Plastic Wrapped and Disposable

Returning to the states

2012-01-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

Currently, I'm working on being the most awkward person I know in my life, and I'm doing pretty well in this contest. When strange men who seem to be twice my age flirt with me on the train, my tactic is to show them how weird I am to throw them off. On one particular instance, I proceeded to show a man all the photos on my camera phone of my pet tortoise (of which I have an embarrassingly large number of photos).

This tactic, however, may backfire as some guys are into the 'crazy factor', which is apparently something I possess (according to my best friend in a discussion on who would win in a physical fight). OR they have something worse which is known as 'desperation'. Whenever I feel uncomfortable or nervous I have a tendency to smile and talk more, which gives the totally opposite impression. To be honest, I have only recently returned to a place where I am regularly speaking English with educated people, so I'm a little thrown off by any and all conversation in English. This usually results in me getting really nervous and stressed out and saying whatever comes to mind.

Examples include relating a story about hamsters that my 15 year old cousin told me. Among other conversational topics I include my digestive health or some depressing anecdote about violence against women in rural India. I can't keep my mouth shut, and more often than not, I relish the time I have alone where my conversational faux paus are nonexistent or in the presence of my ever-forgiving mother.

I should probably get out more.

Anita’s Story: The Power of the Collective

2011-07-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

Note: Names have been changed

The expressions of worry etched on every single face revealed the tension the situation presented. In a way, the concern reflected the solidarity the group had developed over the past three weeks. If one person was out, the play would not be the same; it wouldn’t retain its impact, its energy. Every single participant was essential. It was not just that the play could not go on. It could have gone on quite easily. It was, instead, that at the culmination of our month of hard work and practice, their collective glory in the performance of the drama in our own village was at risk of being torn apart. They were in this together.
Jagruti, (www.jagruti.org) a small rights-based NGO operating in rural villages of south India, had recruited high school students and a few odd ones from the village of Mangenkoppa to put together an educational street play on child marriage. Mangenkoppa, a small village of less than 3,000 people, is located in the mango growing heartland of Khanapur Taluk in Belgaum District in northern Karnataka. This is a region where child marriage, domestic violence, and school drop outs are normal, and oftentimes, encouraged within the communities.
The students came to the small Jagruti field office every day for three weeks. A group of youngsters, mostly teenagers, putting together a play was no piece of cake. They fought, they got distracted easily, and even got so fed up that they cancelled play practice. Slowly, however, with proper leadership from Jagruti and a growing feeling of camaraderie, they abandoned their household and farm duties, put aside their insecurities, and performed the play, Stop Child Marriage. What was once considered a drag became the highlight of their summer. They even achieved near-celebrity status, cycling through five villages and performing in each location. Most importantly, they were a team.

Interestingly, or inevitably, patriarchy, the very force driving child marriage, was also preventing them from being a team. Of course, patriarchy is not a ghost, a monster, a creeping conceptual shadow that haunts us during the night. While the concept of patriarchy is intangible and points to no singular culprit, its effects are very real, with manifestations in every corner of life. The last night of the performance of the play in their hometown, patriarchy reared its ugly head against the performance of Stop Child Marriage by the youth of Mangenakoppa.
Anita’s older brother put his foot down and did not allow her to participate in the play. Here are the facts: Anita is 23 years old. She was married at the age of 18, and then beaten up and thrown out of her husband’s home, pregnant and alone. Fortunately, her family took her back in to their home, where she now looks after all the household responsibilities and takes care of her 3 year old son. She also works for Jagruti and is the only member of her household with a reliable paycheck every month.
Her older brother, on the other hand, spends most of his time in Bangalore, working, although no one in his family knows quite what he does, nor do they see a single paise of what he earns. About a year ago, he borrowed Rs 1,000 from Anita, who had taken out the loan to buy a mixer for the home, and never paid it back. Anita, after asking for the money over and over again, is still paying his debt off. Despite this, he has the power and authority to tell Anita what she is allowed to do, and more frequently, what she is not allowed to do. Why is she and others in her house listening to her older brother?
The role of the male in village households is supreme and considered almost divine. To contradict a male in the household is close to sacrilege. Super Freakonomics authors put it aptly when saying that “giving birth to a baby boy [in India] is like giving birth to a 401(k) retirement fund”, while a baby girl “means relabeling the retirement fund a dowry fund”. The patriarchical system of the Indian family dictates that males of the household stay in their birth home and take care of the parents and the family property. Having more opportunities outside the home, they are generally the breadwinners, thereby considered the head of the household. Females move to their husband’s home where oftentimes their voices are silenced, her work and presence undervalued, and her wants and desires considered unimportant in either her husband’s or birth home. Even though Anita’s brother does not contribute to the family income, his mere ‘maleness’ makes him the jewel of the family. In him his parents have instilled the hope that they will be taken care of in their old age after a lifetime of back-breaking work. This means, unfortunately, that the pattern of patriarchy conspires to devalue the contribution that Anita makes to her family and continue supporting her brother’s lifestyle, which does little to benefit other members of the household.

