hiking, soccer, and Spanish...the last of Quito

Nearly two more weeks have passed, and plenty worth writing about, but I promised to keep this shorter, so I’ll try to hold to that.

I stuck that picture at the bottom of the last post to lead directly into this one. Sunday nearly two weeks ago now, Angella (an amazing fellow student at my language school who was also a grad student at UNC and worked for the CDC for several years) and I took off on a hiking adventure about 30 miles south of Quito at a place called Pasachoa. We had wanted to find a decently hard, high altitude climb to train us for coming hikes, and the night before, we just happened to stumble across one on the internet that seemed like it would at least be an adventure. The hike itself was incredible—8 hours of strenuous hiking through a diverse array of vegetation with beautiful views on every side. The first part of the trail was dense forest and deep, muddy trails. My shoes and clothes all lost their color from continually slipping in the mud (with angella cracking up at me). Then, after an hour or two of hiking, the trail broke into a tundra-like area full of shrubs. Next, there were plain-like areas on the ridges with high, light colored grass and amazing views of the surrounding mountains. And finally, we reached cliff climbing for which we were supposed to have a guide (ha?). At times, I would say to Angela, “do you think that’s the trail going over this cliff, because I don’t see where else it would be going?” And she’d say, “ah, let me see.” And we’d start the climb. We also lost the trail a number of times and bushwhacked our way around the surrounding peaks in hopes that we were going the right direction. After five hours of hiking, we finally made it to the peak at over 14000 feet with only minor headaches worth the panoramic view…There was something so peaceful about hiking up gorgeous mountains void of big crowds and just enjoying nature, exploring the offbeat areas, and talking about life, dreams, politics, faith, and more. It definitely made me more and more excited about the coming adventures.

We also had an interesting end to our day. We had to run parts of the way down the mountain in order to make it back to the base before dark. Once we got to the entrance to the trail, we realized that there were no taxis and that the hike to the town with our bus was another 6 miles (we had hiked over 15 after getting a taxi to the entrance). Right as we made it to the road, though, a family of four-- with two adorable little children-- was just getting into their jeep. We ran over and asked if we could get a ride into town, and they graciously accepted. We hopped into the car right as it began to pour down raining (and remember, we are covered in mud), really thankful for the incredible luck. Instead of taking us to town, though, they ended up driving us the hour and a half back to Quito, refusing payment, and asking us all kinds of questions about life in America and our adventures thus far in Ecuador. The little kids talked our heads off and offered us snacks, and the family made sure we made it safely back to our places in Quito. Amazing hospitality that overwhelms me on trips like this…

Other big adventures of the last two weeks:

• Attending a professional soccer game (Liga, the best team in Ecuador, vs. Palmeiras, one of the Brazilian clubs) with Angella and my professor Fredy. Before the game, Fredy spent part of my class teaching me the Liga fight songs. We then got to the game hours early to get seats right behind the goal and right next to a huge base drum with an enormous guy pounding it with all his might (yeah, for those who make fun of my over cautiousness, I definitely held my ears for a while). I quickly discovered the joys of South American football—singing songs and jumping up and down the entire game, laughing at the toilet paper and confetti flung onto the field, and loving fans running around with torches and people climbing the fence around the field whenever goals were scored. We enjoyed drinks, hotdogs, and a great game of soccer that ended with Liga scoring a sweet goal to win it 3-2. (if you want to see the goal and the area where we are sitting behind it, check out this video on youtube-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd3_ivlECus&feature=related )

• Traveling to Otavalo with Amit’s parents and the normal group of friends. Otavalo has the biggest market in Ecuador, full of colorful paintings, scarves, hammocks, and more. I didn’t really buy anything, but enjoyed getting lost in the middle of all the colors. It was also great to catch up some with Amit’s parents before they headed to the Galapagos Islands with Amit and Priyanka the next day. Normally, people make the trek to look out over the two volcanoes and lake in Otavalo, but unfortunately rain changed our plans…
• Continually debating my new male professor (who is an incredible professor other than this) about some aspects of the Machismo culture here and trying to find creative ways to get him to listen to me. Also getting continually destroyed by his intense teaching methods. One day, I had to do a set of 15 exercises using all different tenses (hard for me) and if I missed a single one, even partially, I had to do 15 more. And on it went until I had done nearly 100…
• Eating almost daily banana splits with Amit and Angela at the KFC near our school. Seriously, I don’t like KFC that much in the states, but the banana splits at this KFC hit the spot every time…
• Enjoying the company of Amit’s family. After arriving back from an adventure in the Galapagos, they returned to treat us to Crepes and Waffles, one of my favorite restaurants here…I got to hear some amazing animal stories and we got to hear some interesting medical stories from Amit’s dad (definitely glad I’m not planning to be a doctor).
• Saying goodbye to the language school. Today, I finished my month of intensive language classes in Quito, which have flown by. I have loved getting to know the professors and other students there, and it reminds me how easily I get connected to people and places. I had the hardest time saying goodbyes to these people I’ve known for four weeks and only with my limited Spanish… I get too attached for sure. But it is amazing how every personality stands out here in some way, and there is something about every person at that school that I’ll remember…

(in the photo: all students and profs at amit's goodbye party). Other than these more newsworthy events, there isn’t too much to report (hoping more reflective stuff is to come). I’ve been searching for jobs for the summer while I still have internet, slowly and painfully learning guitar, taking Salsa lessons every so often, and reading a book about the Lost Boys of Sudan. I began packing this afternoon for the backpacking journey that begins tomorrow—we head to the Quilotoa Loop, a 3ish day hiking adventure around a crater with a beautiful green lake in it, surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes. I have loved my time here, and the Spanish was DEFINITELY essential. But I am ready to get out of the city and begin the next two months. I would love to hear from any and all of you. Thanks to any who have dropped me lines and sorry if I have been delayed responding. Love to you all.

The South American adventure begins...

Sorry it has taken me over two weeks to write. As usual, my emails/blogs are far too long. If you know the logistics of the trip or are not interested in anything but stories, skip the first half of this. I miss you all! Please let me know what is happening with you all. I’ll try to respond personally as best I can to emails especially…and the next post will be significantly shorter. I promise…
(picture of the group of travelers in the cloud forest my first weekend.
from left to right: Will, Me, Priyanka, Amit, Anita, Peter, Angella)

So after a week of frantic errands and fights with the insurance company, I took off at last in route to Quito! I arrived here Friday just over two weeks ago, and as I got off the plane, I realized I was trusting Amit (one of my closest college friends and roommates who has been doing 6 months of intensive language here) to meet me at the airport. In the midst of the craziness I had not written down an address or phone number for my host family or anybody I knew in Ecuador. I had no information at all. Luckily, as soon as I walked out of the plane, I could see Amit in a window waving emphatically…a wonderful greeting and comfort to begin my adventure…

Many of you may still be a bit confused by my travel plans a (I’m not totally clear).
I am spending three months total in South America—mainly backpacking from Quito eventually down to Santiago. The hope was that this would be quite the adventure: exploring one of the most beautiful parts of the world, spending lots of quality time with incredible friends, experiencing new cultures, reflecting on my life and future, and trying to learn some Spanish and guitar along the way. To give you a quick idea of the travel plan, I arrived in Quito, Ecuador on January 23 and settled into host family’s place (where Amit lives) after first being swept off for a weekend trip to a cloud forest. I started my four weeks of intensive Spanish classes the Monday after I arrived, because I decided that even though I have travel partners who speak Spanish, I was tired of traveling places without putting in the effort to communicate on terms other than my own. Although a month isn’t enough, it was at least a beginning…Near the end of February, I finish my month of classes, and Amit and I will start our two months of backpacking Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, with a week in the middle in which Jamie will be joining us back in Ecuador for some extra adventures.

I’ve waited for over two weeks to post because I’ve felt like it’s taken me a long time to get my bearings here. My time has already been full of wonderful adventures, but I was definitely not prepared, and have been extraordinarily lucky, as my opening story demonstrated, that I have been able to rely on my college friends here in Quito—Amit, Priyanka, Priyanka’s sister Anita, and more, to help get me acclimated to the city and language. Thankfully, they have all been extraordinarily patient and good-natured about everything, making the transition much easier than I could have possibly imagined. As I’ve already mentioned, this first month is much more structured than the rest will be. I’m living with Amit and his host family, going to intensive language school (one on one classes), exploring Quito and the surrounding area, and spending lots of time at Priyanka’s apartment (which is always full of people) this first month. These last weeks have already made for a very different international experience than I’ve ever had before. In the past, my travels have been focused on the specific history of an area and on work pertaining to my passions in conflict resolution or community development. Here in Ecuador, I am finally learning a language, staying healthy, and taking the time to explore the wonders of nature. Unlike my friends here, though, I have not yet gotten tied into volunteer work that fits my interests and gives me access to the stories and experiences that have really transformed my life these last years. Instead, I’ve been trying to get a sense of the basic language, culture, and history that I failed to really learn prior to the travels. And for now, I’m just enjoying the adventures…

Highlights of my first two weeks:
+Trip to a cloud forest the first weekend. A group of eight of us (college friends and a web of connections from there) traveled to Mindo, a beautiful village about two hours from Quito with lots of outdoor adventures. We spent Saturday zip-lining over incredible valleys/ravines and laughing at some of the absurd zip-lining positions and the great yells that accompanied them. We then hiked to a gorgeous waterfall, visited a house of butterflies, and went to—yes, I’m serious—a FROG concert. I imagined frogs in tuxedos croaking the chords of a xylophone when we first heard about this. It was instead, a simple but enjoyable nighttime nature walk to view tiny frogs and cockroaches the size of my shoes. On the trip, I also had my first churrasco, a healthy (ahem) Ecuadorian special of thin steak covered with fried eggs and served with French fries…yum.

