'What is REAL?' asked the Rabbit one day, 'Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?'
'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you…’
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become’
In the Velveteen Rabbit, the process of becoming real is a painful one: hair falls off, eyes drop out, joints are loosened and become shabby. Amidst the pain however, is something beautiful.
Two experiences this past weekend reminded me of the beauty (and the pain) associated with something “becoming real”. I attended an HIV/AIDS conference in Kamphaengphet, Thailand together with other Peace Corps Volunteers and our Thai counterparts. Dr. John Williams, the country director, opened the conference by sharing a story of a young child he had met many years earlier in Eastern Europe. The child, a 12 year old boy named Marios, was endowed with a spirit that revealed itself magnificently through twinkling eyes and an infectious smile. Marios was one of the top students in his school, was a talented artist who enjoyed water colors, and was such a joy to be around with. Marios was also HIV positive.
Despite his illness, Marios zest for life served as a constant reminder of how life should be lived and he had the gift for inspiring this very truth in the hearts of the people he met. Dr. John happened to be one of the lucky ones. Inspiration however, was not the only gift Dr. John received from Marios. At the end of their meeting, Marios gave Dr. John some of his paintings and his most prized possession—an easter egg painted for him by a friend, with his name inscribed in it. “Remember me” Marios told Dr. John.
Not too long after their meeting, Marious succumbed to the disease.
The story in itself was powerful but it was listening to Dr. John share the story and watching him read from a journal entry written after meeting Marios that struck me most. The way his hands shook while holding the paper; the love and sincerity he carried in his voice as he reread the words he wrote many years ago; the thoughtfulness with which he shared Marios story with our group made me realize that he was not just telling us a story but was, in a special way, sharing Mario’s easter egg with us. He was also fulfilling Marios’ request.
I did not get to ask him—though I suspect this to be true—that a big part of who Dr. John is today; his passion for his work; his outlook on the world—is largely due to a little child with sparkling eyes and an infectious smile and a spirit much larger than his frail body who taught Dr. John a special lesson—and a very real one at that—on the day they met.
The 2nd incident happened on the way home. It was hour 7 of my 12 hour bus ride back to site. I was jotting down thoughts on the power an experience can lend to a person’s voice when I got a call from my friend Tara. After catching up for a bit, I told her about Dr. John’s story and how it had struck me. Tara then told me her own story.
A few months earlier, a student of hers lost his mother to AIDS. The student, a 4th grade boy, was HIV positive himself. It was understood at the time of the mother’s death that the child was to live with his aunt. Somewhere along the way, responsibilities for the child were passed on to his grandmother who, at the time, was also taking care of another grandchild. Before the student could move in with his grandmother, the rest of the family entered the picture and saw to it that the student would not move in for fear that the disease would spread unto the other child and ultimately around the family. The child now lives alone in an empty house and while the grandfather comes every night to sleep in the house, he does so in another room. Given the strong communal culture of Thailand, especially in the rural villages—where families (even extended families) tend to all sleep together—the grandfather staying in a different room pretty much serves to show how ostracized this kid has become.
Tara told me how she cried as she found out more about the situation. Tara of course, like many people, was well aware of the stigma placed on people with HIV and AIDS around the world due to a lack of education about the disease on the part of communities. But, just as is the case with many people, until the issue becomes very real—until people see the ugliness of the stigma up close, affecting someone people actually know—the issue remains as just another sad issue. The very moment she learned about the situation, Tara told me, the issue suddenly became personal…and very real. “I just wanted to take the kid and make his life better” she said.
I have a strong feeling she will and I’ll explain why in a bit.
These 2 experiences stand out from a weekend that was full of inspiration and learning. I wrote these words just before Tara called me,
“we share a lot by giving facts…we perhaps share more by giving stories”
And
“It is when an issue becomes real to us that we acquire the voice to speak about it and touch more than just the mind…we also touch the heart”
This is exactly what happened this weekend. Dr. John and Tara were already involved in meaningful development work but the experiences they shared with me were the very experiences that put a human face on the issue and made it much more real to them. This is why I’m optimistic that Tara will do exactly what she said she wanted to do—make this kid’s life better. Knowing her, Tara will do great things in her village (in fact, she’s started developing a youth group in her community that will work with people affected by AIDS) but now, the importance of AIDS education is no longer just an issue for her. It is very real. The process of it becoming real was not pretty—in fact, it was a painful story—but I know the result will be an even more passionate commitment to educating people.
As for Dr. John, he keeps a picture of a little kid with huge eyes and a smile full of joy, grace and a hint of mischief on his desk—a great and very real source of inspiration for his important work.