Interestingly, Anita, too, did not want to participate in the play in front of everyone. She admitted that she feared the backlash from society that her performance might produce. Being a once married woman, she carries the burden of her ex-husband’s betrayal everywhere she goes and in whatever she does. She has internalized the village gossip that says her life is over as it is not proper for once married women to re-marry. In her mind, why should she feed malicious village gossip by performing in a play with high schoolers? It is much easier and safer to choose not to participate and thereby, escape the daggers of wagging tongues.
Her defeatist attitude is fed by the lack of opportunities available to her to regain dignity in the eyes of society. The social stigma of being a battered and rejected wife remains with Anita, even though she has returned to live with her parents and works as a community organizer. This fear of ‘gossip’, that ‘people might talk’, when a woman stands up for herself or her values prevent women from entering and participating in the public sphere.

So what is the solution to ameliorate this all-pervasive mentality that oppresses women at every step of their lives? One answer is developing a feeling of solidarity, that the well-being of one is essential to the well-being of all. That evening, the youngsters of Stop Child Marriage were shocked, outraged, and upset at the thought of continuing the play without Anita. ‘She’s in the best scene, we can’t cut her out’, ‘at this point, everyone is irreplaceable’, the participants murmured with their foreheads creased with concern. When Anita’s brother decided to intervene, a crowd had already gathered in anticipation of the youths’ performance. It was getting quite late and they were getting restless. The street play crew was beginning to get anxious that their friends and neighbors would leave without witnessing the fruit of the youths’ work. No, they decided with finality, they wouldn’t let Anita’s brother get in the way of their hard work and excitement.

The evening proved to be a victory. All of the participants of the street play crowded into Anita’s tiny home, surrounding Anita’s brother. Many others also came immediately to support the participants and Anita’s involvement in the play. In the end, an elderly woman succeeded in roundly berating Anita’s older brother for ruining the evening for the play participants and for the community.
Some days after the play, Anita’s older brother was overheard praising Anita’s performance. Anita, too, was surprised when she suffered no backlash for her decision to participate in Stop Child Marriage. She said that even though she was so nervous before the play, she felt more confident after the performance, especially with the support of her team and Jagruti. The fight inside her home ended up being a victory for the street play as well as for resistance against oppressive mentalities. The play was a big hit, but most of all, the process of collective action proved to be an effective means to the path towards breaking the shackles of patriarchy.

Mornings in Ukkali

2011-02-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

The rooster crows about a half an hour before the sun actually rises, and I somewhat resent it every morning for being so unpunctual. In romanticized versions of country life, the rooster is supposed to crow exactly at the crack of dawn, but this rooster seems to be in a slightly different time zone.

I am in a haze at this point in the early morning, not able to remain sleeping, but unable to pry my eyes open without discomfort, rubbing out the sleep sand. My neck feels stiff, and my knees are sore, for apparently no reason at all. I’ve been having strange, disturbing dreams lately, and try to shake the unpleasantness created by my subconscious during the night.

Allah ho Akbar breaks the stillness of the early morning. The voice is deep, clear, and slightly out of tune, but the effect is beautiful, the rich tenor tones reaching out like tree branches to the sky. Some days it mixes with the bhajans from the temple, clashing at first, then resulting in a strange, somewhat eerie harmony. Each time, I get goosebumps.

I open my eyes to the sound of soft swooshes of the broom from downstairs and the voices of people calling to each other below. It’s still dark. The clanging of the aluminum and steel pots climbs up from the ground to the top floor of the Hanamshetti’s home, where I sleep, protected from the chilly breeze, dogs, and dust. The sounds from below translate into images; I imagine Roopa’s mother squatting in front of her corrugated tin roof home, scrubbing her rice pot with gravel, and Roopa searching for her school uniform all the while hefting her little baby brother on her hip. The thut thut thutting of Anita Akka making rotis for her sister’s lunch in the fields and the slushing of water spilling out of plastic pots balanced on women’s hips remind me that I got it easy.

I finally manage to shrug off my covers and peek outside my window. Women are busy as ever, chopping firewood, putting rangoli in the entrances of their homes, or preparing food for a long day working in the fields. I can see the red sun beginning to peer shyly over the coconut and tamarind tree horizon, making it look a bit like a cantaloupe rind. A sleepy fog hangs lightly over the village, like a protective blanket. As it ascends higher, the sun gets braver, its brightness spilling color into the town. The fog dissipates, replaced by smoke from cracks in tin roofs and dust picked up by the wheels of tums tums and ox carts.I pull my sweater off and fold up my sheets, then head downstairs to start my day.

On Skin Lighteners

2010-12-31T02:20:00.000-08:00

Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice,

I say the darker the flesh then the deeper the roots

– Tupac Shakur

Thanks to a fellow Indicorps 'fella' who put this in her report.

Dear India,

2010-12-13T23:08:00.001-08:00

How do you manage to cram so many people in one country; so many people that there is no concept of private space, that I can’t help but offer my lap to the old grandma determined to fit into an overfilled auto, that even going to take a shit is a social event?How is it that when I’m walking through a sea of peopleI feel so alone?

Your multiplicities bewilder, amuse, inspire, stimulate, and frustrate me. I am humbled by the resourcefulness and determination of your citizens and feel helpless by the normalization of society’s greatest tragedies: hunger, violence, servitude, the list goes on. How does one robbed of dignity recover it in your arms?

How come I don’t see very much of you in me? When I refer to you in Ukkali, I say “our India”, then correct myself and say “your India”, because I’m not sure I know what ‘my’ India looks like and if it is anything like their India.