+ Exploring Quito. It took me a while to find my way around and build up confidence in my limited Spanish, but this week, I spent several afternoons exploring the historic center and some of the famous Quito sites alone and with some of my friends. One day, I wandered along the cobblestone streets through the main plazas (plaza grande and plaza de San Francisco), enjoying an odd mix of sights and sounds: a couple playing accordion and guitar on the side of the road, dozens of men lining the plazas shoe-shining, women in indigenous clothing selling fruits, toddlers running around aimlessly, youth selling papers, and many tourists (mostly Ecuadorian on this particular day) making way to the many historic sites. I had some incredible coconut ice cream and learned all about the history of the most famous downtown churches—one built of 7 tons of 23-carot gold and filled with paintings of the prophets and of hell that took well over a hundred years to complete (beautiful architecturally but a disturbing history).
Another day, Anita and I made our way to the Panecillo and climbed a huge statue of the Virgin of Quito to look out over Quito. It’s amazing how little I know of this history, culture, landscape, everything really. But it was awesome to look out over everything, enjoy the breeze, and expand what little I knew of the city. We then went through a really unfamiliar and different area to end up at the Cemetery of San Diego, blocks and blocks of intricate tombs perched on the hill in the valley between all these volcanoes. The place had these stack tombs, floors high, that were then decorated at the ends. And the place was enormous, stretching in all directions farther than our eyes could see. Anita and I commented back and forth about the odd feeling and off-beat beauty of the place and the great contrasts with this enormous gray expanse crested into colorful neighborhoods and the mountainsides. And finally Friday, a group of us went to a world-wide orchid exhibition at Parque Itchimbia and enjoyed taking fun pictures and basking in the views from yet another hill looking over Quito (as the jumping picture shows here).


+ Language school: Although taking hours upon hours of one-on-one Spanish can be overwhelming, the professors are down to earth and interested in our lives; I get to spend breaks with Amit, Anita and other newfound friends; and we have hilarious presentations every Friday (singing solos in Spanish last week-- my songs were slow Andean songs WAY out of my range). I also get to spend hours working on my weakest areas of Spanish and discussing favorite subjects like religion, politics, feminism, and history. One of the most disturbing aspects has been hearing from my professor about machismo culture here in Ecuador. My professor talked extensively about how married men are only considered married when they are physically inside their houses, and that women are expected to accept that. We talked about the need for deep transformation but the overwhelming obstacles here, especially with the many isolated indigenous communities in Ecuador.

+ Papallacta: Last weekend, we took a day trip to the hot springs of Papallacta, and spent hours relaxing in the famous dozen or so hot springs. A wonderful way to follow an exhausting week of Spanish.

Daily Absurdities
- Basketball in Ecuador: a group of at least four Americans (called the gringos by the Ecuadorians we play with) have been playing basketball three times a week with Ecuadorians at one of the parks here in Quito. The basketball is interesting to say the least. The games go to whatever the guys playing decide, often to be extended by five points if the game is tied. Most of the guys call fouls on nearly every play, and they love to call traveling on us Americans for random things. The funniest thing, though, is trying to communicate without street Spanish, something that almost got me into a fight with a huge guy when I was trying to explain why I called a foul on him by demonstrating it on him. It was not easy to get out of that bind…And one of the guys, Walker, who plays with us tried to get a guy to stop holding him by saying, “NO PUEDES, NO PUEDES! (you can’t! you can’t!) AGH!”

- My salsa dancing: I’ve been going to weekly lessons and laughing at just how bad I am at dancing. But having fun nonetheless. My new name, given by my salsa teacher is “Utstent”. Amit is now calling me that on a regular basis.

-I was walking downtown when one of the buses came by with the horn to the tune of “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer”


More to come soon—an amazing 16 mile hike today to be discussed… until then, love to you all and sorry if this was painful to read…

"All we want is to be treated as humans."

So it has been about three weeks without update here in Israel and Palestine (now Palestine). I think because I am so far behind and there is an overwhelming amount to write about that I am just going to blog for my time here with the Christian Peacemaker Team, filling in some stories here and there and then going back at the end for my wonderful three weeks with the Bedouins and then with my dad traveling around.

As I lay down to sleep under the Bethlehem stars last night on my thin mattress on the rooftop of a house in the Deheisheh refugee camp (with four other CPTers surrounding me), I could not help but enjoy the cool breeze and the intense wedding drums and fireworks shooting off somewhere nearby. It was an experience of an odd blessing, a relief from the intense conversations of the day, a chance for digestion of the delicious Arab dinner of chicken and rice, and a moment of forgetting the daily struggle for the people sleeping only a floor below me. But only a brief moment. I could not escape the stories we had spent the day hearing of the refugee camp we were in—a camp started by families from 59 of the 531 Palestinian villages (12,000 residents) destroyed in the so-called “War of Independence.” The camp was only supposed to last a year or two—here, 60 years later it stands as a permanent residence (though the tents have changed to tightly knit houses) with not much apparent evidence of change. In fact, from the night rooftop view, one can see the ways in which the situation is growing continually worse—settlements rising in every direction, huge bypass roads on Palestinian land only able to be accessed by Israelis, and a 25 foot wall encircling Bethlehem and its nearby villages, cutting them off from their own land and from access to Israel. The firsthand stories were equally disturbing. The man who showed us around told of his administrative detention—prison without trial or charge and the ways in which that is now used to deny him all chances of permit or visa out of Palestine. He told of the increasing limited access that won’t allow most of his family to be present at his brother’s wedding in Gaza (his mom may be able to go if Israel will grant her a permit) and of the ways in which the camp used to be patrolled and put on lockdown for periods of weeks at a time. These stories were not new to those of us who have been traveling quite a bit, and indeed went along with the many statistics we had heard from human rights workers on both side of the separation wall.

A delegation of fifteen, a motley crowd of people old and young, have spent the first few days of the Christian Peacemaker Team delegation meeting with organizations—both Israeli and Palestinian—working for peace, taking alternative tours of Jerusalem and the surrounding suburbs and seeing firsthand the policies of Israel as they push into the West Bank, and discussing ways of nonviolence in the midst of the conflict. It has been extremely hard for me—all of this. I have been traveling for over three weeks here now, hearing stories, visiting organizations, working with Bedouins, delving into things with my dad who was here for two weeks. I have had the opportunity to see many of the things we are continuing to delve into here and have also had a chance to travel through Israel to the beaches, holy sites, and the desert climbs. I have had great times—soccer with the Bedouins, afternoons on the beach, Shabbat dinners with friendly Orthodox Jews, hikes with my dad, and wanderings through the markets (all things I will write about after this delegation). But then there has been the other side, that realization of the other reality: the experience of it at checkpoints as I watch Palestinian men give their handprints and show their permits after waiting hours in line just to go to work in Jerusalem, tearful stories of the crippling effects of the walls on Palestinian families, discriminating soldiers in the streets, destroyed villages once full of women and children, histories and memories. Not to mention multiple conversations with Israelis who say they just try not to think about it—for politics are politics and they can live their lives apart from it. It is more than overwhelming at this point. The stories and sights have piled up. And inside I struggle with what to do with it all, how to respond. It has been constant—the overload, the frustrations, the building resentment for the powers that allow this to happen. For us in America, who continue to expand our “security” regardless of the lives of those on the other side of our walls. Can we not learn from history? I have been trying hard to listen closely, to question everything, to hear as many stories from both sides of the wall. But with each day, I have more growing frustration toward policies of oppression and militarization on the part of Israel. And today, it continued to build more…

This morning after my night on the porch, the message was loud and clear: “your livelihoods aren’t even worth our shit.” We visited a Palestinian village (Ertoz?) near Bethlehem, a village with a fertile valley full of beautiful apricot trees that have helped support the livelihood of the families living there. These last years, the Israeli government has begun to build three settlements around the valley (settlements are suburb-like communities built illegally in West Bank territory), cutting the Palestinian village from some of their land. Then, construction for the wall (again on that land) began, and now, Israel is building a septic tank in the valley for the settlements, one that will clearly overflow with sewage, pouring into the part of the valley not already destroyed by the construction. Thus, this beautiful fertile land of apricots is being turned into a huge sewage dump—and all illegally. What is an interesting sidenote to mention, though, is that these policies are not the thinking of cruel Israeli settlers moving in; in fact, a majority of these bigger settlements are created by the Israeli government as suburbs of Jerusalem with LOTS of incentives—tax breaks, cheaper houses, great schools, easy access to the surrounding area and even nice walls to block their view of the neighboring villages and their new sewage lines (though there are the ideological and violent settlements, most of them are not near Jerusalem and are not widely accepted by Israel). The government (military could be inserted here), then, is trying to expand Israel well into the West Bank through these settlements that they don’t even refer to as such. Meanwhile, the fault of the Israeli settlers in these parts is mostly just their ignorance (at least that’s my perception) or their acceptance of Israel’s plan without having to see the realities of it because of the sick brilliance of the wall. Why not move to these beautiful communities that have been built on supposedly empty land? And thus the powers of Israel are able to push even further. Domination systems, anybody? A bit different from what our media shows us?

