I am busy on grad school applications (eesh!) but I wanted to share what is both a beautifully done, but also deeply troubling photo essay. Child labor stinks. But the conditions that lead to child labor are perhaps even worse; India does not have a great track record for protecting its children, and labor is certainly a huge factor.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/05/bricks_for_bread_and_milk?obref=obinsite
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Cultural Exchange
Visthar is currently host to a group called, School of Peace; SOP, as it is affectionately known, is attended by students from areas of conflict in Asia: Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. Getting to know the group thus far has been too much fun, as well as profoundly educational; I can only imagine that the coming months will be an exciting time of learning and interacting and new friends.
In the mean time, though, tonight was Thai food night. It was really an exchange between myself and them; they created a masterpiece soup called tom yun and I taught a sweet little Muslim girl named Noorizan about food baby.
Nothing like a little tom yum food baby for cross cultural awareness :)
In the mean time, though, tonight was Thai food night. It was really an exchange between myself and them; they created a masterpiece soup called tom yun and I taught a sweet little Muslim girl named Noorizan about food baby.
Nothing like a little tom yum food baby for cross cultural awareness :)
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Google Earth
If you ever need a bit of perspective, let me recommend Google Earth.
It's a pretty incredible tool, which I forget exists often enough to impress me every time I download it anew. You can zoom in to your very own house, and zoom out to the stars; it gives specific visual backing to the sentiment of feeling small in the world. Tonight, I was sitting at the monitor, surrounded by a few friends; Biju, the technology guru here at Visthar, and Ki Poh, a Karen boy (He's 20-- man?) from Myanmar.
We started the Imaging here at Visthar, excited to recognize the blurry image of the library take shape, right where we sat! We zoomed in to see the coconut grove, the square office with it's opening for the lotus pond, and the dormitory where Ki Po is staying, my room, the area where Biju is planting a garden.
Then, Biju zoomed out, refocusing on the southern state of Kerala, where his family home is located. He pulled the image closer, relying on rivers to guide his way through deep forests; the mountainous regions of eastern Kerala are densely wooded with dark canopies, making it difficult to discern roads and homes from a distance. But Biju accomplished his task, tracking up from the river causeway to his house upon a hill: a small home in a crook of the road, surrounded by the rubber trees that cover the area. It is a short walk from the nearby bus stop, but Biju informs me that the hill upon which his house is settled is a bit treacherous with a week's firewood balanced on one's head, as his father carried for most of his life.
My own home in Iowa was simple to find, its meticulous address accurately entered. Google Earth simply had to zoom out, flying across continents and oceans, making me feel very far from home indeed. It was a gentle landing, focusing slowly through Iowa, and Des Moines, and on to my beautiful house, my home of many years. It caused a sweet kind of homesickness, the gentle missing of a place well loved. Biju remarked at the inorganic orderliness of it all, roads mapped out in serious uniformity (I didn't mention the critique my neighborhood often receives of an arbitrarily wandering nature). Ki Poh looked for a long moment, staring, and said, "Your house is very big. A house like this... it would be..."
He sat down at the monitor, and in the address box merely typed, "Refugee Camp, Thailand."
Talk about perspective.
The houses are indeed, very small. The areas are clearly underdeveloped, 7 camps in all, scattered along the Thai/Burma border. In Ki Poh's camp, there is one clearing, where the traditional New Year is celebrated, but there is little other community space or resources. The roads are all but non existent, barely cutting through the mountains that box the people into their river valleys.
The Karen people are a minority in Myanmar, chased back and forth across the Thai/Burma border in a bizarre and sick sort of pinball; you can stay, you must leave, come back, go away… at 20, Ki Poh has lived most of his life on the Thai side, in a small refugee camp balanced on a riverbank near the border. He and some of his friends have started a youth group, to encourage their comrades, and themselves, to not to get swallowed up by the camps, by the governments, by the landmines sprinkled throughout their villages. It was announced yesterday that a recent camp, established only last year for Karen peopled chased across the border by the Burmese military, will be disassembled and the people returned to their now very dangerous village back on the other side. Ki Poh is worried.
I worry that it becomes too easy to lose one’s sense of awe; awe at the size of things, awe at the scope of the Earth’s great magnitude, as well as awe in the divergences between the lives that people lead. Even here, where I am so far removed from my norms, I become slowly inured to these massive gaps, and at times, the world seems very small.
Not tonight.
It's a pretty incredible tool, which I forget exists often enough to impress me every time I download it anew. You can zoom in to your very own house, and zoom out to the stars; it gives specific visual backing to the sentiment of feeling small in the world. Tonight, I was sitting at the monitor, surrounded by a few friends; Biju, the technology guru here at Visthar, and Ki Poh, a Karen boy (He's 20-- man?) from Myanmar.
We started the Imaging here at Visthar, excited to recognize the blurry image of the library take shape, right where we sat! We zoomed in to see the coconut grove, the square office with it's opening for the lotus pond, and the dormitory where Ki Po is staying, my room, the area where Biju is planting a garden.