When will I stop referring to your people as ‘them’? Can it ever transform to ‘us’? I’m waiting for the day when I truly internalize the reality that my well-being is tied up in your people’s well-being. My secure safety net prevents me from recognizing the joint struggle. It’s difficult for me to relate because when most of your people slip, there is nothing below to catch them.

India, in you I hoped to find a part of myself. I don’t think I will find that lost piece of my identity that I so long for, but instead, I am creating pieces to fit into a new puzzle. Why did I think living within your boundaries would hand me all the answers? It seems like I’m asking more questions than ever before.

“True generosity lies in striving so that these hands – whether of individuals or entire peoples – need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work, and working, transform the world. This lesson and this apprenticeship, however, must come from the oppressed themselves and from those who are truly solidary with them.”

– Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Am I solidary with your people, the unjustly oppressed that survive within you? I want to be. I will be. It’s harder than I thought.

Escaping Muscular Humanitarianism

2010-11-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

I thought I had begun my fellowship with no expectations, with a clear, open mind, but really, that was not the case. Once I got to my project sight, I realized I had been imagining myself doing Swades* style- muscular humanitarianism**, involving big muscles, big bucks, and big technological and political knowledge. Guess how many of those things I have? None. I did, however, bring a certain sense of determination and ambition, and some very silly subconscious daydreams.

I envisioned myself creating a study group for girls, bringing vocational and art classes to the village, bringing women into the public arena: ‘arre wah!’ I saw myself transforming a small town! I am the hero in my own Bollywood superhit! These subconscious reveries began to break down as I realized how village pace worked. No one would come to my meetings, people already knew about child marriage laws and just chose to ignore them, and even my host mother was a corrupt ex-president of the Gram Panchayat. Despite these deeply troubling issues, the biggest obstacle I felt I faced was housework. Housework, of all things. I hated those two words more than anything. Girls are often restricted in their activities because their mothers need them to do house work. Then I began to actually observe my surroundings, to see that in my own host family’s home, housework was central to every day life. From drinking chai to turning on the TV, the work that women do in the house is essential to every drop of water I drink and every morsel I consume. When I had to bring the water in myself, in a giant pot balanced on my hip, it began to sink in that housework was not just feather dusting the windowsill. It is about survival.

Survivalists! What an epiphany (I hope my sarcasm conveys itself on paper)! People work so they can eat, so they can drink, so they can raise children. I have never had to work this hard for a cup of water. A month and a half in, I still don’t do a fraction of the house work the average village woman does every day.

I wondered if technology could liberate women (i.e. washing machines, dishwashers), I wondered if education would allow women to be seen differently, if higher incomes would gain women the legitimacy they deserved, but deep inside, I know that the only way for women to break the shackles of patriarchy is a change in mentality, and that’s the most difficult change to catalyze. I was blaming housework for women’s limitations because it was easier than attempting to conceptualize and implement solutions for a less tangible culprit. Housework was not my enemy. Really, would a washing machine solve women’s problems? It certainly didn’t serve as a sustainable weapon for battling patriarchy elsewhere.

My sister asked me if my idealism is being ripped to shreds here. I said no, but I had to think about it first. The hesitation comes from the recognition that while I still cling to my idealism, I must modify it to fit with the needs of the community and not my own egotistical, impatient visions for change. Muscular humanitarianism loves the dam that generates clean water, loves the solar panels, and the paved roads, the quick, easy-to-recognize signs of development. But MH is silent in the face of social norms, patriarchy, and invisible oppression. I need to re-design my ideas of change and transform the Swades daydreams to fit with my capabilities, and most importantly, with Ukkali’s reality. As obvious as this conclusion may seem, it took me a while to shed these egotistical vision of change and opt for a subtler, and infinitely more powerful approach to development, in which the development of the self is necessary to occur.

*Swades: We, the people, is a Bollywood film starring Shah Rukh Khan in which an NRI returns to India and ends up building a small hydro-electric plant through his own personal funds and initiative in a small village.

**Note: Muscular humanitarianism is a term used by Political Scientist Anne Orford in her critique of humanitarian military intervention. I am utilizing the term in relation to international service work.

I appreciate

2010-07-17T12:10:00.001-07:00

the humility and comfort felt in worship that brings your head literally to the ground.
Beyond that, I don't know what I think about God(s).

"My pencil went to heaven"

2010-06-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

I've decided that working with kids is fun. It's probably good to realize that right now just about a week before my job ends. I guess it's easy to feel nostalgic about a tough job when you know you're leaving soon.

It's been challenging, exhausting, exasperating, but in the end, I've enjoyed it. Kids have way more personality than a computer, that's for sure. There are also several reasons why I don't love working with kids in the context that I'm working with them, but let's concentrate on the positive.

Reasons why I love working with kids:

a) i get to read all the kids books i want and feel accomplished because i read about 6 books just during lunch. also i discovered that chocolate chippo hippo is one of the greatest book titles in all of history.
b) three words baby: arts and crafts
c) i feel tall, if only sometimes (there are a few fourth graders taller than me, but who's surprised)?
d) i feel smart, if only sometimes (i relearned how to carry over when subtracting and how to do long division)
e) i get to drink the milk the kids waste. my favorite is strawberry
f) power and control
g) creativity overflows! we made costumes out of cardboard!
h) toilet humor never gets old
i) good stories, good memories, and an idea for what I want to do (and don't want to do) with the rest of my life. (i.e. the title of this blog post is the answer one of my kids gave me when I asked him where his pencil was)
j) almost everything is amusing, fascinating, and exciting.