We walked there today as part of our peace action, joining locals and internationals for the weekly walk of protest to the tank on their land that they are no longer able to walk on. It was a sight to see: settlements up the hill, Israeli soldiers pointing their M16s at us from the road above, and this huge, ugly concrete tank already taking over some of the rich land. There was no confrontation today, thankfully. For the first time in two months, the local Palestinians were able to make it to the end of the valley and stand momentarily on their old land without hassles from the soldiers. But that was it, all we could do was be in solidarity for the walk. As we trudged back down the trail and into the village to load the bus for return, a little boy hung out of the balcony. “Thank you” he said with a broken smile.

In every place we have been there is still the mention of hope. Today, it was a man in the refugee camp who said, “Of course we have hope. We have nothing but hope.” May we all hope for a peace that allows us to break down these separation walls on our land and in our hearts—on all sides.

Tomorrow we head south to meet with Bedouins in the Negev before our journey to Hebron, the culmination of the trip. Sorry if this has seemed too slanted or depressing or boring. It is the first thing I have been able to write in days. I’ll include a mix of stories next time. Love you all!

soccer as always

(from an email a week ago, the update on the last week and a half to come soon!)
I thought India was impossible to write about, but I am finding that this experience will be just as difficult in so many ways. One day here and I feel like I have been through a month's worth of experiences. I spent yesterday morning at the ministry of the interior, trying to find out if it was a big deal that my passport has
no entry stamp, no visa, no proof of my being here. I waited in long
lines, got screamed at for no reason, wandered from one office to the next to be told it was my fault for wanting my stamp on a piece of paper and I would have to face the consequences. It was wild and frustrating, but I started to realize this was just one small frustration that many Palestinians and Jews have to deal with here all the time-- except that the Palestinian ministry of interior is an
overnight wait instead of a few hours...

In the afternoon we made our way (rabbi jeremy and I) into the Bedouin village in the Judea desert, right across where the wall is supposed to be built in the west bank. The story of this group of Bedouins, known as the Jahalin Bedouin is extremely tragic. In the early 1950's, they were displaced from their land in the Negev by the Israeli army, a land which they had herded livestock on for hundreds
and hundreds of years in peace. This group of 3000 bedouins were moved near Jerusalem, where they lived in the Palestinian side in the Judea desert for the next nearly fifty years. As one of the largest Jewish settlements (called Ma'ale Adumim) began to be built and extended into their area (this settlement is the reason that the wall is planned to extend well into the West Bank, incorporating even more palestinian territory into Israel), the Bedouins were again evicted from their homes and their land, told that they could only move into an area right next to the
largest garbage dump in the jerusalem area, an area called unfit to live in by environmental groups. After fighting it in court, they were forced onto this enclosed small land between this enormous jewish settlement and a garbage dump, only a few miles from their old land. Most can no longer herd livestock and practice their traditional lifestyles because of their tiny, unfit land, so now they are mostly working for Israeli's living in the settlement on the land that was
theirs. It was fascinating to hear these stories from the rabbi I am staying with who has been working with the bedouin for 13 years, especially a day after getting an earfull from a lady who told me that the bedouins are increasing desertification and are overpopulating and that the only way to fix it is to move them from the land and force them out of their traditional way of life. Well, I guess that is not
only her thinking...

We drove into the area as I began hearing these stories, and I could see the trash dump only hundreds of yards away on one side, sending a stench whenever the hot desert wind blew. on the other two sides were huge, wealthy jewish settlements. It was an odd feeling as we entered the village. Not trying to draw some intellectual
comparison, but honestly my first feeling was that this first village we visited felt just like the the poorest townships I visited last summer-- tiny shacks, maybe larger concrete ones for the rich, so close to a beautiful city but cut off from it in every real way. It was an odd first day to enter because just the day before the village had lost a 14 year old kid-- the child had been scavenging and been
killed by a garbage truck. As if there were not already enough struggles for this community... so Jeremy took me into one of the larger concrete houses with around 20 men sitting around on small mattresses on the dirt floor, the air blowing into the openings, windows without the windows. They were in their second day of mourning (the entire community spends three days in mourning with the family), and sat around together drinking tea and coffee, talking some and sitting some in silence. We
sat with them, and of course I wished more than anything I had known some consoling words in Arabic. but words would not have been able to do it justice.

Jeremy and I left after a time, shaking the hands of the father and grandfather, me nodding my head hoping that it would somehow translate. Then we headed towards another village just a little ways away to give them space and see if we could hook up with kids in another area. We grabbed some incredible humus on the way and made up with a man named Younis, who helped organize a soccer game with the kids for me to play right outside of his shack on the the rocky desert hills overlooking mountainous jordan in the distance, the settlement in the foreground. Jeremy dropped me off and told me to get back to his house by bus. I didn't know what I was doing, but I decided I might as well loosen up and play some soccer. We played a small game of five v five in the desert heat, mostly younger kids but a few my
age as well, dribbling the rocky sand, pouring water over our heads, and clapping in celebration of goals here or there. It was an odd feeling-- for moments, i got so caught up in the smiles, the faces the kids made back at me for my crazy faces, the competitiveness of the game and enjoyment of the company that I could even forget the jewish settlement looming in the background and the fact that this particular
village would soon be forced to join the other a few miles closer to the garbage dump. Ah, it was great to play soccer, but I sure do wish I could do more, take part in more than enjoying their hospitality, just as great as that of the rural villages in India and the wonderful women of sweethome farm south africa I would visit last summer.

I found my way back and took palestinian transportation into
jerusalem, an experience most israelis have never taken part in and
oddly so for its convenience and price. I experienced my first
security check and my passport got a nod much more easily than the id
cards around me. Then came another adventure-- wandering aimlessly
through the old city of jerusalem, weaving through the colorful
markets, not that different from the many Indian markets we explored only days before. I found the via dolorosa somehow, explored the church of the holy sepulchre for a few minutes, though plan on going back for a much more significant amount of time, and then wandered back for an hour walk to jeremy's place, south of the
city down a beautiful road with old arabic houses lining the roads (though ones Israelis now live in).

After that, I went with Jeremy to visit 43 Sudanese refugees who are camping out right outside of the government building here-- the knesset. It is a fascinating thing-- these refugees, from all over sudan wandered through egypt and eventually into israel illegally, hoping to find refuge here. Now all these human rights
groups are standing up for them and raising all kinds of stuff about them, thus currently they have a camping spot in the park on government property, fully visible to the government workers. For a while it seemed they would relocate them to the negev, where the bedouins were originally from (ironic), but now they are thinking
about putting them near to the border completely isolated and eventually possibly to be deported back to egypt, where they fled torture and persecution.
This group of sudanese were extremely welcoming, and I enjoyed playing with the kids and talking with some of the volunteers, a few of which are from America and have worked with STAND. It is funny that my Sudan knowledge would come in handy here-- I am just about to head over and tell the volunteers about the different conflicts in the area to give them some background. It was really interesting though, thinking about the way that Israel is struggling with whether or not to be a haven for this
refugees (hopefully it will decide to and come through), yet there are well over two million palestinian refugees who have no such hopes. I kept thinking of America-- of our country being a haven for certain groups of international refugees (albeit very particularly and stereotypically) over the years yet never
recognizing the displacement of the native americans. I know this all sounds
pretty critical of israel, but these are really just gut feelings from
my experiences yesterday, firsthand stuff that I haven't really fully
processed. I certainly think israel is great for trying to figure out
how to welcome the sudanese. I just think it is ironic how we
powerhouses respond so differently to different groups of people.

