“You decide to venture from the sanctity of your tropical compound. You see natives. You marvel at the things they can do with their hair. The things they fashion out of cheap twine or ordinary cloth. Squatting on the side of the road. Hanging out with all the time in the world. You might look at them and think: “They’re so relaxed, so laid-back, they’re never in a hurry.
Every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives – most natives in the world- cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the realities of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go – so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.” -- Jamaica Kincaid, “A Small Place”
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Sunday concluded a three-day impact assessment. I am glad that it is over, I don’t like working on Saturdays and I definitely don’t like working on Sundays. Tiring, this trip let me taste something, see the term ‘sewage worker’ with my nose, understand the work we are doing in a lived way.
For three days we sat and talked about our work, went to the field to see it, to talk with the stakeholders, the people to whom the funding is supposed to go, the communities on the ground, the marginalized communities, low-caste. In a proposal, “empowerment” is a prerequisite – it must be mentioned. It can be linked to women or community or the veritable individual (women’s empowerment, community empowerment, individual empowerment), but regardless of who it is that is empowered, someone is going to get empowered. Saturday was not a proposal; I saw it. Empowerment is taking place here.
She stood up, her shoulders back, her head held high and when she spoke, people listened. Her sari was worn thin, cotton, not the warmer silk that would be worn for this colder weather. From where I sat her hair looked like a brand new record, the sun shinning in a round reflection that hugged the shape of her skull, her perfect part the first track of many songs of fine, jet black hair. With motions to rival even the most over exaggerated Italian stereotype, she spoke, conducting her discordant symphony. Nothing in her words was rehearsed, nothing about her was reserved, this was not a speech but a testament, a dictated autobiography, the cadence of her speech mesmerizing. Her body supported her, not sad, but a verification, the wrinkles in her face telling of the long days, the scars on her ankles, callous hands, tough feet.
She is pissed. She doesn’t cry, there is no sorrow, just anger. She lives what development literature tries, and constantly fails, to communicate.
Crescendo. She concludes with an ending that wins filmmakers awards and writers acclaim. Except this is real. Slowly, the reality of her words and the power with which they were spoken sinking in, she turns to the NGO assessor who is listening intently, with a mask of grave concern, sympathetic. “What do I do? Tell me what do to?” Using the most polite Hindi conjugation: “Boliye (please tell me).”
Overmatched, the NGO woman does her best, regurgitating what she would say; “You’ve started, you are empowered, you are thinking differently, here today, fighting for what’s yours, your rights.”
In that instant, this is an impressively impotent response, a pale of water to extinguish a forest fire.
For that woman to stand up and demand her rights is exceptional – it is not the norm. Why would she stand up? What is in it for her? Her liberation? Maybe. In the short term, to do so is likely not in her interest. The system is slow to change. Empowered women look good in the glossy pages of NGO brochures but often times they are not well received by husbands and bosses and there is a probability that some sort of violence will be committed against her.
With everything stacked against her, she refuses to relent for some reason beyond the improbable wage increase of 40 rupees a day to 70 rupees a day - $1 to $1.75. Maybe she believes in the world, in people, a better future for her children. No longer will she swallow her words. It is not easy, but she stands up for her rights.
Friends, family, people I know care for me very deeply and write only out of love, tell me to take it easy, that I am being too hard on myself.
I am not that woman, but she asks a very important and hard to answer question: What would it take for me to do something exceptional? For you to do something exceptional?
We often hear or read stories like this in the national media, color features recounting the work of individuals with remarkable personal constitutions and commitment to change despite the ubiquity of destitution in their lives. Women’s groups. Micro credit schemes. Former child soldiers. Community based organizations. Survivors of genocide. Peace activists. Surviving orphans. A clinic. Sewage workers. This woman.
Sitting in the living room with a full stomach, the heat working, the kids home from college, cars in the garage, Muppet curled up by the fire, it is easy to hear stories like this and feel overwhelmed, outmatched by such courage, that nothing we do in our sterile world can be as gutsy as that woman, as exceptional as these amazing stories in the national media, as people who choose to believe in something when everything in their world tells them not to.
But, we are not that lady, we don’t carry shit on our heads for a living. We have it much easier. We don’t need her courage to make change. We need our courage.
It is not enough for us only to think differently or to be empowered. We are thinking differently, we’ve taken the classes, read the articles, been to the lectures, studied this inside and out – for us, it is about how we act. Think of what America and its citizens communicate with their bodies, cars, policies, consumer choices, think of what it means to be not-exceptional. Think of the excuses you make for not acting. The messages are spurious. We are aware of the dangers of climate change, of the racism endemic to our country, crumbling inner cities and impoverished rural areas, murderous foreign policy, global poverty, unjust wealth distribution, a deplorable public school system, ills that have settled into normalcy as a result of political apathy, a delinquent White House, and cutthroat capitalism. For us, it is time to move beyond thinking and to act differently
That we don’t carry shit on our heads is a good thing - it is not something to feel embarrassed about and the good fortune of our global positioning should not diminish your contribution. From that living room, with the fire still warm, we have the power to make great change – at a different level but part of the same solution – and we face the fewest risks.
But, don’t offer a pale to this forest fire - it must be exceptional action. It is time to look at the norms and rise above them, to take offense at the polluting, apathetic course that is expected of you and surpass the expectation that you will continue living in a world of violence, hate, a world where billions of people live on less than $2 a day, where 40,000 people die each day of preventable diseases, where 2 million Americans are incarcerated, children die of diarrhea, where we have enough food to feed the world and greed handcuffs us. The negative examples abound. You need to be a positive one.
This might sound preachy, but so too do those emails. Look around. Don’t tell me that I am being too hard on myself. Are you being hard enough?
Give money, ride your bike, change your lifestyle, think of the jobs you take and consider more than money, understand where and with whom you hang out, write a letter, volunteer, defy the norms in actions small and large but in actions all the time. Be exceptional by doing exactly what is not expected of you, doing what the world needs. Think of this woman and think of the questions she asks you in your life.
What will it mean to be exceptional? If she can stand up, surely so can we.
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