On the walk down here I finally had the chance to be present in my mind and my body, to participate in this town as an individual, not a member of a group. An old man farted as I walked by. The egg seller sat among his riches, crates stacked by the dozen higher than his seated posture. An antique store shopkeeper sits with his daughter, still wearing her starched school uniform, looking at school photos. A woman's bangles clank exactly in step with her stride, her own personal bandleader. An impromptu director of traffic asserts his force, funneling one car to a parking spot, another to honk a little less, carefully pupeteering a overfull truck through a tight squeeze, then walking on with his shoulders back and chin out. Bangra music blares. A group of old men play cards on a milk crate, one smirking as he smacks a card down with the distinct motion of putting an ace on a king. A donkey yawns; so bored, dumb. Samosas fry. Binidis rival the Japanese flag in the intensity of red and perfection of an exact circle. Tailors stitch.
It feels so nice to walk, on my own.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Development and Me
Walking home, this mountain makes an indelible mark in my mind, a parable for approaches to development - this ever enigmatic term that is constantly on the tips of too many tongues. But I'm guilty too, and the wisdom of this summit takes me on as an ignorant nubile, shedding light on the ever important idea of perspective. Walking, I think about the work I will be doing, and how to do to it best, learn all the time, and leave with lessons for myself and some sort of deliverable on the ground.
Through the haze of the clouds blowing over, many paths are visible. All eventually will get to the antenna at the peak. Some look more direct, some bend out of sight, others curve and curve and curve. Trucks roar by, cars zoom, the fastest two ways of getting to the top, traveling in an enclosed vessel, bullying people with your horn, blurring images in haste. Motorbikes are an option. Some speed, the air in your hair, things slow down and you get there. I e signed away my right to ride on a motorbike, but I have a feeling that I prefer walking. Each brick under my feet. Slower, yes, but ferns come into focus, I stop if I want, watch monkeys in the trees, squashed butterflies in the road, appreciate laborers as they haul stones on their back, people say hello, snippets of their conversations buzz - the importance of the details emerge, details that are only accessible on foot. Clouds come and go, unsure at times of where I've been, my goal not always in sight, the goal unsure, out of reach. But, I am in no rush. I am slowly progressing, sure of that, accompanied by peace of mind that I've done this journey well, appreciated the things around me, considered them, my body with my mind, understanding the process that begets the process. Though, at times, I may have had to go backwards to go forwards, I didn't drive, hurry, spending time with each pixel of the picture, not the easiest way or the fastest, but it feels right.
Through the haze of the clouds blowing over, many paths are visible. All eventually will get to the antenna at the peak. Some look more direct, some bend out of sight, others curve and curve and curve. Trucks roar by, cars zoom, the fastest two ways of getting to the top, traveling in an enclosed vessel, bullying people with your horn, blurring images in haste. Motorbikes are an option. Some speed, the air in your hair, things slow down and you get there. I e signed away my right to ride on a motorbike, but I have a feeling that I prefer walking. Each brick under my feet. Slower, yes, but ferns come into focus, I stop if I want, watch monkeys in the trees, squashed butterflies in the road, appreciate laborers as they haul stones on their back, people say hello, snippets of their conversations buzz - the importance of the details emerge, details that are only accessible on foot. Clouds come and go, unsure at times of where I've been, my goal not always in sight, the goal unsure, out of reach. But, I am in no rush. I am slowly progressing, sure of that, accompanied by peace of mind that I've done this journey well, appreciated the things around me, considered them, my body with my mind, understanding the process that begets the process. Though, at times, I may have had to go backwards to go forwards, I didn't drive, hurry, spending time with each pixel of the picture, not the easiest way or the fastest, but it feels right.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Haircut
Sitting in class I decided I was going to get my haircut after lunch. My self-cut and styled faux-hawk/mohawk was at a Eurotrashy point that needed to go. On top it was hanging on to cool, standing up, sorta stylin', but the back had grown to look like a wet rodent, and because the top didn’t exist without the back and the back existed at all, it was time.
Walking down the mountain, zig zagging on the roads to the town of Landour, tunnel vision engulfed my eyes, people's hair was all I noticed and this new country provided a lot of variate fodder for consideration. My last teacher of the day wears a bob, a Golden Girls middle aged do with little style, lots of natural curl, and the humid air. Voluminous always.
Approaching me was a nice looking older man in a button-up shirt, grey slacks that looked to be about the same age as me, sandals, and a sharp part swooping his hair from left to right. It smelled nothing of a balding accountant or first communion participant in a white suit and dotting mother. Clean shaven. Smart.
Zooming by on his motorbike a young stud strut his stuff, his brown locks on full display, perhaps the only reason he bought the bike in the first place. Flowing behind, tended to with much time, loving comb strokes, overpriced product, and a constant dose of vanity, his hair matched his tight shirt, tighter pants, and designer sneakers. He too was clean shaven. Around the curve was an older man, seemingly wise because of his hair, venerable in grey. Long and kempt, his beard was wise in its own right. Nothing special in his style, organic, growing from the tested proteins of his oft-tested brain.