I realize that I am just a blip in the lives of these kids, but this experience has meant so much to me and contributed a lot to my development this year. It's so weird to think of these kids in 13 years, when they are my age. I wonder how many of them will start a band, pursue art, become activists, entrepreneurs, explorers, scientists, engineers. I wonder how many of them will make it to high school. I wonder how, if at all, I influenced them. I wonder whether or not they will look back on the third grade as a great year, as I do now of both my own third grade year and theirs.

I'll come back to visit.

Identity crises

2010-04-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

INDIA INDIA INDIA

that [Indian] elephant in the room

that permanent smudge upon my face

The following essay was written for an application that asked:

What role does India play in how you define your identity?

The word that seems most fitting to describe the role of India in my identity is omnipresent. India has constantly been a part of my identity and thoughts, with the familiarity of perpetually re-reading a book whose ending I’ve forgotten. I’m constantly aware of its presence, ambiguous and vague as a shadow in the background of my life, yet, I do not think about IT when I go to the store or catch the bus.

In many ways, India is an identity that is thrust upon me, with people assuming I was born in that far off land of spices and therefore can speak for all South Asians, and assuming I emit a sort of mystical spirituality involving some flamingo-like pose at the top of a mountain. At the same time, I feel entitled to my status as a minority, as a South Asian, and have, in the past, felt robbed of an experience to which I never had access.

In the past, I’ve often dreaded India, as a nation, culture, and part of my heritage. When visiting relatives in India, I am instantly put to the test; the “Are you Indian enough?” test, which manifests itself as a friendly (but judgmental) interrogation made up of the following queries:

Do you eat Indian food?

Are you vegetarian?

Will you marry the man of your parents' choosing?

Do you possess knowledge of the great Hindu texts?

While I dread such interrogation sessions, I face the same kind of interrogation in the U.S. (i.e. ‘But seriously, where are you REALLY from?’). I feel restricted by essentialized notions of who and what people expect me to be or become. I still long to claim ownership over my Indian heritage. Yet, I become angry if anyone attempts to deny my Midwestern roots. I feel justified, however, in correcting people when they attempt to essentialize Indian culture, or any culture, in fact. At the same time, I feel qualified to only offer the culture I’ve grown up with and experienced, which is but only a small piece of the puzzle that is India.

One thing is for sure; I am still negotiating my relationship with India as it has changed, evolved, and metamorphosed throughout my life and will continue to do so into the future.

This oscillation between the spectrum of rejection and reclamation explains, to an extent, how India has played a part in my amorphous identity. The rest of my journey of self-identification requires a negotiation of some middle ground between these two extremes and creating my own hybrid identity through my Indian-American experience. I hope to begin a reclamation of India on my own terms.

Flashback attack

2010-04-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

Whenever I'm home, I tend to do some major purging of my room, mostly of Clothes I've Had Since Seventh Grade, a process known as Stop Telling Yourself You Can Make Wallets Out of Old Jeans (although I have made dog toys out of them, which proved to be quite unpopular with the only dog in the house). I also indulge in some major naval-gazing by pulling out old school projects and reminiscing about a younger, more innocent, creative, and cute me. In doing so while home last week, I stumbled upon a treasure in the form of a Second Grade Memory Book. The book was in an envelope that said DO NOT OPEN UNTIL ~~2005~~, 2015. 2015 was written underneath 2005 in my mom's handwriting. I opened it anyway because the sacredness of 2005 already passed, and typed print usually trumps written. In the envelope were my most memorable moments of second grade, written and drawn in my own sloppy hand. I learned many things about my 2nd grade experience, like the fact that my drawing skills peaked around that time and have only degenerated since. I also learned about what I wanted to be when I grew up, which is something that interests me because I'm still trying to figure that out. Near the end of the book, however, I found one particularly enlightening passage:

"When I grow up I want to be an illustrator because i love to drawe [silent 'e's are confusing, ok?] and a mom with kids. I will cook lots. And when I'm tired, my husband should take me out to eat, I don't care how tired he is."

At this point, I was reading out loud to my mom, but had to stop because we were laughing so hard. My mom especially found it difficult to keep it together and continued giggling uncontrollably for a good minute. After we laughed ourselves to the point of near-asphyxiation, I read on:

"And I want to be a basketball player and play all the time."

That's where my passage ended. Damn, how things have changed.

Conclusion: My mother and the Chicago Bulls were my biggest inspirations in the 2nd grade.

Doppelganger

2010-02-15T18:23:00.000-08:00

I met my doppelganger* today, and she seems pretty cool.

We stared at each other while we were lining up to get on the bus, but finally she was the one who initiated the conversation.

DG (for doppleganger): Do you know if this bus going to DC?
Me: I think so, but who knows.
DG: I'm confused.
Me: Me too. Let's just wait and see where we end up.
DG: This might seem like a weird question, but are you Bengali? You know, we just have similar, haha, you know, beautiful! features haha...(trails off in embarrassment)
Me (smiling with reassurance): No, but we ARE pretty freakin' beautiful.
(nervous, awkward laughter ensues, strangers stare at us)
(Goddamn, why am I so awkward!?)

