arunima Homestay, which advertised in-house Ayurveda massages. 

When I arrived, I found out they no longer provide in-house massages, they now book them for guests at a place across town called Snehadara Guest House. 

Though Sushila was a fabulous masseuse, Snehadara was not only a bit gruddy but also undergoing construction immediately outside the massage hut.  It was loud and distracting.  Also, taking a 10-minute rickshaw ride across town ruins ones post-massage zen!

I cancelled my last massage and would look for a different option next time.

Four years later: My return to Kerala

My time in India was as formative as everyone said it would be.

In August 2007, I returned to Chicago and spent two years working at The Cara Program, a workforce development agency that achieves the high goals that it sets. Cara was an amazing place to come home to, where I felt a small but significant sense of control over one of the greatest faults of the United States: its homeless and unemployed population.

I realized, having worked with people overcoming homelessness, that I would rather be helping them express their incredible life stories than writing their resumes and coordinating mock interviews for them. So I went to journalism school, much to the chagrin of my bank account.

After j-school I moved to the West Bank, a place where Walls are being built. Where families discuss their livelihood over delicious mahklouba meals. Where kids are playing, students are studying and teachers are teaching but everyone is thinking about the occupation.

In three days I will return to Kerala for the first time in four years. It feels like a daunting vacation, returning to a place where a walk down one street revealed mansions, paddy fields and dalit huts. Where cows rule the road and dogs are dirt. Where Hindu temples belt out melodious prayers and rickshaws wheel perilously around tight curves in the road.

Please join me as I return to Kerala, this time as a tourist, hoping to see old friends, eat the comfort food I've craved and tell some stories.