That beard opened a can of worms, blaring new tunes of facial hair styles at me in keys I've never heard. Paramount among them: the moustache -- a style often made fun of in the U.S., at parties organized around the theme, pedophile jokes, and white trash punch lines. In India, the 'stache is in. It is everywhere, cooler than bellbottoms, sliced bread, or what that guy on the motorbike thought of himself. Fruitseller, bus driver, tailor - a man assumed to have a sense of style, sporting the stache without shame -- another guy on a motorbike, one of my teachers at the school, business men in the newspaper. The list could go on. Pubescent boys do their best, but need to wait their turn. The moustache, replete with wax, attention, trims, and a garish air, is hip.
Sikh men grow their hair long but rock their turbans with the same concern for appearance as the trendiest secular Bollywood star. Purple shoes, a violet shirt, and darker hue in the turban, one Sikh man struts his stuff like the coolest rooster in the pen, feathers puffed, chest out. There are an array of colors, but the most common are black and white - white is the new black once again, just after black was the new white, equally timeless despite the best efforts of marketers and fashion magazines to suggest something outlandish like earth tones. Simple, becoming.
Some men use henna in their hair, an orange like a tiger, fuming almost in the intensity. That color, if put on a dude in leather with piercings is available on St Marks Place, but here it is just right, fitting and fantastic.
Women are far more understated, a part in the middle, their natural beauty does the talking, not highlights or bloated chests. Most school girls put their hair in two braids, looping the bottoms with ribbon, but even still there are no bells or whistles, texture and natural beauty the expression here.
I'm ready to part with my current style. One week into Hindi language school, we've not yet learned, "Please shave my head." Turning into one shop, a storefront no more than 4" by 6", I am met by a blank face. May I please have a haircut? Still blank. More blank. Then some hand waving, frantic, a two handed fast forwarded hello. He is not the barber. Walking on, another sweet beard on another owl-like older man, the moustache featured but aware of its strong supporting cast. About the same size, two chairs, two mirrors, a small bench, some pictures of Ricky Martin, I feel good about this barber. May I have a haircut, please? Yes, please sit. Doing better already, I like where this is going, ready for this teen of about 14 to go get someone. Instead, this young man, unable to even enter as a contestant in the ratty 14-year-old moustache growing contest, is, it seems, the barber.
His hair is awesome, well oiled, trimmed, a meticulous part in the middle, not as slick as Alfalfa and without the cowlick, a little more air underneath it, wing-like. A sweet guy, yes, but I don't want his haircut. Grinning in amusement, laughing at the absurdity of the situation and absence of my Hindi skills I begin: Can you please cut it all one length? Reminded by his face and the mirror, I have a mohawk on my head. Touching the sides, he asks me something. Language barrier. I pick up the clipper and ask him for the #2 attachment. Nice, now we're going. He shuffles through a drawer that doesn’t glide open, but in its worn wood that just fits, it sits in place, hanging down, its contents rushing forward. There are matches, papers from the Dark Ages, rusty scissors, magazine shards, and lucky number #2. Right where I put it, perfectly organized, a little smile peeps through from the barber, amused at what is going on. I’m right there with him, still smiling. One length please, all, cut it off... I try numerous approaches to the same end, taking the clippers and motioning them through my hair. Enter hands: not just saying "one length, #2" but pushing my hands through my hair as if I just surfaced from underwater, then scissorhands, back to the water motion again. Slowly, the boulder creaks forward; we are on to something, about to start rolling down the hill. The sweet buzz of a hair clipper, a soft hmm like a blue mosquito light, my hair running to the blades and their dramatic end. Smoothly, the sides are crisply clipped. Now I really look ridiculous.
Getting the clippers through the thicket on top proves challenging, far more testing of the clippers, mosquitoes upgraded to Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a wild animal far more difficult to tame, but not unconquerable. With great care, this young man, a young man with great experience but no frame of reference for this foreign species, crouches slightly, pauses, unplugs the weapon and calls for backup, reaching into a bag on the wall to produce another clipper. "New." My smile grows, as does his, and my mohawkquivers in fear, eyes darting like a cornered mouse, aware that it doesn’t stand a This new clipper has been raring to go, a young colt pleading for the track, a Porsche feigning for the Audubon, no seat belts, bets placed, harnessed with current, plowing ahead. There is a lot of hair, but his savvy enters here, the homestretch in sight, he saves enough for the straightaway and comes up strong to challenge and over take A Few Stray Hairs, Precarious Ear Area as well as the favored Encroaching Back Moss.
A deep breath on both our parts; little did I know we were just getting started. Those awesome rusty scissors jumped out of the drawer. I'm stoked to think that they are going to touch me with the intent of cutting things off my body. Sweet. But, young Luke Skywalker uses the force, shaping the hairs around my ear keenly. Nice. I think we're done. Then, like a samurai wielding numbchucks, he does this crazy thing with a straight razor, like a ninja with a butterfly knife, too fast for a mere mortal to really understand, aided by instant replay and dramatic camera work. A new razor inserted, my neck is cleaner than a newly Zambonied ice skating rink.