The conversation got subsequently less and less painful after we got over the fact that looking at one another felt like looking into a mirror. Another uncanny similarity was that we have the same names, except that hers has -iya attached to the end of hers. Maybe I am Bengali??? Maybe I was adopted and we were separated at birth like Seeta Aur Geeta**?? People always said I looked too dark to be my mother's child. Who am I?

The similarities, however, ended there (as did my identity crisis), as she is Canadian, likes science, and is significantly more fashionable than I am (which is not difficult to do).

In other news, I made some cards!

This one is for my Gma's birthday!

This is a card I made for an old friend shaped like a red blood cell. For clarification, the card is shaped like a red blood cell, not my friend. I call it Mr. Hemo, short for Mister Hemoglobin.

You would have thought that I would have gone crazy making valentines during the blizzard, but that did not occur to me, not even once. I even forgot that V-Day existed until I walked into CVS and noticed that part of the store looked like it had been attacked by gallons of Pepto Bismol. Maybe I'll make some valentines in March. February is a short month, not enough time.

* After writing this post, I looked up Doppelganger on Wikipedia and found out that it is believed to be an omen of death to see one's own doppelganger. I have also been dodging falling sheets of ice all weekend. I am thoroughly freaked out.

** Seeta Aur Geeta is one of my all-time favorite movies. I love love LOVE it, because Geeta is easily the most entertaining, gorgeous, and badass female character in any movie I've seen. Check out my favorite scene here (although it is in Hindi with no subtitles, it is worth your while). Disclaimer: I do not believe in violence as a solution to any problem. But damn, revenge is sweet.

I'm SNOW over it

2010-02-10T18:45:00.000-08:00

But obviously not over the clever little zing dings into which people have been incorporating the word 'snow' and meant to make light of the fact that DC is entering an ice age (SNOW-MG is my fave). My room in my house used to be a balcony, and I am afraid of it falling off of the house, whirling away, becoming buried in a dog park near the capitol somewhere, a la Wizard of Oz. A suggestion by ways of my brilliant friend Lacy makes me think I need to buy a helium tank and millions of balloons as preparation for the next snow storm (UP-style, check out this link it's a movie trailer mashup of Gran Torino and Up). Not to mention emergency flares for when I'm buried underneath 6 ft of snow and dog shit.

Here are some shitty pictures from my phone from Sat evening. I have never seen the city so quiet. I felt like I was Cillian Murphy having just woken up from a coma to a world taken over by flesh eating zombies.

Imagine trying to dig this out while zombies snap at your ankles and devour your dog. It's time to head for the helicopter pad.

So many potential zombie hiding places.

As you can tell, I've got zombies on the mind. I ordered 28 Weeks Later from Netflix about a month ago and it continues to lay next to my gummi vitamins, daring me to watch it. I keep pulling the DVD out of the sleeve, and then shoving it back in, running away and hyperventilating in the corner of my room with a blanket over my head, only to have the whole cruel cycle repeated again in the next couple of hours. The first time I ordered this movie I returned it without ever watching it, and, now, even though I still lack the courage to watch it, I am unable to swallow my pride and simply return it. It's quite stupid, actually, because I'm losing money keeping this stupid movie for so long. I just get into movies WAY too much and know that if I were to watch 28 weeks later during a snowstorm, I will go crazy and have an urgent need to buy a baseball bat/fling LPs at anything that moves .

Fridge of fame

2010-01-23T07:45:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays, I discovered that some cards I had made received the prestigious honor of hanging on my sister's and Evan bava's fridge.

Looking back, this card seems to be slightly inspired by american apparel. Except the colors would probably manifest themselves in multi-colored stretchy unitards instead. Sparkly ones. Barf.

The card pictured below is for Evan bava, who works with computers or something.

Yes. I really do. All that heat seems like such a waste.

Dishoom Dishoom

2010-01-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

As a result of watching too many Sylvester Stallone, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal, and Kannada and Bollywood movies of the 'dishoom dishoom' variety (i.e. a movie entitled "AK 47"), I've come to enjoy horribly acted, zoom in zoom out action movies that is sure to involve explosives, anxiety-producing orchestral scores, and sexy, sexy cars/jungles (although I would rather vomit several times than sit through Rambo 4 again).

Super human strength, hyper masculinity, racial profiling, and female objectification are usually necessary components of the formula action B movie genre. A robotic body helps too. A die-hard feminist (haha get it?), these movies have always appealed to me, more so because I envisioned myself as the life-saving hero, wondering how the movie would be different if James Bond were a woman. A woman of color to boot. That’s right, I’d kick your ass all the way to next Tuesday, what, with my second degree yellow belt. I took karate for a couple of months in elementary school, but I was scared of my instructor so I stopped. Actually, that’s what I told everyone else. The real reason was that I couldn’t stand doing push-ups.

Inspired by these insipid films, I often created fantasy scenarios where I would be caught in the middle of disaster and, owing to the extensive database of action movie/disaster scenarios in my head, I would always wriggle my way to safety in these fantasies. Happy endings are Hollywood’s specialty, and a sad one certainly makes for a terrible Jean Claude van Dam movie.