I then ended the night in a bizarre way, joining
greer (family friend) with her friends from hebrew university to go downtown and
celebrate her birthday. I got to catch up some with her but more than
that have some fascinating conversations, first with an American who
has been here a few months living in a Jewish settlement and is about
to be a soldier here. He says he is a die-hard zionist, and spent a
long time telling me all kinds of arab conspiracies and how the jews
would move out of the settlement areas immediately if they knew it
would mean peace. he then went on to talk about hamas being the
problem in every way-- saying the corruption in hamas and palestinian
leaders was the reason the problems had persisted so long and the
reason for the suffering of the palestinians. I mainly just listened,
really interested from his experiences in Hebron, where he admitted
terrible things were happening but also said that when soldiers have
rocks thrown at them, it is understandable to beat the shit out of
people. we talked a lot about terrorism, and it was so interesting to
hear his views and fears of palestinians, some of whom I had spent the
afternoon with drinking tea and coffee and riding a bus around the
city. the divide here is so insane; greer said at the university,
most of her friends who live here in israel don't even believe people
like Chacour's stories of displacement-- they think it is all made up.
It is so hard to figure out what is happening here because all the
people we were with last night talked of how scewed the media all over
the world is towards the palestinians and how it portrays israelis as
the evil ones. It just seems like people are so hurt inside, that
dignity on all sides has been so injured over the course of years that
the other is not even noticed anymore. maybe it is that people can't
recognize the humanity because their own has been injured far too
much. oppression has been internalized over years on all sides to such an extent that it is almost impossible to talk about their even being a different narrative, another part of the story.

But then a met josh, a bartender who talked to me for a good
while about so many refreshing things-- his views on the call for
justice in the scriptures, his struggles to challenge other Jews to
remember the call toward the oppressed. He is about to join in an
interfaith effort for peace and go to rabbinical school, so we discussed our similarities and he invited me to shabbat with his friends tomorrow, a week before he heads off to rabbinical school in america.

Anywho, that is a way drawn out version of my experiences
yesterday. today has been much more quiet, except that I caught a
palestinian bus that heads to bethlehem to get dropped off south of
jerusalem and watched as the bus got pulled over randomly so everybody
could get their id checked, except me who they didn't worry about.
Meanwhile, they pulled off one man for not having his id with him,
harrassed another for talking back. It is the first time I have
experienced this kind of discrimination before-- with id cards and
security like crazy. it is disturbing, shocking. And more than that,
frightening to me when I experienced it; even though I knew I would be
fine, I still shook when those soldiers walked on the bus. I thought
of the stories of the demeaning pass cards in South Africa, the id's
in Germany-- the way that Tutu always said it was the little things
that hurt most. Watching the demeaning and discriminatory process, I
could only wonder how much pain must be inside of the Israeli soldiers
to be able to carry out something that was so demeaning to many of
their own histories.

I think the only thing that really helped today is that I found this random beautiful church that was empty and spent almost an hour in prayer and
reflection to start my day, one of the advantages to a place like
this. Truly, with all that I am seeing and experiencing, I am finding
that I have to have plenty of time to remember that I am loved, that
there must also be peace in me. I am also realizing how much of the
pain I am internalizing, how angering it can be to me and how bitter I
can get. All of it needs to be a part of prayer, but it sure is hard
to get it out sometimes. honesty with myself is not easy when there
is one thing after another affecting me.

Anywho, but the last part is also refreshing. I spent tonight back
with the Sudanese, organizing a soccer game with all the men in the
camp after we played some volleyball and juggled a bit. We had a
great game out on the slopes of the park-- Israelis, Sudanese, and me.

Again, with my lack of language, soccer becomes my mode of
communication. And tonight, it was quite a way to connect...

the last of India-- in the Himalayas!

Here is a wrapup of our last week in India with a few reflections at the end.

After almost three extremely intense weeks in Jagdeeshpur, we flew back to Delhi for a last week of travel and adventure, hoping to process but also to let loose some...


Highlights from the trip:
-Visited the Taj Mahal-- albeit packed with tourists (though mostly Indian ones), the Taj was beyond words. I had been a bit skeptical of it all, but was stunned by the symmetry, lighting, reflections, patterns, and exquisite carvings. It was one of those things I thought wouldn't be much different from the gorgeous pictures-- but was I ever wrong on that. We travelled with two californians we had met at the hotel (one had been outside delhi for 10 months writing a biography on an incredible woman) and spent our time goofing off, taking leaping pictures, discussing our experiences in India, watching the light change, exploring the carvings, chilling in the grass waiting for the sunset and fighting off people wanting to take our pictures (never had people so interested in posing with us). Jamie even had one couple come up and say, "take our baby" because they wanted her in a picture with their baby. We also took a picture with these random guys who we later were driving next to. They laughingly held the picture of us out the window. absurd.
though the story behind the taj could be another rant, I will leave it at the wonderful day we had travelling together, especially because that certainly best represents the day :-)


-- spent the night at an ashram, a peaceful community in Haridwar, a city on the Ganges north of Delhi. We spent the day winding through the markets and riding a cable car to a Hindu temple, then enjoyed the thousands gathered at the Ganges for the night ceremony sending colorful offerings into the Ganges-- Jamie and John joined . We also had a morning of yoga in an incredible yoga hall, starting our day panting like dogs (one of the exercises our instructor repeated again and again, probably so he could laugh at us)

-travelled to the hill town of Mussourie, about 7000 feet up in the Himalayas. We had a family from Punjab share a taxi with us on the way up and enjoyed the singing of their two little daughters as we drove the winding road up the mountains. We journeyed to a beautiful Buddhist temple in Happy Valley, shared conversations with an extremely intelligent couple from Punjab about the failings of American society and lack of our citizens' knowledge of the world (on top of a hotel balcony looking into the valleys below), ate lots of Tibetan food, explored the markets, and made an early morning hike to the highest point in the area, within view of some of the 20,000+ foot peaks. I LOVE THE MOUNTAINS, and it was wonderfully refreshing to have the cool air and relaxing time to close out our intense trip.

Funny stories from our time in Haridwar and Mussourie:
-met up randomly with this French guy who ended up tagging along for a day
-John had his face stroked on the streets of Mussourie by curious males
-Jamie got a meow on the streets of Delhi
-we saw three people in Mussourie we had met before, one of which who was a fascinating English woman who has travelled literally all over the world and liked to say, "wanker!"
-we went on a mission to find food at 1 am in Delhi and ended up at this ritzy and disgustingly overdone hotel coffee shop (only place we could find open) with VELVET carpets and waiters in denim suits
many more to tell...

and now for a few reflections...sorry this is so broken up, but it is the easiest way not to drag on for hours.
- The Buddhist monastary felt peaceful and free of the caste ridden India we had experienced. I kept wondering though, especially when a monk pulled out a wad of cash, if it was not similar to the experience we had in the rural area, that those who talked about being no caste, those places where it seemed to be devoid of caste and peacefully equal were simply places that were privileged enough to separate themselves. This may not have been as true of the monks, especially as many nowadays are not the most privileged, but it just reminded me of our time with Brishop, the old, welcoming man who told us of the new India without caste, who we were so taken by (and still are) but later learned that he was of the highest caste in the area, able to say that because he was not struggling to get by every day. THis is all not unlike racism in the US it seems, in the way that most of the privileged are the ones who can comfortably and even honestly (in their limited experience) deny that racism exists.

-speaking of privilege, I struggled more with my privilege on this trip to India than ever before, yet I still embarrasingly got drawn into using it at times: to stay in a nice hotel in the Himalayas, eat at that ritzy coffee shop in our dirty clothes (only allowed in because we were white-- our casual clothes were way out of place), to get put into separate lines at the airport (grant it, we tried to fight this one). I kept thinking that it was ok to half splurge the last few days, to relax since we had lived so simply. But I still could not rid myself of the thoughts that in the one night at a nice hotel, we were each spending two months worth of our maid in the rural area's salary for a MONTH (10 dollars a month), or that on my trip this summer, I am spending enough to provide food and shelter for the 28 orphans in Jagdeeshpur for almost 5 YEARS! Is this, as I once heard it claimed, the same as choosing a nice room for one night over providing a month for the orphans? Sure, I can excuse myself by saying I live simply, give pretty generously, and rarely buy things. But does that really allow me to clear my conscience over decisions that pick material over humans, sitars over beggars, mountain views over hospital equipment? My life must change, but I also know I can't live torturing myself. THe guilt doesn't help, but I still can't excuse it. I can do something. I can give up a ton. I can use my life, my resources, my knowledge, love, ability to listen, and more in order to at least be a part of change, however far fetched and idealistic it may seem. I am not willing to let things just be "the way things are". Though it certainly would be paternalistic to think I can go in and help bring about change, I don't think there is something wrong with being willing to make sacrifices, to make changes, to spend time and energy and spirit to help transform some small part of the suffering we experienced in Jagdeesphur, saw out of the train of Delhi, and ignore all the time in America.