Unknowingly, we had now arrived at the final frontier. With his palms down, arms bent at the elbow, and my body the location of a fire, he started fanning me and saying some words. Clueless, my face blank stare said that I didn't know what was going on. More flapping and I finally got it. I crouched in my chair, deciphering the "can you please schooch down" motion that he was trying to tell me - there wasn't actually a fire. Then, Spider Fingers went to work with a divine touch to rival that of Brancussi, massaging my head in ways I didn’t know were possible. Jammed into the chair in a proper crouch, I was delighted.
Baby powder, payment, and the awesome burst of air on my newly shorn head. One last look back, our smiles were mutual, entirely amused with what just transpired.
Walking down the mountain, zig zagging on the roads to the town of Landour, tunnel vision engulfed my eyes, people's hair was all I noticed and this new country provided a lot of variate fodder for consideration. My last teacher of the day wears a bob, a Golden Girls middle aged do with little style, lots of natural curl, and the humid air. Voluminous always.
Approaching me was a nice looking older man in a button-up shirt, grey slacks that looked to be about the same age as me, sandals, and a sharp part swooping his hair from left to right. It smelled nothing of a balding accountant or first communion participant in a white suit and dotting mother. Clean shaven. Smart.
Zooming by on his motorbike a young stud strut his stuff, his brown locks on full display, perhaps the only reason he bought the bike in the first place. Flowing behind, tended to with much time, loving comb strokes, overpriced product, and a constant dose of vanity, his hair matched his tight shirt, tighter pants, and designer sneakers. He too was clean shaven. Around the curve was an older man, seemingly wise because of his hair, venerable in grey. Long and kempt, his beard was wise in its own right. Nothing special in his style, organic, growing from the tested proteins of his oft-tested brain.
That beard opened a can of worms, blaring new tunes of facial hair styles at me in keys I've never heard. Paramount among them: the moustache -- a style often made fun of in the U.S., at parties organized around the theme, pedophile jokes, and white trash punch lines. In India, the 'stache is in. It is everywhere, cooler than bellbottoms, sliced bread, or what that guy on the motorbike thought of himself. Fruitseller, bus driver, tailor - a man assumed to have a sense of style, sporting the stache without shame -- another guy on a motorbike, one of my teachers at the school, business men in the newspaper. The list could go on. Pubescent boys do their best, but need to wait their turn. The moustache, replete with wax, attention, trims, and a garish air, is hip.
Sikh men grow their hair long but rock their turbans with the same concern for appearance as the trendiest secular Bollywood star. Purple shoes, a violet shirt, and darker hue in the turban, one Sikh man struts his stuff like the coolest rooster in the pen, feathers puffed, chest out. There are an array of colors, but the most common are black and white - white is the new black once again, just after black was the new white, equally timeless despite the best efforts of marketers and fashion magazines to suggest something outlandish like earth tones. Simple, becoming.
Some men use henna in their hair, an orange like a tiger, fuming almost in the intensity. That color, if put on a dude in leather with piercings is available on St Marks Place, but here it is just right, fitting and fantastic.
Women are far more understated, a part in the middle, their natural beauty does the talking, not highlights or bloated chests. Most school girls put their hair in two braids, looping the bottoms with ribbon, but even still there are no bells or whistles, texture and natural beauty the expression here.
I'm ready to part with my current style. One week into Hindi language school, we've not yet learned, "Please shave my head." Turning into one shop, a storefront no more than 4" by 6", I am met by a blank face. May I please have a haircut? Still blank. More blank. Then some hand waving, frantic, a two handed fast forwarded hello. He is not the barber. Walking on, another sweet beard on another owl-like older man, the moustache featured but aware of its strong supporting cast. About the same size, two chairs, two mirrors, a small bench, some pictures of Ricky Martin, I feel good about this barber. May I have a haircut, please? Yes, please sit. Doing better already, I like where this is going, ready for this teen of about 14 to go get someone. Instead, this young man, unable to even enter as a contestant in the ratty 14-year-old moustache growing contest, is, it seems, the barber.
His hair is awesome, well oiled, trimmed, a meticulous part in the middle, not as slick as Alfalfa and without the cowlick, a little more air underneath it, wing-like. A sweet guy, yes, but I don't want his haircut. Grinning in amusement, laughing at the absurdity of the situation and absence of my Hindi skills I begin: Can you please cut it all one length? Reminded by his face and the mirror, I have a mohawk on my head. Touching the sides, he asks me something. Language barrier. I pick up the clipper and ask him for the #2 attachment. Nice, now we're going. He shuffles through a drawer that doesn’t glide open, but in its worn wood that just fits, it sits in place, hanging down, its contents rushing forward. There are matches, papers from the Dark Ages, rusty scissors, magazine shards, and lucky number #2. Right where I put it, perfectly organized, a little smile peeps through from the barber, amused at what is going on. I’m right there with him, still smiling. One length please, all, cut it off... I try numerous approaches to the same end, taking the clippers and motioning them through my hair. Enter hands: not just saying "one length, #2" but pushing my hands through my hair as if I just surfaced from underwater, then scissorhands, back to the water motion again. Slowly, the boulder creaks forward; we are on to something, about to start rolling down the hill. The sweet buzz of a hair clipper, a soft hmm like a blue mosquito light, my hair running to the blades and their dramatic end. Smoothly, the sides are crisply clipped. Now I really look ridiculous.