In my scenarios, I purposefully left out the part where Admiring, Leggy, Brooding, Generally Misunderstood Sexy Lady saunters by, and I sweep her away in my gadget-tastic car/robot and we make love on a bed with satin sheets for hours. I didn't think about that much as a kid. My parents didn't even have "the talk" with me. I just got a book under my pillow, which I think was around 5th grade. At that point, I had a crush on a boy who picked his nose, and the most I fantasized about was him doing a Bollywood song and dance number on my lawn with a couple hundred backup dancers (Sidenote: I need that red dress that Madhuri wears in that video, and I HATE salman).

Someday I will make a kickass action movie with female stars who aren’t stupid or annoying (it will be nothing like Charlie’s Angels because that movie is the equivalent of a frontal lobotomy, or at least I wish I’d had one before watching it).

P.S. If you haven’t watched Exit Wounds starring DMX and Steven Seagal, you are missing out. Put that shit on your Netflix queue, NOW.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

Resolutions:
1. Get a job
2. Take care of my body
3. Make gobs of money
4. Spend it all on grapefruit gummy candy and a trip to the moon.

Caffeine, my lover

2009-12-27T21:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Caffeine,

I love you. You are my very best friend. I wish I could shrink a bite-sized espresso machine to carry around in my shallow girl-jean pockets for emergencies. My dependence upon you leaves me desperate, wandering in the snow looking for a cup of coffee unblemished by Starbucks brand bitterness, disregarding my cashless wallet and frost-bitten nose (my nose gets colder than my feet sometimes, but not when I have a hot cup of caffeinated something to my lips).

I love you most in my mother's milk tea, spiced with saffron and cardamom, paired with digestive biscuits from Devon Ave, and always hot enough to burn the roof of my mouth. At times, I dip the biscuits a little too long in the cup and the rest of biscuit resurfaces, only half intact, and the other half disintegrated at the bottom.

At home, almost twice a day, you are an excuse to sit back and relax, and chat with mom and Avva. It makes me think of tea in India (super sweet, extra hot, made with milk from bags), long to visit the coffee plantation on which my mother spent her childhood, and of my dream to buy a coffee plantation, become a farmer and live on a farm in my retired years.

Caffeine, you are the reason I didn't drop out my sophomore year of college. I couldn't have made it through all those all-nighters without you. Even though I didn't know how to work my sister's coffee machine and poured water over the grounds, you still managed to pull through for me.

Caffeine, you are also my most treacherous enemy. Why oh why did I make coffee at work for 4 days only to discover after 4 horrible nights and days of what I thought was a sinus headache was the result of caffeine deprivation?? I should have noticed the "decaf" label.

Don't ever leave me.

Love,

Me

Tea in Kerala.

Maybe DC is growing on me

2009-12-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

I've recently had the opportunity to make a few more cards for some very dear, dear friends.

Miss Catie reminds me of summer, and when I think of summer I think of watermelons:

I miss my idol Alia who is currently in the PRC so I sent her this along with some other goodies:

aaaaaaaaaaaand speaking of le PRC, Miss Anne came over the river, through the woods, over mountains, continents, etc., and is now in DC! So I made her this card to remind her to always remember her roots (WI):

I made a card for my dad, too, but it's so bad it's embarrassing. I'll just have to fulfill his dream of having a multi millionaire daughter instead.

The holidays are coming around so I've switched from making cards to baking cookies. A much more delicious switch in hobbies, although I may buy a glue gun soon and expand my crafty sensibilities to 3D objects.

I suck at memory

2009-12-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

While sitting in a leadership development seminar the other day (yeah, quite the exciting beginning to a blog post), I found out that one of the key components to good leadership, fundraising, community organizing and professional ladder-climbing is people memory. People love it when you remember something about them, however small/insignificant the detail. For example, if you remember that they have a voracious appetite for grapefruit gummy candy or that their kid got their head stuck in a chair, or what have you.

Too bad I suck at memory. I forget what people have said seconds after they say it. I also forget to inform important people in my life about important things.
Example from a couple years ago (BF stands for Best Friend, read: inseparable since preschool):

BF: So, what're you doing for New Year's?
Me: Oh, well, I'll be in India so, I don't know, family time, probably won't be clubbing or anything. I'd be lucky if I got to wear a party hat.
BF (highly offended): India? Since when were you going to India? I thought you said you were going to be around???
Me: Yeah, that was back in August. I thought I told you, I'm going to India right before I study abroad in Bolivia.
BF: You're going to BOLIVIA????
Me: uhhhhhh.....

So yeah. I do that too often.

I'm also terrible with names. And faces, and dates. and everything. Speaking of names, while I was working an event for work, handing out name tags and registering guests as they entered, a man approached me and said, "Suma! How are you? Decided not to stay in Minnesota, huh?"

I had no idea how this man knew me. I was noticeably surprised and tried to buy time by pretending to be distracted by the light reflected off of the plastic covering of his name tag.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough time for me to figure out how I knew this man.

Here's was I said:
"uhhh ooo um, bladiggity blah, oooh yess, Minnesota....ha ha what a night ha ha heresyourdrinkticket why don't i just give you two ha ha old friends and all ha ha??"