I have been reading Mountains Beyond Mountains and found the section criticizing white liberals extremely powerful. Paul Farmer talks about how lots of people always talk about the poor as being happy so that they don't have to do anything about it, give anything up or change their lifestyles. This trip was yet another trip in which my idea of romanticizing the poor was turned on its head. It is not joyous to be starving. It does not feel good to have curable illnesses become life-ending diseases because of a lack of health facilities, or to have infections last years and lead to amputations. It is not pleasant to watch kids wish for a better tomorrow and women work in an overwhelmingly oppressive system. Yes, the hospitality is remarkable, the community is a model for us who have gotten so caught up in our affluence, but that doesn't allow us to excuse the fact that we must be a part of a change for the situations of oppression that leave these children without the proper resources to live. We can't live comfortably in a world in which so many are suffering because of our excess!

Anyway, I will end my rant there, more for my own sake than for the one or two of you who have made it this far (mom and dad). This trip opened my eyes to a lot that I haven't ignored but have certainly let sit uncomfortably without impact. One I will have to discuss in depth is the oppression of women, not just in India, but simply the ways it opened my eyes to it, the ways I have been ignoring it and even adding to it in my ignorance. More to come from Israel and Palestine!

leaving Jagdeeshpur, not quite as intense

Driving down the jarring road dodging trucks, an enormous cobra, and hundreds of annoying cows, we said goodbye to the Chhattisgarhi countryside through breathfulls of dust and exhaust. It has been a remarkable time these last few weeks-- much harder to say goodbye than I expected. The orphanage was definitely the hardest for all three of us, our last week filled with evenings of teaching red rover and tag, learning the wonderful game of kabadi (i'll have to teach it back home), bonding with the kids through hugs and smiles and lots of "deedee!" and "baya, baya" (sister and brother, as we were called hundreds of times a day). These 28 kids were some of the most remarkable I have ever met. I'll never forget their smiles, warm daily reception, jumping on us and chasing us, laughing, teaching the younger ones, caring for one another, playing with monkeys, even clothes lining each other in red rover and shaking it off without a fight... I wish I could make sure each of these kids gets the attention he/she needs, especially one of my favorites Sunny, a four year old boy whose smile stretches across his face but is never without a mischievious look in his eyes as he plays some trick on a kid twice his size.

It is impossible to sum up our time in Jagdeeshpur-- our exploratory bikerides to villages and the mountain in the distance through monsoons, intense hospital experiences (I witnessed my first surgeries, all quite disturbing-- an enormous kidney stone, a hernie the size of a nerf football that the kid had for 17 years! and a C-section-- interesting to see something incredible come out of such a disturbing surgery), games with the orphans, long conversations over hot chai and fresh mango, crazy monsoons and beautiful countrysides, touching and disturbing stories...I struggled for a moment the other day trying to figure out if this fit into my original idea for the summer. I got to the conclusion that I wasn't sure but it didn't matter, for I was meant to be in this place, to experience the more quiet and structural conflicts and a poverty we must fight as humans. Not to mention one of the simultaniously best times of my life with John and Jamie, who have been incredible throughout.

Other quick stories from our trip:
-church was an experience. one guy who sang a solo was wearing a shirt that said "best wishes, from me to you" with a HUGE middle finger in the center. We held back laughter as we tried to figure out whether or not he knew what it meant. Soon after, we heard a two hour sermon, partly translated, about putting on our "love shoes" and keeping our belt of god to hold our pants up. Interesting...

-high fives and crazy faces work wonders with kids universally. thank god I can wiggle my ears as I can. it provided endless and idiotic entertainment

-I have never been so thankful for coke (or should I say THUMS UP, as it is called)and sprite. always refreshing on a hot day in rural india

-bucket showers are the way to go. we should mimic them in the us-- a great experience and a lot less water used...

-I have no interest in scorpions but one of the nurses supposedly collected them for a while, giving them names from the Matrix...

-we ate samosas with joe and sima and their kids one night in town. In the middle of our snack, a cow walked right in front of our table, did his business and joe added, "bon appetite!" to the pleasant view

-and last but not least, village life is quite funny sometimes. we met a man in the village who said he had heard from Basna (a town a ways away that we visited one saturday) that three white people had bought mangos and taken pictures in the town a few days ago. I was amused.

Do things have to be 'just the way things are'?

(this is for my time in India two weeks ago-- the israel/palestine update coming soon after)




from June 21 (sounds very similar to last post, but representative of ongoing feelings that first two weeks):
I just watched the most gorgeous sunset over the hill in the distance here in Jagdeeshpur, the muddy soccer field in the foreground with kids playing and uber privileged cows providing natural defense (walking through the games) just a few hours after the daily monsoon here. It is an odd sensation, looking at the natural beauty amidst internal struggle. Today may have been the most things have smacked me in the face. We made our way into one of the villages just a few miles from Jagdeeshpur. Words don't do justice to the pangs of this experience. Our few phrases of Hindi and blood pressure equipment were pretty useless with the floods of people with strokes, serious diseases, injuries of two years or more, even cerebral palsy. Even Dr. Joe could just ask them to visit the hospital as he handed them a few vitamins or simple medication he had brought along for this community health outreach.

We medicate for everything in the states and here were people who have absolutely nothing for serious injuries and illnesses I cannot even fathom. EVERY KID but one we measured the arm of was malnourished. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN? ANd I sat there overwhelmed wondering how I could drive in and out and not shut down, angry because I have nothing-- no way to help, no skill to offer. How can one talk of peace when people cannot feed their children, when the only crops of the year go bad, when people get sick and have no access to help? Where is the world? WHere are we who enjoy the luxuries of three large meals a day, sweets, electricity, clean water, transportation, health care, education. What happens to these children? How many will live beyond their youth? Will anything change for them? Are they simply to be forgotten by those of us who can put up our walls of separation and shade our eyes from the extents of poverty?

I keep thinking, "where is God?". Though I feel God's presence so strongly in the smiles, the insane hospitality, the graciousness of the people here. But what about in their daily lives of grind work, isolation, debilitating caste, sickness, even starvation? It is such a paradox. Why is it that those who have so little are more giving, more gracious, more loving and hospitable than those of us who have our lives filled with material?

Sensory overload. Women's shadows reflecting in the flooded rice fields, kids hopping patties and bathing in the water, families gathered for a meal, wide-eyed children smiling as we ride by on bikes-- love in the midst of so little. BUT SO MUCH SUFFERING-- and they just continue, day after day, generation after generation. Nothing has changed in hundreds of years.

I ache to know answers yet can't even figure out the questions. I desire to be real but don't know what that would mean right now. The stirrings aren't the comfortable kind, not the great realizations where I feel I can sleep well for at least I had some great thought of the day. Instead, I ache. Where is my faith? What does faith mean here?

Religious jargon means nothing here to me-- how can we debate petty scriptures when the most serious call for justice and an end to oppression of the poor is so rampant? What is justice when government schools are corrupt, leaving no hope of education? When every child in a village looks through starving eyes? WHen people live with the most serious TREATABLE illnesses for years, wasting away, having body parts amputated because they can't refrigerate insulin for their diabetes? When 28 orphans who can live off of 80$ a month ALL TOGETHER are struggling to get by?

Can we talk about peace when many don't even see the conflict our affluent lives are causing? When we seem so far from the starting point of change? When even the dogs howl of starvation and the land begs for rain?

I don't know what all this means. I feel lost, dried up, desensitized, hardened, angered, confused...


Walking past the orphanage and then the village of Jagdeeshpur, Kavya-- Joe and Sima's 5 year old-- asked her mother, "why are things always 'just the way things are'?" SHe continued, "Do things have to be 'just the way things are'?" I wonder if we are beginning to internalize that, to believe we are fighting as if already defeated on every front. It seems quite opposite of the hope that moves us forward. But the more we leave unjust structures in place with the comment of "that's the way things are" the more they will become internalized until not even seen as unjust chains but as our shelter and foundation...

dodging potholes, playing with monkeys, and seeing the most extreme poverty...

I have been trying to write for days now and have not been able to
figure out where to begin or how to make an email anywhere near
sufficient for the experiences here in Jagdeespur (in rural, central
india) thus far. I keep trying to put my experiences into some kind
of theme or category, but nothing seems to fit. So, be
forewarned—this email will be long, and I certainly understand if you
don't want to read it or just get through this part. Just know that
things are shaking me up in every which way and I miss all of you more
than you know.