Getting the clippers through the thicket on top proves challenging, far more testing of the clippers, mosquitoes upgraded to Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a wild animal far more difficult to tame, but not unconquerable. With great care, this young man, a young man with great experience but no frame of reference for this foreign species, crouches slightly, pauses, unplugs the weapon and calls for backup, reaching into a bag on the wall to produce another clipper. "New." My smile grows, as does his, and my mohawkquivers in fear, eyes darting like a cornered mouse, aware that it doesn’t stand a This new clipper has been raring to go, a young colt pleading for the track, a Porsche feigning for the Audubon, no seat belts, bets placed, harnessed with current, plowing ahead. There is a lot of hair, but his savvy enters here, the homestretch in sight, he saves enough for the straightaway and comes up strong to challenge and over take A Few Stray Hairs, Precarious Ear Area as well as the favored Encroaching Back Moss.
A deep breath on both our parts; little did I know we were just getting started. Those awesome rusty scissors jumped out of the drawer. I'm stoked to think that they are going to touch me with the intent of cutting things off my body. Sweet. But, young Luke Skywalker uses the force, shaping the hairs around my ear keenly. Nice. I think we're done. Then, like a samurai wielding numbchucks, he does this crazy thing with a straight razor, like a ninja with a butterfly knife, too fast for a mere mortal to really understand, aided by instant replay and dramatic camera work. A new razor inserted, my neck is cleaner than a newly Zambonied ice skating rink.
Unknowingly, we had now arrived at the final frontier. With his palms down, arms bent at the elbow, and my body the location of a fire, he started fanning me and saying some words. Clueless, my face blank stare said that I didn't know what was going on. More flapping and I finally got it. I crouched in my chair, deciphering the "can you please schooch down" motion that he was trying to tell me - there wasn't actually a fire. Then, Spider Fingers went to work with a divine touch to rival that of Brancussi, massaging my head in ways I didn’t know were possible. Jammed into the chair in a proper crouch, I was delighted.
Baby powder, payment, and the awesome burst of air on my newly shorn head. One last look back, our smiles were mutual, entirely amused with what just transpired.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Trying to Learn Hindi
This morning I woke up thinking of work. Tucked in the mountain town of Moossoori, a town built by the British as a holiday launch point, my head is literally in the clouds 6,000 feet tucked into the Himalayas. Fresh air, hot tea, dew on the trees, valleys funnel clouds along their way, my mind wanders to the sublime, beauty and things disconnected entirely. I dream of home, literature, writing, friends, love, my family, career goals - self absorbed topics of contemplation - topics that are important and feel to be invited by these surroundings. And, being here, I want to inhabit this space with all of me, think about what it would be like to move to a mountain town and live the life that I supposedly purport, grow my own food, write, smile, and live in a state of contentment. But then I think about why I am here, and it is for exactly the opposite reason, to prepare me to engage, to enhance my skills so as to effectuate "good" change in a lasting way, not a way that is entirely self focused. We came to this town because of a world-renowned Hindi language school. Indeed, this step is the antithesis of what my mind has slipped to since arriving last night. I am nervous because Hindi is such a different language, but also because it this process is a very symbolic step, it signifies a real measure of preparation for a fast-approaching work start date. My days now have structure and consequence, we are no longer sitting around talking of everything and nothing, no more orientation, massive groups of white people, arranged travel, planned meals, English speakers.
Furthermore, I need to learn this language. In three weeks I don’t expect to become fluent, but I do feel the weight of expectation at my host organization and the fact that acquiring this skill directly impacts my ability to meet those expectations, do my job well, and walk away at the end of 9 months with a concrete skill. Surely I have enthusiasm, some experience, a great support network, etc. but it is stupid of me to think I can do workers organizing or help an organization to that end without speaking some of the language, ignoring the fact that Gujarati and not Hindi really ought to be my focus. I very much feel this pressure.
So, I go forward with full enthusiasm, sincere intentions of learning and the understanding that it takes much time. Beneath the anxiety of worrying about my job, ability to learn Hindi, living on the other side of the world for a year, eating new foods, meeting women, staying healthy, this anxiety around learning language is telling of a new concern in my life because the list above is not new or exhaustive but healthy and expected, a proper exercise for a thinking person going through change. What pushes me the most is that the task of learning Hindi is not an assignment, not a paper, it exists not in the tangentially connected world of campus life but in a very real sense, in the real world and is impacting on me as a professional going forward. This new mindset is one that I am working to understand, to understand that from here on out, the onus is mine, for better or worse, and translates into real terms, terms that make me better at certain jobs, more hirable, efficient, knowledgeable, savvy, productive, and in turn happy with the outcomes that I am able to get. Fake it until you make it doesn’t apply here, but rather I need to learn and make it, faking it will not suffice. In short, my work matters and I need to take it seriously.