These 2 stories remind me of why I love that particular section from the Velveteen Rabbit. They also makes me appreciate the position I am in as a volunteer where I get to experience—first hand—a way of life that not too many people from where I come from get to experience. I also appreciate being in the field with other volunteers—people I consider friends—who are also going through the same things and are able to share their stories with me. These stories are sometimes painful, often beautiful, and always real.
P.S. As I was writing this, I found myself getting super excited that Caitlin and I are doing similar work. As she lives longer in Uganda and I live longer in Thailand, I can only imagine how much we will both experience. I look forward to exchanging stories with her and listening as our voices, when speaking of issues about HIV/AIDS, poverty, gender and development become all the more powerful. I look forward to seeing how our experience in the Peace Corps helps us “become” and shapes us as individuals and as a couple.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Thoughts on Traveling
“I was born upon thy banks river
My blood flows in thy stream
And thou meanderest forever
At the bottom of my dream”
- Henry David Thoreau
I’ve always thought of rivers as an apt metaphor for my desire to travel—the river’s flow akin to the part of my soul that longs to constantly be on the move. So it comes as no surprise that in the places I’ve been fortunate to travel to, I’ve always been drawn to rivers—be it the Mekong or the Thames; the Kwai or the Seine—and I’ve spent hours sitting by their banks enjoying a book or a beer or both.
I enjoy rivers for the sense of contentment that comes with sitting by them—few things in this world are more calming than a river’s flow—and also for the sense of restlessness it stirs in me. After all, one of the most fascinating things about a river is that a river never ever really stays put; it is always headed somewhere. And it is this—the promise of seeing what is beyond the bend—that touches that part of my soul that longs to travel, inciting it to seek adventure and excitement.
And yet, as I’ve come to appreciate rivers more, I’ve noticed a change in my general attitude towards travel. The excitement has not wavered nor has the longing for adventure (these, I pray, will remain as constant as a river’s eventual journey to sea) but just as I’ve taken a river’s flow as a metaphor for my wanderlust, a river’s ability to bend and shift—I’ve seen stretches of the Mekong dry enough to traverse by foot and sections where I would not dare jump in—has come to represent my evolving understanding of what to travel truly means.
For a while, I loved travel for the sheer adventure of it. I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of hopping on a train or plane, seeing a new place, and then moving on. I loved the idea of waking up in a new city (or country) and not knowing for certain what time it was…or what day it was. This sort of travel was exciting, fueled by stories of rushing for trains and sleeping in stations, and meeting new people everyday; of seeing pictures where I stood by one famous monument in one city wearing the very same thing I wore in a monument of another since I was seeing them both in the same day. Such travel was fun and exciting.
But it was also shallow. I recall that after a backpacking trip to Europe, I came back and told people I loved Barcelona. Looking back, I ask myself: What about Barcelona did I love? Did I even get to know Barcelona? I was there for five days and I doubt I met a single person from Barcelona. I had a wonderful time certainly…but a time that could have been had in any of the other cities I visited in Europe—the only difference being the monuments that I saw…monuments that while exclusive to Barcelona, were not exclusively Barcelona. I realize, looking back, that I did not get to know Barcelona at all.
Lately however, I’ve learned to appreciate staying in a place a little longer or at least staying in a place long enough to truly be there. I admit that such sort of traveling can at times be mundane and highlights are few and far between. But the highlights do come and more often than not, they have as much to do with the simple aspects of life as they do with the grand…and they are just as memorable. I know I’ve been excited about things here in Thailand that I would otherwise have taken for granted—or wouldn’t have stopped to appreciate—when I was backpacking in Europe. Things like nuances in culture, in styles of dress, in social norms, etc—things that I’ve only been able to appreciate after being in Thailand for a while. So I daresay that there is indeed a charm about staying in a place long enough to know it—if not completely at least intimately. Like a farmer might say he knows a field for instance; or a ranger, a forest; or a citizen, a city; or a hiker, a mountain.
Or like a person might know a river. “I’ve known rivers” Langston Hughes once wrote. The intimacy he goes on to describe—being lulled to sleep by the Congo; sitting by the Nile and building pyramids by it; watching the change of hue by the Mississippi —suggest an element of waiting…and staying…and watching. At the end of the poem, he exclaims “My soul has grown deep like the river.”
My experience in Thailand, where I’ve slowly immersed myself in a way of life that I could have easily bypassed has added depth to my being and has broadened my perspective. Whenever I find myself longing for the excitement of experiencing new places at a faster pace, I pause and take into account what I am able to experience: the unfolding of the rice season, spending hours sitting by a hammock alongside cow herders and rice farmers and learning about their lives, being able to have meals with villagers, learning about their conceptions (and misconceptions) of America, and so much more. And most nights I find that my cup is filled. On the other nights where my cup might not necessarily be filled—where homesickness, or boredom, or a lack of a sense of purpose sink in, I just try to remain thankful for being given the opportunity to see the world in such a different way and pray that the river bends tomorrow.