All of this was said while I stared at his name tag trying dig through the black holes in my brain to place his face and name with memory.
It was embarrassingly obvious I had totally forgotten him and how I knew him. If he didn't have a name tag, I definitely wouldn't have remembered his name. It was only a couple of hours later when the aperture in my brain clicked into the right setting and the world came into focus and I remembered that HE WAS MY OLD BOSS from a campaign I worked on in Minnesota. AHHHHHH. Talk about terrible relationship building.

In unrelated news, my grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on Monday. Congrats, Avva and Thatha!
Below is my Avva with the card I made them for the special day.

Isn't she lovely?

Meat in Basket

2009-11-29T09:48:00.000-08:00

While hunting for snowpants (don't you miss those??), hats, mittens, post-apocalyptic gas masks, and other cold-weather related seasonal contraband, we stumbled upon a most educational toy.

But my dearest sister, why are you so sad? "Meat in Basket" is one of the most amazing discoveries I've made in recent weeks. What's next? "Meat in Bucket", "Meat on Rollercoaster", "Meat in Meat", or "Meat in Well with accompanying pulley system"?? There is so much potential to capitalize on making toys imitating plastic meat-shaped oblongs in various nooks and crannies in everyday life.

I've got to start perusing the dollar bins at Target more carefully.

What do sushi, sunflowers, and clouds have in common?

2009-11-11T07:02:00.000-08:00

All of them have been featured on my handmade-homemade cards! Delicious enough to eat? Definitely not. I don't believe cardstock has any nutritional value, but I'm sure we could work it out if that's your thing.

I have amazing friends. That's for sure. They're so amazing I have the urge to make sushi-themed cards for them like the one pictured below:

Sure, the sushi rolls are 4 times the size of the chopsticks, but that's because of my clever use of perspective.

Check out my sunflower for Miss Kim/Best Roomie ever!

This wasn't really for Kim's birthday, it was just because Kim was visiting and I felt like making her a card.
The following card was for my mom's birthday: But before you judge....

...let me explain. Yes, it is shaped like a house, but what can I do? I associate my mother with home and of course, my dog, whose favorite person is my mother (honestly though, whose favorite person ISN'T my mother)?? That doesn't mean I think of her as confined to the house only. It simply means that I associate her with home and comfort and feeling relieved and reassured (sometimes). She's a powerful woman who can hold her own in and out of the household. Also, I'm homesick. Previously cards I've made have featured otters, kangaroos, laptops that bake cakes, penguins, naked mole rats, elephants, and a cloud. The cloud was for my dad, who's a total dreamer.

I'm in the process of making more cards, but I couldn't post the pictures because I have not given them to people yet. I don't want to ruin the surprise.

Cheating

2009-11-10T07:24:00.000-08:00

I'm totally cheating and I've decided to do a blog post on blogs that I've written for other blogs.
At least you know that I'm not totally slacking, even if this blog's getting stale.
Read about my lame update on life in the 'real world' at the Minnesota Women's Consortium's blog here.

and

pictures and a few words about my experience riding the Skullmobile around DC here.

Lame I know, but I've had the swine and that's the best excuse for not doing shit.

Vegetarian Spiders

2009-10-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

I made some fantastic discoveries recently.

1) The first ever predominantly vegetarian spider was discovered in Central America and Mexico.

I generally like spiders anyway because they eat flies. But this one is JUST LIKE ME. YAY.

2) There is a book called My Mom Eats Tofu.

I've decided to collect progressive children's books about alternative lifestyles and befriend vegetarian animals. I already own My Daddy's a Nurse which I found while shopping for ugly Christmas sweaters last December at a hospital thrift store where my grandpa used to work. I bought and met the author of My Mom Eats Tofu this weekend. She was vivacious, ultra-conscious of her community and her carbon footprint.
BUT...

...here's the thing. There is this part:

and this part:

This made me a little uncomfortable. While I <3 vegan cookies, the last couple of lines had me raising my eyebrows.

Like, as if knowing the dress or food or dance of a culture makes you well versed in and tolerant of this particular culture. While the book as a whole is incredibly cool because it makes little vegetarian kids feel like they're not freaks (which was something I felt often), it reminds me of when people I have just met and with whom I have had no discussion about my background or identity tell me that they LOVE Indian food. That's great, asshole, what do you want me to say? A few possibilities:

1) "OMG what a coincidence! You should come over so I can cook you 5 million delicious curries that I memorized at age 5 like a nice Indian girl should."

2) "Indian food? Indians eat....food??!? First I've heard of that."

3) " I can shit out a pretty good curry sauce when I concentrate real hard. You should try it sometime."

Honestly, I can't say I know any 'culture' well at all. Perhaps a culture of a very specific experience, based upon heritage, class, family structure, race, gender, etc, etc., the list goes on and on. But still.
I don't fucking care that you LOVE naan.

As a whole, though, I really enjoyed this book. Not only did it take me all of one minute to read, I also think it has a lot of potential to make an alternative lifestyle (or diet, in this case) more acceptable to children, and to everyone. I have more of an issue with essentializing cultures and people than with the book.

Back to befriending vegetarian animals. I am so on top of this. The tortoise on my profile picture is actually Leo Tolstoy, my vegetarian Russian tortoise who loves to cuddle. He lives with my family now and bff with my dog, who doesn't really like him. I miss them. I need to repost my desperate craigslist ad begging people to let me walk their dogs.