Sitting in the clouds, literally, becomes problematic, an ironic place to engage with real life skills acquisition if for no other reason than its symbolism. In life, the challenge lies, how do I balance between these clouds and the disconnect they offer, and the real world that exists all around me. The implications are many, thinking of career, money, location, partnership, how do I remain happy, invested in literature, love, family, writing, art, nonsense, things that matter and matter deeply to me while at the same time, not lost, disconnected, clueless as to the reality on the ground. Setting it up like this creates a false dichotomy, nothing is this black and white, but it is helpful for me to think about as a young person now figuring out his life. The clouds this morning asked all these questions and what better place to think about them. Off to language school to work on them for now.
Furthermore, I need to learn this language. In three weeks I don’t expect to become fluent, but I do feel the weight of expectation at my host organization and the fact that acquiring this skill directly impacts my ability to meet those expectations, do my job well, and walk away at the end of 9 months with a concrete skill. Surely I have enthusiasm, some experience, a great support network, etc. but it is stupid of me to think I can do workers organizing or help an organization to that end without speaking some of the language, ignoring the fact that Gujarati and not Hindi really ought to be my focus. I very much feel this pressure.
So, I go forward with full enthusiasm, sincere intentions of learning and the understanding that it takes much time. Beneath the anxiety of worrying about my job, ability to learn Hindi, living on the other side of the world for a year, eating new foods, meeting women, staying healthy, this anxiety around learning language is telling of a new concern in my life because the list above is not new or exhaustive but healthy and expected, a proper exercise for a thinking person going through change. What pushes me the most is that the task of learning Hindi is not an assignment, not a paper, it exists not in the tangentially connected world of campus life but in a very real sense, in the real world and is impacting on me as a professional going forward. This new mindset is one that I am working to understand, to understand that from here on out, the onus is mine, for better or worse, and translates into real terms, terms that make me better at certain jobs, more hirable, efficient, knowledgeable, savvy, productive, and in turn happy with the outcomes that I am able to get. Fake it until you make it doesn’t apply here, but rather I need to learn and make it, faking it will not suffice. In short, my work matters and I need to take it seriously.
Sitting in the clouds, literally, becomes problematic, an ironic place to engage with real life skills acquisition if for no other reason than its symbolism. In life, the challenge lies, how do I balance between these clouds and the disconnect they offer, and the real world that exists all around me. The implications are many, thinking of career, money, location, partnership, how do I remain happy, invested in literature, love, family, writing, art, nonsense, things that matter and matter deeply to me while at the same time, not lost, disconnected, clueless as to the reality on the ground. Setting it up like this creates a false dichotomy, nothing is this black and white, but it is helpful for me to think about as a young person now figuring out his life. The clouds this morning asked all these questions and what better place to think about them. Off to language school to work on them for now.
Two Weeks Now, Some Thoughts
As the plane descended, the city came into focus. My boarding pass read Heathrow to Delhi. Half British, half Indian nationals, the staff was put together for a flight bound to India. Food requests switched, the norm veg and the exception meat. Baseball caps traded, in large part, for turbans. I knew I was on my way to India and I still today know that I am sitting here, the languages around me different, signs foreign, and a map that indicates thousands of miles between me and home are constant in my mind. We touch down, the PA crackles and a polite British accent welcomes us all to Delhi's international airport. All the signs are screaming at me but I know I’ve landed not because our wheels are on the ground or the ground staff is Indian, I know we've landed because as I step onto the extended jet way my glasses fog. It is not raining and the sun in shining, my glasses should not be fogging like they did on rainy days in 7th grade on the public bus home. It is that hot and humid. This is the weather people have told me about, the Delhi heat, sweet air that hangs out at the equator, heat that packing lists have tried to prepare my lightweight pants for and guide books warn me about. I inhale. The air is different, I am in India; now I know.
Each day is filled with moments like this, constant barrages of obvious signs that scream of another country, world, set of religions, movies, languages, foods, customs, but my armor deflects most of the obvious indicators. Kenya arises here, my encounters with the non-American world informing my mind of some of the intricacies that lie beneath the presence of slums, open sewers, the faces of statistics we too often read about. Yet I know this is not Kenya, it is not the Bronx, Scotland, this new land that greets me with unique cologne in each breath is incomprehensibly different from anywhere I’ve been. So, before trying to understand those major differences, over 5,000 years of recorded history, what 1.2 billion people even means, thoughts about development, modernity, governance, I am stuck in this thick air trying to first understand how to engage with the small things. As I exit restaurants I am not taken with the wide streets and impressive infrastructure - such is noted in a book somewhere, to be found out later -- or auto rigshaws, the apparently different thing, or even the auditions of uniformed men with waxed mustaches and wads of chewing tobacco as they bicker for my business. What takes me, what I focus on for its insight, knowledge on pushing me to be better able to adjust, is the resilience of everything we - Westerners - give up on, the cars my family has gotten rid of, dumped refrigerators, wires, engines, phones, radios... here, things don’t break, repairmen are everywhere and nothing is ever on its last leg, always salvageable. This is telling.