I talked in my last long email of the extremes of Delhi and my
struggles dealing with them. The experience here has been different
in a wonderful way but also extreme in a way I could never before have
imagined…

-John, Jamie and I have shadowed Joe and Sima (our two doctor friends
from Memphis) for rounds in the hospital. The first experience of
the hospital was completely overwhelming for me, to the extent that I
had to walk out of the ward at least three or four times to regain
composure. We met a girl smiling at us through serious hepatitis,
another with an abscess the size of a tennis ball, boys grimacing
through fractures without any good pain medication, men and women with
tb, malaria, and worse—a handful of people who have been part of a
recent problem throughout the neighboring villages of drinking
pesticide in attempted suicide. The poison shuts down half of the
nervous system and can lead to respiratory failure. joe and sima have
watched multiple deaths in the last few weeks as people from all over
have begun to try different methods, most pesticide but some even
gulping caustic soda which burns all the way down, ruining hopes of
swallowing even if people survive. I was overwhelmed, at a loss
seeing people in such pain and seeing the hospital facilities—beds
crowded into the ward, a lab that would not make it in a classroom at
a college, and ONLY 4 doctors to run the hospital which treats
villages all around here. And what could we do but talk to people
through a translator, smile back at children in the beds, comfort
family members, wish we had more to offer…

-we have spent mornings this week riding bikes into neighboring
villages with a girl named rena who works on some of the community
health projects and translates for the doctors. John and I get to
ride these hilarious single geared bikes (Jamie rides on the back of
rena's motorbike) with chains that pop off every five seconds. We
weave down the pot holed roads, dodging cattle and honking trucks,
looking out over the beautiful countryside, and laughing as we ring
our wimpy bells at staring storeowners on the sides of the road.
There is NO experience like it in America.

We have been going to the villages to get to try to find out anything
we can, especially for Joe and Sima as they try to find out about the
recent rise of suicide attempts and wonder what is happening
differently in villages. We have had some fascinating conversations
with the most welcoming people, most of whom tell us there have never
been foreigners in their villages before but invite us into their tiny
mud shacks for chai and odd fruits. The same problems are everywhere
here—people only able to get food if they can find work or if the crop
is good, hoping that the rain will come soon (monsoon just came a few
days ago); people who have sicknesses and injuries months old but
can't get to the hospital or believe that some local healer's saline
injections will heal their child's measles; laborers destroyed by a
caste system that is so ingrained that they don't even think of it as
an injustice despite the fact that they are starving, working day in
and day out for a few hundred rupees a month (less than ten dollars a
month often around here). Women who can't talk if a man is around.
Even if they are at the hospital suffering, a man must speak for them.
The women here do everything—make food, fix the homes, work in the
fields, take care of the children; yet, they get no credit for it. It
is so hard to try to be respectful of culture when certain parts seem
so obviously wrong to me. Anyway, there is so much more from the
village visits, but there are also many barriers—language, time,
comfort. We go in and ask questions and answer questions but again it
seems like we are but tourists of their villages, coming to find some
answers without giving anything in return but some candy or a blood
pressure test.

We have afternoons playing cricket and Frisbee with kids at the
orphanage down the street, laughing as they throw rocks at monkeys in
the trees who return the favor with berries aimed for their heads.
The kids are incredible-- smiling, laughing, hugging us. They have so
little yet take such good care of one another, seem so happy just with
our few hours of hanging out. And their creativity amazes me; what
kids can do when they don't have video games to keep them from the
outside!

We have stopped by gardens on our bikerides and been given fresh
vegetables, with the gardener refusing to take our money, saying he
was so happy to have us visit. Hospitality in all of these places
that blows my mind, people wanting to share their best with us when
they have so little. And I feel guilty for not having great gifts
back, for knowing that they are sharing knowing they may never get
anything in return but our smiles and a look at the picture we have
taken (they love pictures here—the easiest way to connect is to pull
out a camera and show them their pictures).

John, Jamie and I have had incredible conversations with Joe and Sima
about caste, religion, cultural barriers, struggles to sustain life
here and to have hope.

I themed this summer an exploration of peacework and thought it would
be difficult to connect this part of the trip with my time in more
obvious peace-work in Israel and Palestine. There was a Buddhist
declaration I read right before I left the states that talked about
the greatest barriers to world peace, claiming that oppression of
women, economic disparity and extreme poverty, and racism were the top
three greatest barriers to peace in this world. Here, there may be
no war or newsworthy conflict, but the barriers to peace are some of
the greatest I have ever experienced: the structures of hierarchy of
the caste system so rampant in the rural areas here, the oppression of
women, the corruption of government that has no legitimate schools or
health clinics in this area and sends politicians to hand out sandals
for votes.

In some ways, Jagdeeshpur seems most in need of the "peacemakers" who
can fight the structures from within. I have witnessed some—Joe and
Sima combating the plague of health problems, the pastor who took in
twenty five orphans down the street, women gathering to start a soap
making business together, the families who have welcomed us into their
homes with such graciousness. But where are those who can help
overturn caste and gender barriers, rural neglect? It must start
somewhere but how here when it seems like such an ocean of
overwhelming problems. Joe says he feels like he is trying to throw
starfish back in the water but there is no foundation to keep them
from being thrown back on the beach to dry up.

I was thinking the other day that something like the millennium
village approach—something that addresses extreme poverty from a
number of directions simultaneously would be needed. But I don't know
how it would work when there is such a resistence to change here, when
things have been the same way for hundreds of years. Women still have
home births because of tradition despite the huge amounts of deaths
because of them. It is so hard to see change…

I have been reading a book called the spirituality of imperfection,
and one of its first main sections is on our need to be emptied, to
surrender our control. I don't feel like I have had much of a choice
here. Things feel out of control but I have still having trouble
seeing why that is a good thing at the moment.

But don't get me wrong, moments of blessing and great hope abound—the
sun setting over the beautiful mountains in the distance with kids
running happily on the soccer field, children exchanging fire with
monkeys, people offering us hospitality and community that we don't
see where people have more than enough.

What does this mean for us back in the states, where certain parts of
life aren't in question, where we don't have to worry where our next
month's worth of meals will come from if the rain is too late, where
we have medicines to keep us from feeling headaches much less
abscesses the size of tennis balls? It seems so wrong to me when I
hear people tell stories of their extreme poverty while eating their
food out of respect for a gift, wondering why I was born with access
to resources while they are struggling to get by, crying out because I
want to do something, anything, yet can't even seem to collect my few
words of hindi for a proper thanks, realizing that there is a god who
is above all of this but wondering why these serious problems remain
untouched by those of us who have resources to make change. Are we
not in ways just as guilty as the man building a billion dollar
mansion in Mumbai just miles from some of the greatest poverty in the
world? A whole village that we visited did not own a single car, no
running water, no electricity; my family owns three cars. What does
this say? How can we change? How can these experiences reach a core
for me? What does it all mean?

The saying, "live simply that others may simply live" strikes a cord
here. Yet still I know there has to be something more, something to
move the whole structure. It isn't just here in rural India, but
everywhere.

Wow, that ramble was far too long. I have another entry I will paste
soon on my blog, so please check it at your convenience. I love you
and am about to return to playing with kids and monkeys…

dodging potholes, playing with monkeys, and seeing the most extreme poverty...

I have been trying to write for days now and have not been able to
figure out where to begin or how to make an email anywhere near
sufficient for the experiences here in Jagdeespur (in rural, central
india) thus far. I keep trying to put my experiences into some kind
of theme or category, but nothing seems to fit. So, be
forewarned—this email will be long, and I certainly understand if you
don't want to read it or just get through this part. Just know that
things are shaking me up in every which way and I miss all of you more
than you know.

I talked in my last long email of the extremes of Delhi and my
struggles dealing with them. The experience here has been different
in a wonderful way but also extreme in a way I could never before have
imagined…

-John, Jamie and I have shadowed Joe and Sima (our two doctor friends
from Memphis) for rounds in the hospital. The first experience of
the hospital was completely overwhelming for me, to the extent that I
had to walk out of the ward at least three or four times to regain
composure. We met a girl smiling at us through serious hepatitis,
another with an abscess the size of a tennis ball, boys grimacing
through fractures without any good pain medication, men and women with
tb, malaria, and worse—a handful of people who have been part of a
recent problem throughout the neighboring villages of drinking
pesticide in attempted suicide. The poison shuts down half of the
nervous system and can lead to respiratory failure. joe and sima have
watched multiple deaths in the last few weeks as people from all over
have begun to try different methods, most pesticide but some even
gulping caustic soda which burns all the way down, ruining hopes of
swallowing even if people survive. I was overwhelmed, at a loss
seeing people in such pain and seeing the hospital facilities—beds
crowded into the ward, a lab that would not make it in a classroom at
a college, and ONLY 4 doctors to run the hospital which treats
villages all around here. And what could we do but talk to people
through a translator, smile back at children in the beds, comfort
family members, wish we had more to offer…

-we have spent mornings this week riding bikes into neighboring
villages with a girl named rena who works on some of the community
health projects and translates for the doctors. John and I get to
ride these hilarious single geared bikes (Jamie rides on the back of
rena's motorbike) with chains that pop off every five seconds. We
weave down the pot holed roads, dodging cattle and honking trucks,
looking out over the beautiful countryside, and laughing as we ring
our wimpy bells at staring storeowners on the sides of the road.
There is NO experience like it in America.