Then, Biju zoomed out, refocusing on the southern state of Kerala, where his family home is located. He pulled the image closer, relying on rivers to guide his way through deep forests; the mountainous regions of eastern Kerala are densely wooded with dark canopies, making it difficult to discern roads and homes from a distance. But Biju accomplished his task, tracking up from the river causeway to his house upon a hill: a small home in a crook of the road, surrounded by the rubber trees that cover the area. It is a short walk from the nearby bus stop, but Biju informs me that the hill upon which his house is settled is a bit treacherous with a week's firewood balanced on one's head, as his father carried for most of his life.
My own home in Iowa was simple to find, its meticulous address accurately entered. Google Earth simply had to zoom out, flying across continents and oceans, making me feel very far from home indeed. It was a gentle landing, focusing slowly through Iowa, and Des Moines, and on to my beautiful house, my home of many years. It caused a sweet kind of homesickness, the gentle missing of a place well loved. Biju remarked at the inorganic orderliness of it all, roads mapped out in serious uniformity (I didn't mention the critique my neighborhood often receives of an arbitrarily wandering nature). Ki Poh looked for a long moment, staring, and said, "Your house is very big. A house like this... it would be..."
He sat down at the monitor, and in the address box merely typed, "Refugee Camp, Thailand."
Talk about perspective.
The houses are indeed, very small. The areas are clearly underdeveloped, 7 camps in all, scattered along the Thai/Burma border. In Ki Poh's camp, there is one clearing, where the traditional New Year is celebrated, but there is little other community space or resources. The roads are all but non existent, barely cutting through the mountains that box the people into their river valleys.
The Karen people are a minority in Myanmar, chased back and forth across the Thai/Burma border in a bizarre and sick sort of pinball; you can stay, you must leave, come back, go away… at 20, Ki Poh has lived most of his life on the Thai side, in a small refugee camp balanced on a riverbank near the border. He and some of his friends have started a youth group, to encourage their comrades, and themselves, to not to get swallowed up by the camps, by the governments, by the landmines sprinkled throughout their villages. It was announced yesterday that a recent camp, established only last year for Karen peopled chased across the border by the Burmese military, will be disassembled and the people returned to their now very dangerous village back on the other side. Ki Poh is worried.
I worry that it becomes too easy to lose one’s sense of awe; awe at the size of things, awe at the scope of the Earth’s great magnitude, as well as awe in the divergences between the lives that people lead. Even here, where I am so far removed from my norms, I become slowly inured to these massive gaps, and at times, the world seems very small.
Not tonight.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Happy New Year's...From the Future!
This is a joke that never gets old-- but, in about three hours, I will be living in a different DECADE from most of my family and friends!
You have to admit that's a pretty fabulous feat. :) I will make sure to report back from the future to let everyone know how it holds up.
In the mean time, I wan to wish everyone a beautiful, blessed 2010, a New Year of warmth, blessing, and "enough."
You have to admit that's a pretty fabulous feat. :) I will make sure to report back from the future to let everyone know how it holds up.
In the mean time, I wan to wish everyone a beautiful, blessed 2010, a New Year of warmth, blessing, and "enough."
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Comfort and Joy
I would like to begin by wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas. Or, by India’s rather British tradition, a Happy Christmas.
As I write, the skies have just begun to open into a warm rain; as the monsoon is long over, rains are only punctuated by rumbling from the quarry next door. I realize that the United States have been suffering under a very white Christmas this year, and I cannot help but feel very far away.
Christmas this year was not my usual tradition, but rather traditional in its own sense; I spent Christmas with David and Mary Selvaraj, attending a midnight service on Christmas Eve and seeing both sides of their family and many friends over the course of the holiday. It was all very comfortable, aside from the rather jarring moment when I realized that "Away in a Manger" was being sung to a tune that I attach in my mind to an entirely different song. Christmas trees and thoughtful gifts and heavy foods were all around, and everyone was very sweet in making me feel right at home. And, in the case of David's brother's family, half the family had married and had children all over the world, creating a veritable UN Council of Family Gatherings, with members from 4 of the 6 populated continents represented. Somehow, everyone else knew the words to Cotton Fields by CCR better than I: "It was down in Louisiana/ Just about a mile from Texarkana/ In them old cotton fields back home."
While the celebrations themselves have been very comfortable indeed, I cannot help but revise my reading of the Christmas story in the context of my surroundings. For the past week, a group of children have been staying here at Visthar; all of these children are either affected or infected by and with HIV/AIDS. The connection has been made in my mind between these children and the girls at Bandhavi-- all of them have been outcast by society as mere children, fighting through life from birth as a result of circumstances over which they had no control. Of course, as children, they are lovely, playing with David's pet rabbits and excitedly recounting the games being played to the boring grown ups.