Two weeks in, these are the things I notice, trying to get my mind around what I can, see what is different and what is the same. Underground passages, train stations, still house people who are without homes, men sleep on the bare sidewalk, cozied up in a blanket for the night, wholly without shelter. I’ve seen homelessness before, bashed over the head by its ubiquity on the streets of Kenya, especially amongst orphans. I know people are homeless all over the world, and this is a sad reality that will continue to exist. But never before have I been so bothered by the presence of an infant, a new way of encountering homelessness and the often times concomitant begging. At stop lights, choked in smog, noses running and clothes dirty babies are used as a competitive advantage in a game that often links looking the most desperate to monetary success. Young women's hips often set the stage, babies slung on hips, pawns in a negotiation for money, a prop to pull a heartstring, a surety for soliciting funds. Surely many of these families need the money they get from begging, but in the justice of my mind, babies, innocent, ought not play a part in this -- better left home with grandma or sister. Presumptuous perhaps. In the end, as the woman holds her child on one hip and taps me with her free hand, wrinkled with her burdens, her clothing saturated with dirt, face pleading, I give her money, aware that I may have been worked, but really just feeling empty inside, truly and wholly sad.
We roll off into a cacophony of horns - in India, they say, you can drive without brakes but not without horn -- passing bollywood billboards, the fully extended leg of a cyclist as his pedal comes full circle, a glistening sweaty back of a day laborer, kiosks, malls, mansions, hotels, embassies, baboons, motorbikes, roundabouts, sandals, shapely shadows of leaves I’ve never seen, policemen, buses gurgling black diesel emissions, intoxicating colors of women's saris. As we ride I try to get away from any and all preparation that I've had, to avoid the tendency to exotisize the foreign, fetishism the different. My challenges lie in each person I pass, yearning to understand each one as they fit into this complicated Indian fabric each as human beings, seeing laborers not as laborers, but as husbands and fathers, politicians not at officials but people, women not as victims of gender bias but IT professionals, all fallible, all implicated through their interactions, histories, and converging futures in a larger scheme that I too am now a part of.
Each day is filled with moments like this, constant barrages of obvious signs that scream of another country, world, set of religions, movies, languages, foods, customs, but my armor deflects most of the obvious indicators. Kenya arises here, my encounters with the non-American world informing my mind of some of the intricacies that lie beneath the presence of slums, open sewers, the faces of statistics we too often read about. Yet I know this is not Kenya, it is not the Bronx, Scotland, this new land that greets me with unique cologne in each breath is incomprehensibly different from anywhere I’ve been. So, before trying to understand those major differences, over 5,000 years of recorded history, what 1.2 billion people even means, thoughts about development, modernity, governance, I am stuck in this thick air trying to first understand how to engage with the small things. As I exit restaurants I am not taken with the wide streets and impressive infrastructure - such is noted in a book somewhere, to be found out later -- or auto rigshaws, the apparently different thing, or even the auditions of uniformed men with waxed mustaches and wads of chewing tobacco as they bicker for my business. What takes me, what I focus on for its insight, knowledge on pushing me to be better able to adjust, is the resilience of everything we - Westerners - give up on, the cars my family has gotten rid of, dumped refrigerators, wires, engines, phones, radios... here, things don’t break, repairmen are everywhere and nothing is ever on its last leg, always salvageable. This is telling.
Two weeks in, these are the things I notice, trying to get my mind around what I can, see what is different and what is the same. Underground passages, train stations, still house people who are without homes, men sleep on the bare sidewalk, cozied up in a blanket for the night, wholly without shelter. I’ve seen homelessness before, bashed over the head by its ubiquity on the streets of Kenya, especially amongst orphans. I know people are homeless all over the world, and this is a sad reality that will continue to exist. But never before have I been so bothered by the presence of an infant, a new way of encountering homelessness and the often times concomitant begging. At stop lights, choked in smog, noses running and clothes dirty babies are used as a competitive advantage in a game that often links looking the most desperate to monetary success. Young women's hips often set the stage, babies slung on hips, pawns in a negotiation for money, a prop to pull a heartstring, a surety for soliciting funds. Surely many of these families need the money they get from begging, but in the justice of my mind, babies, innocent, ought not play a part in this -- better left home with grandma or sister. Presumptuous perhaps. In the end, as the woman holds her child on one hip and taps me with her free hand, wrinkled with her burdens, her clothing saturated with dirt, face pleading, I give her money, aware that I may have been worked, but really just feeling empty inside, truly and wholly sad.