We have been going to the villages to get to try to find out anything
we can, especially for Joe and Sima as they try to find out about the
recent rise of suicide attempts and wonder what is happening
differently in villages. We have had some fascinating conversations
with the most welcoming people, most of whom tell us there have never
been foreigners in their villages before but invite us into their tiny
mud shacks for chai and odd fruits. The same problems are everywhere
here—people only able to get food if they can find work or if the crop
is good, hoping that the rain will come soon (monsoon just came a few
days ago); people who have sicknesses and injuries months old but
can't get to the hospital or believe that some local healer's saline
injections will heal their child's measles; laborers destroyed by a
caste system that is so ingrained that they don't even think of it as
an injustice despite the fact that they are starving, working day in
and day out for a few hundred rupees a month (less than ten dollars a
month often around here). Women who can't talk if a man is around.
Even if they are at the hospital suffering, a man must speak for them.
The women here do everything—make food, fix the homes, work in the
fields, take care of the children; yet, they get no credit for it. It
is so hard to try to be respectful of culture when certain parts seem
so obviously wrong to me. Anyway, there is so much more from the
village visits, but there are also many barriers—language, time,
comfort. We go in and ask questions and answer questions but again it
seems like we are but tourists of their villages, coming to find some
answers without giving anything in return but some candy or a blood
pressure test.

We have afternoons playing cricket and Frisbee with kids at the
orphanage down the street, laughing as they throw rocks at monkeys in
the trees who return the favor with berries aimed for their heads.
The kids are incredible-- smiling, laughing, hugging us. They have so
little yet take such good care of one another, seem so happy just with
our few hours of hanging out. And their creativity amazes me; what
kids can do when they don't have video games to keep them from the
outside!

We have stopped by gardens on our bikerides and been given fresh
vegetables, with the gardener refusing to take our money, saying he
was so happy to have us visit. Hospitality in all of these places
that blows my mind, people wanting to share their best with us when
they have so little. And I feel guilty for not having great gifts
back, for knowing that they are sharing knowing they may never get
anything in return but our smiles and a look at the picture we have
taken (they love pictures here—the easiest way to connect is to pull
out a camera and show them their pictures).

John, Jamie and I have had incredible conversations with Joe and Sima
about caste, religion, cultural barriers, struggles to sustain life
here and to have hope.

I themed this summer an exploration of peacework and thought it would
be difficult to connect this part of the trip with my time in more
obvious peace-work in Israel and Palestine. There was a Buddhist
declaration I read right before I left the states that talked about
the greatest barriers to world peace, claiming that oppression of
women, economic disparity and extreme poverty, and racism were the top
three greatest barriers to peace in this world. Here, there may be
no war or newsworthy conflict, but the barriers to peace are some of
the greatest I have ever experienced: the structures of hierarchy of
the caste system so rampant in the rural areas here, the oppression of
women, the corruption of government that has no legitimate schools or
health clinics in this area and sends politicians to hand out sandals
for votes.

In some ways, Jagdeeshpur seems most in need of the "peacemakers" who
can fight the structures from within. I have witnessed some—Joe and
Sima combating the plague of health problems, the pastor who took in
twenty five orphans down the street, women gathering to start a soap
making business together, the families who have welcomed us into their
homes with such graciousness. But where are those who can help
overturn caste and gender barriers, rural neglect? It must start
somewhere but how here when it seems like such an ocean of
overwhelming problems. Joe says he feels like he is trying to throw
starfish back in the water but there is no foundation to keep them
from being thrown back on the beach to dry up.

I was thinking the other day that something like the millennium
village approach—something that addresses extreme poverty from a
number of directions simultaneously would be needed. But I don't know
how it would work when there is such a resistence to change here, when
things have been the same way for hundreds of years. Women still have
home births because of tradition despite the huge amounts of deaths
because of them. It is so hard to see change…

I have been reading a book called the spirituality of imperfection,
and one of its first main sections is on our need to be emptied, to
surrender our control. I don't feel like I have had much of a choice
here. Things feel out of control but I have still having trouble
seeing why that is a good thing at the moment.

But don't get me wrong, moments of blessing and great hope abound—the
sun setting over the beautiful mountains in the distance with kids
running happily on the soccer field, children exchanging fire with
monkeys, people offering us hospitality and community that we don't
see where people have more than enough.

What does this mean for us back in the states, where certain parts of
life aren't in question, where we don't have to worry where our next
month's worth of meals will come from if the rain is too late, where
we have medicines to keep us from feeling headaches much less
abscesses the size of tennis balls? It seems so wrong to me when I
hear people tell stories of their extreme poverty while eating their
food out of respect for a gift, wondering why I was born with access
to resources while they are struggling to get by, crying out because I
want to do something, anything, yet can't even seem to collect my few
words of hindi for a proper thanks, realizing that there is a god who
is above all of this but wondering why these serious problems remain
untouched by those of us who have resources to make change. Are we
not in ways just as guilty as the man building a billion dollar
mansion in Mumbai just miles from some of the greatest poverty in the
world? A whole village that we visited did not own a single car, no
running water, no electricity; my family owns three cars. What does
this say? How can we change? How can these experiences reach a core
for me? What does it all mean?

The saying, "live simply that others may simply live" strikes a cord
here. Yet still I know there has to be something more, something to
move the whole structure. It isn't just here in rural India, but
everywhere.

Wow, that ramble was far too long. I have another entry I will paste
soon on my blog, so please check it at your convenience. I love you
and am about to return to playing with kids and monkeys…

in a year, I did learn to spell awful...but things in jagdeeshpur have been quite the opposite

sorry it has been quite a number of days since my last update, but my internet time in the village here is quite limited and I have been processing so much that I don't even know where to begin...
John, Jamie, and I arrived in the rural village of Jagdeeshpur in rural central India after quite a day of travel. We took a taxi through the beginnings of a monsoon in Delhi-- seeing cars enjoy car-washes under the overpasses, people riding bikes blocking the downpour with their one free hand, and a group of men pushing a full size bus up a hill amidst the flooding. We then waited five hours through a delay, getting annoyed by a group of Americans making a scene of themselves complaining to security. Finally, we arrived in Raipur, the nearest city to Jagdeeshpur, and were greeted by the entire Weaver family (Joe and Sima, our two doctor friends, and their three adorable kids, kavya, maya, and joseph) who drove us the four hours to their house on a tiny two way road full of large trucks, cattle, bikers, tractors, and about anything else you can possibly imagine obstructing a road... During that time, we were able to discuss with them their experience living here in Jagdeeshpur these last two years, working in a hospital serving some of the poorest people in the world. since then, we have experienced more than we could have imagined...

I will have a long one coming very soon to cover the week, but after leaving a very mixed experience in Delhi, we have had a remarkable (though extremely overwhelming) time here in the small village of Jagdeeshpur. We have spent time in the hospital, shadowing our friends and talking to patients; we have done visits to surrounding villages experiencing incredible hospitality and warmth; we have ridden bikes down the crazy roads, ringing our little bells; we have played cricket with kids; we have eaten tons of amazing indian food and enjoyed chai and mangos more than anything; we have dodged scorpions and snakes and laughed at monkeys. I cannot wait to write thoughts and feelings on it all.

To come soon:
-experiences in the villages
-struggles with caste system and the extreme economic disparity
-discussions on our role here and feeling like we exploit this as a learning opportunity
-stories of being completely overwhelmed at the hospital with cases unlike I have ever seen
-adventures we have taken thus far

sorry that I keep promising things, but it will come soon. Thank you all for your patience.

namaste,
hudson

aweful communication

Many more stories to post up for the rap-up of South Africa, but my email access these last two weeks has been terrible. For a couple of highlights to come:

-Met up with the UNC/Duke group here for 9 days of camping and safari. Charged by a giraffe while on a drive in botswana-- was within touching distance and had elephants run in front of our car. Saw lots of crazy animals and got to sit in the co-pilot seat of one of the tiny planes as we flew around botswana, namibia, zambia, and zimbabwe. Also got to whitewater raft the zambezi (and swallow enough to give me all kinds of interesting creatures)!

-said my goodbyes to those I worked with at the warehouse and to the HIV support group I have come to love. Closed things out by being sent forth with an amazing blessing of "besuka bamlamdela", a song about the disciples leaving to follow Christ. And got to see my bros from Khayelitsha for the last time-- and watch as they each ate 8 pieces of chicken on my bill :-) and the bones too...

-Met up with UNC friend Crister who has been working in Mozambique and surfing for the last few days in Cape Town. Reminisced of our times in Southern Africa that have changed our lives in so many ways (including majors, life paths) and dragged him along all day through cape town hoping to make a hike that never happened.