My desire to see the world is strong—perhaps stronger than it has ever been. But now, the river that meanderest at the bottom of my dreams—the very fountainhead of my wanderlust—happens to be a wiser, deeper one.
My blood flows in thy stream
And thou meanderest forever
At the bottom of my dream”
- Henry David Thoreau
I’ve always thought of rivers as an apt metaphor for my desire to travel—the river’s flow akin to the part of my soul that longs to constantly be on the move. So it comes as no surprise that in the places I’ve been fortunate to travel to, I’ve always been drawn to rivers—be it the Mekong or the Thames; the Kwai or the Seine—and I’ve spent hours sitting by their banks enjoying a book or a beer or both.
I enjoy rivers for the sense of contentment that comes with sitting by them—few things in this world are more calming than a river’s flow—and also for the sense of restlessness it stirs in me. After all, one of the most fascinating things about a river is that a river never ever really stays put; it is always headed somewhere. And it is this—the promise of seeing what is beyond the bend—that touches that part of my soul that longs to travel, inciting it to seek adventure and excitement.
And yet, as I’ve come to appreciate rivers more, I’ve noticed a change in my general attitude towards travel. The excitement has not wavered nor has the longing for adventure (these, I pray, will remain as constant as a river’s eventual journey to sea) but just as I’ve taken a river’s flow as a metaphor for my wanderlust, a river’s ability to bend and shift—I’ve seen stretches of the Mekong dry enough to traverse by foot and sections where I would not dare jump in—has come to represent my evolving understanding of what to travel truly means.
For a while, I loved travel for the sheer adventure of it. I enjoyed the adrenaline rush of hopping on a train or plane, seeing a new place, and then moving on. I loved the idea of waking up in a new city (or country) and not knowing for certain what time it was…or what day it was. This sort of travel was exciting, fueled by stories of rushing for trains and sleeping in stations, and meeting new people everyday; of seeing pictures where I stood by one famous monument in one city wearing the very same thing I wore in a monument of another since I was seeing them both in the same day. Such travel was fun and exciting.
But it was also shallow. I recall that after a backpacking trip to Europe, I came back and told people I loved Barcelona. Looking back, I ask myself: What about Barcelona did I love? Did I even get to know Barcelona? I was there for five days and I doubt I met a single person from Barcelona. I had a wonderful time certainly…but a time that could have been had in any of the other cities I visited in Europe—the only difference being the monuments that I saw…monuments that while exclusive to Barcelona, were not exclusively Barcelona. I realize, looking back, that I did not get to know Barcelona at all.
Lately however, I’ve learned to appreciate staying in a place a little longer or at least staying in a place long enough to truly be there. I admit that such sort of traveling can at times be mundane and highlights are few and far between. But the highlights do come and more often than not, they have as much to do with the simple aspects of life as they do with the grand…and they are just as memorable. I know I’ve been excited about things here in Thailand that I would otherwise have taken for granted—or wouldn’t have stopped to appreciate—when I was backpacking in Europe. Things like nuances in culture, in styles of dress, in social norms, etc—things that I’ve only been able to appreciate after being in Thailand for a while. So I daresay that there is indeed a charm about staying in a place long enough to know it—if not completely at least intimately. Like a farmer might say he knows a field for instance; or a ranger, a forest; or a citizen, a city; or a hiker, a mountain.
Or like a person might know a river. “I’ve known rivers” Langston Hughes once wrote. The intimacy he goes on to describe—being lulled to sleep by the Congo; sitting by the Nile and building pyramids by it; watching the change of hue by the Mississippi —suggest an element of waiting…and staying…and watching. At the end of the poem, he exclaims “My soul has grown deep like the river.”
My experience in Thailand, where I’ve slowly immersed myself in a way of life that I could have easily bypassed has added depth to my being and has broadened my perspective. Whenever I find myself longing for the excitement of experiencing new places at a faster pace, I pause and take into account what I am able to experience: the unfolding of the rice season, spending hours sitting by a hammock alongside cow herders and rice farmers and learning about their lives, being able to have meals with villagers, learning about their conceptions (and misconceptions) of America, and so much more. And most nights I find that my cup is filled. On the other nights where my cup might not necessarily be filled—where homesickness, or boredom, or a lack of a sense of purpose sink in, I just try to remain thankful for being given the opportunity to see the world in such a different way and pray that the river bends tomorrow.
My desire to see the world is strong—perhaps stronger than it has ever been. But now, the river that meanderest at the bottom of my dreams—the very fountainhead of my wanderlust—happens to be a wiser, deeper one.
Friday, November 2, 2007
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