We roll off into a cacophony of horns - in India, they say, you can drive without brakes but not without horn -- passing bollywood billboards, the fully extended leg of a cyclist as his pedal comes full circle, a glistening sweaty back of a day laborer, kiosks, malls, mansions, hotels, embassies, baboons, motorbikes, roundabouts, sandals, shapely shadows of leaves I’ve never seen, policemen, buses gurgling black diesel emissions, intoxicating colors of women's saris. As we ride I try to get away from any and all preparation that I've had, to avoid the tendency to exotisize the foreign, fetishism the different. My challenges lie in each person I pass, yearning to understand each one as they fit into this complicated Indian fabric each as human beings, seeing laborers not as laborers, but as husbands and fathers, politicians not at officials but people, women not as victims of gender bias but IT professionals, all fallible, all implicated through their interactions, histories, and converging futures in a larger scheme that I too am now a part of.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
It is official. Today at 8:57 a.m. it was empirically proven that there is no correlation between intelligence and the capital letters postdating one’s name. In the university setting and the world over there is a gross assumption that an individual’s smarts can be equated with the prestige of their major, profession, or number of degrees they hold. The majority of the people who believe this have the Ms, Ds, PHs, Js, and BAs after their names and send their children to college, perpetuating a self fulfilling societal farce that masks pedanticity as intelligence.
My appointment is at 8:15 a.m. Blood pressure, no pain, a solid temperature, (and) I am ushered into the exam room. Crappy cologne first, then the doctor himself; sporting a navy blue polo shirt with vertical rows of sailing flags, a detective’s moustache, and high school county championship ring he asks me if I am ready.
I am as ready as I am going to be.
He escorts me to another room where he confuses my right foot for my left foot several times, finally drooling iodine all over my ingrown toenail. Running before walking, he now puts on his exam gloves. Clumsily, he fills the syringe and proceeds to jab my foot six times, obviously unsure about what he is doing, like a toddler who struggles to play with a toy that is meant for a child three years older, a Looney Tunes character trying to blow out its tail.
His plastic hospital I.D. card shimmers on the counter: First Name, Last Name, M.D.
Twenty minutes and my toe is numb. Hunting for the scissors and gauze, he puts gloves on and does the procedure. At one point he yelps, “Wow! Look at all the pus,” the medical professional response to an infected wound. Gloves bloody, he pours through every cabinet in the room wiping blood on all the handles and some of the cabinet doors. My toe hurts but I pinch myself to make sure this is actually happening. A doctor wiping blood all over a room, surely sanitary and surely an 11-year-old knows not to do that.
He can’t find the bottle of alcohol he is looking for so picks up a can that is lying around. Holding it upside down he flips it in the air, displaying that he’s still got his high school finesse, reads it, chuckles, proud of himself, and squirts some white soap on my foot.
No, not actually empirical, but telling. This man has being practicing medicine for decades. He told me so. He has those prestigious, awe-inspiring initials after his name yet he is one of the least competent individuals I have ever met.
Coming off a week of orientation for incoming freshman where I met countless pre-med students, students who want to be lawyers and joint J.D./Ph.D.s, today was a harrowing experience that typifies a crippling lack of creativity within the adolescent/young professional mindset. Intellect, pursuit out of curiosity not a teleological, career obsessed, money making impetus for learning, is lost. Students care about their grades but not their minds. The majority of undergraduates obsess over internships, jobs, grades, and graduate school before they ask questions that might make them better writers, thinkers, or more holistic young adults. Such is the climate of college campuses today and it is blinding, rendering most students unable to function in non traditional capacities and non traditionally in professional careers. Able to pay for Kaplan and get into med school sure, but to think for themselves, take a risk, read a book that is not assigned or on Oprah’s book club, no. Worst of all, this literally mind-numbing set of expectations has become the norm – the laudable norm, the revered doctor, the brilliant lawyer, you must be smart of you have a PhD.
My toe knows better.
My appointment is at 8:15 a.m. Blood pressure, no pain, a solid temperature, (and) I am ushered into the exam room. Crappy cologne first, then the doctor himself; sporting a navy blue polo shirt with vertical rows of sailing flags, a detective’s moustache, and high school county championship ring he asks me if I am ready.
I am as ready as I am going to be.
He escorts me to another room where he confuses my right foot for my left foot several times, finally drooling iodine all over my ingrown toenail. Running before walking, he now puts on his exam gloves. Clumsily, he fills the syringe and proceeds to jab my foot six times, obviously unsure about what he is doing, like a toddler who struggles to play with a toy that is meant for a child three years older, a Looney Tunes character trying to blow out its tail.
His plastic hospital I.D. card shimmers on the counter: First Name, Last Name, M.D.
Twenty minutes and my toe is numb. Hunting for the scissors and gauze, he puts gloves on and does the procedure. At one point he yelps, “Wow! Look at all the pus,” the medical professional response to an infected wound. Gloves bloody, he pours through every cabinet in the room wiping blood on all the handles and some of the cabinet doors. My toe hurts but I pinch myself to make sure this is actually happening. A doctor wiping blood all over a room, surely sanitary and surely an 11-year-old knows not to do that.