But, context! It is not a far leap to connect the children with HIV, the Bandhavi girls, and another child born about 2000 years ago. Through the lens of actual poverty, de-Currier and Ives-d, Jesus looks very different. Here, he is the child of dubious birth, born quite literally in a barn to parents who amounted to day laborers. Jesus, historical Jesus, came out of this physical setting to protest empire and exclusion by challenging the all people with the Kingdom of God, where the poor are blessed and the weak are strong and with God. Jesus sided with the oppressed; He could understand their oppression all the more, because it was also his human experience. David often speaks of siding with the poor. It would seem that siding with the poor is quite literally siding with Jesus.
And so, back to contemporary India. There are a lot of children here. There are more children here than there are PEOPLE in the United States. Many of India's children are being born into comfortable homes, with the promise of education, and comfort. But there are staggering numbers, overwhelming numbers, of children that are born in India even today that will face malnutrition (almost 50% of them), illiteracy, child labor and social exclusion. These are the children with whom Jesus would be born. I see these children every day as I walk the streets; they sit quietly on sidewalks outside the blue tarp tent-homes their families have propped up on sidewalks on the side of the road.
To return to "Away in a Manger" (regardless of tune):
"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed...
The cattle are lowing
The poor baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes."
But really, what Lord is here? The lord of a barn, valued less than the cattle nearby, already learning that crying will not improve circumstances. In this new context, this fluffy little carol is actually the daily story of millions of children, in India and around the world. The Jesus of Christmas is hope that this will not always be the case, and provides the imperative to respond to these situations.
For me and in this place, the message of, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me" becomes more poignant every day.
So, with that, I wish you all a Christmas of comfort of spirit and heart, and with the joy of the promise of a Kingdom of God, guided by the children of sidewalk huts and of devadasis and AIDS victims.
Peace, Shanti, Peace.
As I write, the skies have just begun to open into a warm rain; as the monsoon is long over, rains are only punctuated by rumbling from the quarry next door. I realize that the United States have been suffering under a very white Christmas this year, and I cannot help but feel very far away.
Christmas this year was not my usual tradition, but rather traditional in its own sense; I spent Christmas with David and Mary Selvaraj, attending a midnight service on Christmas Eve and seeing both sides of their family and many friends over the course of the holiday. It was all very comfortable, aside from the rather jarring moment when I realized that "Away in a Manger" was being sung to a tune that I attach in my mind to an entirely different song. Christmas trees and thoughtful gifts and heavy foods were all around, and everyone was very sweet in making me feel right at home. And, in the case of David's brother's family, half the family had married and had children all over the world, creating a veritable UN Council of Family Gatherings, with members from 4 of the 6 populated continents represented. Somehow, everyone else knew the words to Cotton Fields by CCR better than I: "It was down in Louisiana/ Just about a mile from Texarkana/ In them old cotton fields back home."
While the celebrations themselves have been very comfortable indeed, I cannot help but revise my reading of the Christmas story in the context of my surroundings. For the past week, a group of children have been staying here at Visthar; all of these children are either affected or infected by and with HIV/AIDS. The connection has been made in my mind between these children and the girls at Bandhavi-- all of them have been outcast by society as mere children, fighting through life from birth as a result of circumstances over which they had no control. Of course, as children, they are lovely, playing with David's pet rabbits and excitedly recounting the games being played to the boring grown ups.
But, context! It is not a far leap to connect the children with HIV, the Bandhavi girls, and another child born about 2000 years ago. Through the lens of actual poverty, de-Currier and Ives-d, Jesus looks very different. Here, he is the child of dubious birth, born quite literally in a barn to parents who amounted to day laborers. Jesus, historical Jesus, came out of this physical setting to protest empire and exclusion by challenging the all people with the Kingdom of God, where the poor are blessed and the weak are strong and with God. Jesus sided with the oppressed; He could understand their oppression all the more, because it was also his human experience. David often speaks of siding with the poor. It would seem that siding with the poor is quite literally siding with Jesus.
And so, back to contemporary India. There are a lot of children here. There are more children here than there are PEOPLE in the United States. Many of India's children are being born into comfortable homes, with the promise of education, and comfort. But there are staggering numbers, overwhelming numbers, of children that are born in India even today that will face malnutrition (almost 50% of them), illiteracy, child labor and social exclusion. These are the children with whom Jesus would be born. I see these children every day as I walk the streets; they sit quietly on sidewalks outside the blue tarp tent-homes their families have propped up on sidewalks on the side of the road.
To return to "Away in a Manger" (regardless of tune):
"Away in a manger, no crib for a bed...
The cattle are lowing
The poor baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes."
But really, what Lord is here? The lord of a barn, valued less than the cattle nearby, already learning that crying will not improve circumstances. In this new context, this fluffy little carol is actually the daily story of millions of children, in India and around the world. The Jesus of Christmas is hope that this will not always be the case, and provides the imperative to respond to these situations.
For me and in this place, the message of, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me" becomes more poignant every day.
So, with that, I wish you all a Christmas of comfort of spirit and heart, and with the joy of the promise of a Kingdom of God, guided by the children of sidewalk huts and of devadasis and AIDS victims.
Peace, Shanti, Peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