-Been spending the last four days in Simon's Town (near capetown, on the water) right off the navy base with 6 of the most incredible duke div students. I've had a chance to go sailing in the Indian ocean, see Robben Island for the first time, break all the rules and go hiking on forbidden parts of Cape Point-- even after we were told multiple times to turn back (it was definitely worth it), and enjoy my last chance in the markets of downtown Cape Town. We have also run up table mountain (living hell of a hike but gorgeous) and spent the nights in amazing debriefing sessions with Dr. Storey hearing stories from all over south africa, of both pain and hope, weakness and power. THOSE STORIES TO COME!

Sorry for the lack of interesting and fun details. My time has run out but I will fill the last in when I get home in two days, leaving this sunny, springlike weather to return to the Memphis heat. AGH! Look forward to catching up with all of you!

Hudson

aweful communication

Many more stories to post up for the rap-up of South Africa, but my email access these last two weeks has been terrible. For a couple of highlights to come:

-Met up with the UNC/Duke group here for 9 days of camping and safari. Charged by a giraffe while on a drive in botswana-- was within touching distance and had elephants run in front of our car. Saw lots of crazy animals and got to sit in the co-pilot seat of one of the tiny planes as we flew around botswana, namibia, zambia, and zimbabwe. Also got to whitewater raft the zambezi (and swallow enough to give me all kinds of interesting creatures)!

-said my goodbyes to those I worked with at the warehouse and to the HIV support group I have come to love. Closed things out by being sent forth with an amazing blessing of "besuka bamlamdela", a song about the disciples leaving to follow Christ. And got to see my bros from Khayelitsha for the last time-- and watch as they each ate 8 pieces of chicken on my bill :-) and the bones too...

-Met up with UNC friend Crister who has been working in Mozambique and surfing for the last few days in Cape Town. Reminisced of our times in Southern Africa that have changed our lives in so many ways (including majors, life paths) and dragged him along all day through cape town hoping to make a hike that never happened.

-Been spending the last four days in Simon's Town (near capetown, on the water) right off the navy base with 6 of the most incredible duke div students. I've had a chance to go sailing in the Indian ocean, see Robben Island for the first time, break all the rules and go hiking on forbidden parts of Cape Point-- even after we were told multiple times to turn back (it was definitely worth it), and enjoy my last chance in the markets of downtown Cape Town. We have also run up table mountain (living hell of a hike but gorgeous) and spent the nights in amazing debriefing sessions with Dr. Storey hearing stories from all over south africa, of both pain and hope, weakness and power. THOSE STORIES TO COME!

Sorry for the lack of interesting and fun details. My time has run out but I will fill the last in when I get home in two days, leaving this sunny, springlike weather to return to the Memphis heat. AGH! Look forward to catching up with all of you!

Hudson

iqaqa liqabele uqongqothwani

I realized the other day that I have probably never explain well the context of where I am living and what I am doing on a day to day basis. So for an explanation before the few stories for the week:

-I have been living in a house in khayelitsha (one of the bigger townships) with 6 guys, all about my age. They all grew up in different parts of khayelitsha and were connected by an amazing counselor. This counselor grew up in the eastern cape and became extremely involved in the ANC during apartheid. He became one of the regional directors in the late 80's and early 90's-- even being tortured a number of times for his involvement. In 1994 (year of the end of apartheid), he had a dream that he was talking to an Afrikaans man and that the man talked to him and connected with him about Jesus and the need for reconciliation. He woke up the next day and went to one of the churches, to find that exact man from his dreams there, who sat down with him and talked to him about the same things he had dreamed about. Even after years of pain and what he describes as hatred for all white south africans, he was overcome by his experience of Jesus and this powerful dream (which is hard for me to describe). He ended up taking the path of forgiveness and deciding that he wanted to work with youth as a counselor in khayelitsha. He helped put together safety and leadership camps and was also a normal school counselor. THrough all of that, he became attached to the five guys I now live with, and their hope and potential despite the hardships they had all grown up with. He ended up becoming a mentor and spending more and more time hanging out with them and working with them. In the end, he got a house nearby, found funding (through both organizations he had worked with and new connections with those he had reconciled with...and some interesting americans), and got all of the guys to live together in community, to support each other through the struggles (especially family related) and to live with all of their best friends. And amazingly, I have had the chance to live with these guys, to experience that community, and to hear their stories of perseverence...and of course to play soccer in the middle of the night in the street and have juggling contests and create all kinds of inside jokes and eat LOTS of bread.

So, this last week:
-stayed at Craig's (the boss at the warehouse) this weekend while the guys were again on retreat. He has a family very similar to my own (but at a much younger stage) so I spent my weekend playing soccer at the park with little kids and monster games with two of his kids. I also got the chance to have a number of amazing conversations with him about experiential learning (new ideas for working on the wealthy community in memphis and chapel hill that I will have to share)...and watched more world cup.

-made it back to my real home here in khayelitsha, to return to the soccer craze, the bread overdose, the great conversations, and all kinds of xhosa I am trying to learn despite my time running short.

-went to bophapumele orphanage for church on sunday (they have a lot of singing and dancing for the kids). Again, I understood little of what was being said but loved being packed in with the kids...though I had a headache, so the 90 energetic kids singing loud praise songs certainly didn't help improve that. I can't imagine what it would be like to work there day in and day out; how much respect I have for those who do. and how much more are needed. This orphanage is one of the more staffed ones in the area and still there is like a 1 to 9 ratio and it is impossible to give individual attention that is needed. The kids really have to learn to grow up quickly and take care of themselves. I have talked to a lot of social workers at the warehouse who talk a lot about the program here that seeks to find homes for the children in these orphanages because as wonderful as they are, the kids really need a family to be present. It is such a huge thing here though...so many kids without homes or who are neglected. I have never really opened my eyes to similar things in america. One story I heard, for example, was of a one year old and five year old who lived in a leaking one room shack and whose mother did not take care of them. The five year old took care of the one year old, and the social worker found both sitting in the dark, starving, covered with dirt, water, and their own excretions. How can we as a world let this happen to any child? And how can we stand in the gaps and change it? The social worker then had to drop the kids off at an orphanage, where they will be cleaned and cared for-- but never to the extent that they should be, that all should be.

-visited youth in prison here (with two staff members from the warehouse who work with the youth and an incredible preacher who used to be a gang leader). The first time we visited, the preacher talked to them about his transformation and the hope they could still have for the future. The concerns the guys replied with were so hard to hear though: we will be killed by our gangs if we drop out of them; we have nowhere else to go; our families aren't around and we don't have alternatives. The preacher's witness and honesty was amazing but still I can imagine how hard it was for them to hear-- and how it could easily just sound like a 1 in a million kind of thing...luck if you will. The cycles that I talk about too much are so present here. I have learned after visiting again that many of the guys have already been in prison 4 or 5 times by the age of 20 (started around 14) and have no support, nobody to care for them, and no system that will help restore them back into community. The retributive stuff does not work at all-- at least for these guys. In fact, it digs them deeper into the holes they are already in because the prison community is full of punishment and more gang activity and when they get out, they come back out to more pressure from gangs, more pressure to get money again, and little substantial anything about how to choose an alternative route. Yesterday, they all painted their life dreams, and every one of them was an escape from life in a way-- a car, a boat, a cricket field with people cheering him on. One even said half jokingly, "why care about that? we are just born to die." So what is the best way to respond? Could I have done something that would have helped? Honestly, I think what they need most are people like grant and jonathon (warehouse guys) who care enough for them to visit them week in and week out and listen to them. Again, how important it is to LISTEN and to receive the gifts that these guys in prison or the women in sweet home can give. They have so much to share but the world often just shuts them off. I also keep wondering how it would be different for these guys if they had families (especially fathers) who were able to fully show them that love, which always leads me to the question of, "and how many of their families-- and especially fathers-- were limited in this because of the destruction and fear of apartheid?" Things are never as simple as they appear, and the system of fear that resonates from apartheid is clear in every facet (and we have very similar fear in america).

And for little funny notes: they all ask me if I have met puff daddy or 50 cent (who they call fifty cents, which makes sense) and always want to know what it is like in America. learned about some interesting cultural differences as well. One is that in the colored (again, what they refer to people of mixed race as) community here, many youth use dominoes to knock out their front teeth. I am yet to figure out why and nobody seems to be able to explain it.

I am off to the safari this monday. It will be interesting rapping up things here, right as I feel like I am getting my foot in the door. And I don't know how a safari will be when I feel such a connection to working and living with people in khayelitsha. It is a learning experience though, and can always fuel more in this crazy journey. I will try to post a shorter rap-up of work before I go.

Well, this has gone on far too long, though I will have more to tell about soon. Sorry for the gigantic posts!

As for the title of this post, it really has no great meaning. The guys in the house have been teaching me funny tongue-twisters (the q's are all clicks) and that is the first line of one and thought would make me sound like I am quite fluent, though I probably have learned enough to make good conversation with a one year old. Let me take that back. Even they still laugh at me :-)