He can’t find the bottle of alcohol he is looking for so picks up a can that is lying around. Holding it upside down he flips it in the air, displaying that he’s still got his high school finesse, reads it, chuckles, proud of himself, and squirts some white soap on my foot.
No, not actually empirical, but telling. This man has being practicing medicine for decades. He told me so. He has those prestigious, awe-inspiring initials after his name yet he is one of the least competent individuals I have ever met.
Coming off a week of orientation for incoming freshman where I met countless pre-med students, students who want to be lawyers and joint J.D./Ph.D.s, today was a harrowing experience that typifies a crippling lack of creativity within the adolescent/young professional mindset. Intellect, pursuit out of curiosity not a teleological, career obsessed, money making impetus for learning, is lost. Students care about their grades but not their minds. The majority of undergraduates obsess over internships, jobs, grades, and graduate school before they ask questions that might make them better writers, thinkers, or more holistic young adults. Such is the climate of college campuses today and it is blinding, rendering most students unable to function in non traditional capacities and non traditionally in professional careers. Able to pay for Kaplan and get into med school sure, but to think for themselves, take a risk, read a book that is not assigned or on Oprah’s book club, no. Worst of all, this literally mind-numbing set of expectations has become the norm – the laudable norm, the revered doctor, the brilliant lawyer, you must be smart of you have a PhD.
My toe knows better.
Friday, August 4, 2006
Pretty Much The Coolest Thing Ever
Complete with soda, too much food, cake and extended family, the pomp of the birthday celebration August 1st was the same as any other I’ve been to but the circumstance was different. It wasn’t my birthday but it was the anniversary of the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. The coolest thing by far.
During the summer of ’05 I volunteered for an NGO in Kibera, one of the largest slums in Nairobi and East Africa. My project finished before the date of my departure so much of my time was dedicated to letting children pet my milky skin, spending time with people, and doing my best to lighten the mood whenever inappropriate. Up to nothing of note, the head of the organization summoned my volunteer title and volunteered me to paint the clinic. Situated within the slum, the clinic provides basic health care on a sliding scale for residents of the community and was in the process of formal registration in the hopes of getting free vaccines from the government. Regulations stipulated that the clinic be white.
Replete with a coverall, paint and brushes, turpentine, no clue, drop clothes, and a foot stool, I set to work. Unlike my jokes or vague development lingo painting the clinic was a tangible contribution. It made me feel good. The work I did in the clinic on August 1st, 2005, however, made me feel even better.
Hopped up on turpentine fumes, I was brushing away, a veritable painting machine -- the Arnold of slum clinic painting like you’d never believe. Most of the patients just stared at my like I was nuts. One patient was different, in far too much pain to notice the connect the dots pattern spackled on my face, eight centimeters preoccupied.
Another volunteer burst into my studio – there is going to be a baby she effervesced. Flashing back to the Miracle of Life video in Mr. Aptekar’s class my initial reaction was: eww. Another couple of minutes and I poked my head in to ask the nurse to ask the woman giving birth if it would be ok for me to sit in. She said yes. With the paint still on my face I gloved up, put on a white coat and did what I thought I was supposed to. “You are doing great momma,” I cooed in English to a Kswahili speaking woman in labor. She froze me with a look, “shut up boy, this is not a sitcom, this is number six and the last” curtly communicated her wrinkled face. My pit stains continued to grow.
I meant well but took the hint, content to hold her hand and wipe her forehead. With a strong push, there was another life in the world. In that moment, there was a presence in the room bigger than any individual – in the balance of the Earth, creation, destruction, life, death, I saw a child born. There was no conservation of mass in this equation. A new baby in the world, a new person. Slimy, gross and more beautiful than anything I have ever seen, the recently converted amphibian was handed to me. Thirteen seconds old. My hands were quaking. A new person in the world and I was holding him, before the mother, before the father, as he was taking his first breaths.
As the nurse focused on the mom, I focused on the baby wrapping him in a sweatshirt, cleaning him up, in awe. Newborn topped with a hat, the mother in recovery holding her new son, I was now up to effervescing, writing the word “baby” all over the walls of my masterpiece, a best attempt at trapping a the enormity what just happened.
At the end of the day, exhausted, I cleaned up, washed my hands, got dressed and went to thank the mother. Babbling in a mixture of English and almost Kswahili, I told her thank you, thank you, and thank you, my best attempt failing again, unsure of what really just happened but knowing I was forever indebted to her sharing his birth with me.
Asante sana, mother. I can’t thank you enough.
Your welcome, she said, in a tone of voice that told me how tired her soul was. HIV positive, like her husband, neither employed, there was now another mouth to feed.
What is his name?
She looked up at me, her eyes glowing, a smile more sincere than any I’ve ever seen, 'Baby Aaron.
--
August 1, 2006 was baby Aaron’s 1st birthday -- happy birthday baby Aaron.
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