Fuzzy photos

2009-10-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

Enjoy a few out-of-focus photos from my phone. I like to think the poor quality of these makes me seem more endearing. But really, I have shaky hands.

I went to a place called "So's Your Mom" in Adams Morgan, and I found this delightful cookie which looked like it had fallen out of Willy Wonka's wet dream. It didn't taste as good as it looked.

This dog is sweet. Check it out, chillin' on the windowsill. This dog's a mad playa.

This was some sort of soup and edemame at a cozy little place called Teaism near Dupont Circle. The soup has "Teaism" written on it in something. Clever.

Evidence of my first (and thus far, only,) venture into DC's very own gated community: Georgetown. The above is what the tourists are allowed to see. Needless to say, I live far, far away from here.
Kabs told Oriel that this was a monument to the American Phallus. Not too far off.

Kabir's roommate likes to collect Michael Jordan figurines and surround them with tiny plastic adoring Smurf fans. This is too much.

I have other photos. But I'll leave the photos of the real things for facebook. Where people actually look at them.

DC is an armpit

2009-09-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

It really feels like it sometimes. This guy from work told me to look at it more positively, like, as if I am entering a rainforest. But I can't shake the feeling that I need to rub deodorant on everything around me in order to survive the intense suffocating heat. DC is an armpit.

Try these fruit bars. I bought them when I was really hungry in Safeway (along with a whole lotta cornbread, which was also delicious), and it was such great luck that I liked them! I wonder if I could just make my own fruit bars by putting some raspberries in my bag with some mushy carrots and hopping up and down on them. I think they're vegan too! They are also fun for kids because they come in squiggly shapes! I love squiggles. Actually, I just like saying squiggles. That word's gonna be in my head all week now. Like the week I had the words 'sigourney weaver' stuck in my head. Everytime someone asked me how I was doing I just had to scream "SIGOURNEY WEAVER!" Now someone will ask me where I'm from or how much work I've gotten done today and I'll shriek "SQUIGGLIES!!!" at the top of my lungs.

I want a brick pizza oven in my kitchen. That is my one and only vision for the future right now, besides universal health care, seeing military money transferred to social services, education being recognized as a right, and freedom and equality for all.

I will post some fuzzy pictures soon from my camera phone. Yes, the one with a pink jelly cover and Dooney and Bourke keychain with a pink heart on it. What can I say? My uncle has good taste.

I got a bike!

2009-09-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

and it's purple! But too bad biking around DC is TERRIFYING.

I shall bike to work everyday.

Also, who knew that the Lincoln statue was not the same thing as the Lincoln Memorial? I told Kabir he lived 4 blocks away from the Lincoln Memorial, when it was actually 22 blocks away from his building. Good thing no one ever trusts my sense of direction. Well, one person did. I told a tourist on the metro who was looking for the Washington Monument to get off at Judiciary Square on the red line, which is actually very far away from it...I figured that while he may curse me at first, he'd thank me later for adding years to his life by power-walking 3 miles to the monument.

I own a misleading and incomplete map of DC. Granted, I tore it out of the back of a Congressional Directory given to me at work (the only time I've ever used it), but still. I finally decided to invest in the inaugural edition map of the DC metro area with Obama' grinning proudly at the part in my hair (which I am sure will be my bald spot soon) at Safeway, where the cashier who rung me up basically said, "HEY YOU'RE NEW TO THIS CITY!", and everyone was like, "DAMN, WOMAN, WHO ISN'T?"

Exactly. My new status as a DC resident will never be a novelty.

The other day, I walked into an elevator in which lingered the effect of 50948730 cans of beans some farty asshole ate. It was the longest 2 flights of my life. Normally I would walk up the stairs, so I believe my lethargy that day was being punished by some higher, divine, gassy being.

Speaking of smelliness, I've been rationing my Altoids, which I bought the first day here, not only because they're mad expensive, but because I always seem to smell like coffee. ALWAYS. I think it's because I always spill some on my clothes. But I found out they have gelatin in them, which grosses me out. It seems kind of counter-intuitive to put horse hooves in your mouth as a breath freshener.

Metro musings

2009-09-03T13:21:00.000-07:00

The thing about being short is that on the metro you get a lot of armpits in your face. It doubly sucks if you are claustrophobic. I envision myself vomiting on the tall, pit-stained assholes around me just so they would get the hell away from me.

Yes, so I've made it to DC in one piece (more or less) a little less than 2 weeks ago, and have been working at USAction for about a week now, taking the metro back and forth like another cog in a machine.

Riding the metro gets me thinking about what it would be like to be a giant squid. Or any other deep sea creature. It might be because it's nearly impossible to go against the flow of body traffic just like a current, or the fact that we sway back and forth with the motion of the train like underwater plants. It could also stem from the deep sea episode of Planet Earth I saw this weekend with Becca.

Ok, so that video didn't have anything to do with underwater plants, but man! So cool! Venus fly traps are the weirdest things alive. Also, I kinda feel like that frog on the metro during rush hour.

I also hate how quiet it gets, even when it feels like all of D.C.'s professional population is in your particular car. My inner camp counselor oftentimes thinks about starting a round of "row row row your boat" to boost morning morale, but mostly just to freak people out. I think I would get a kick out of bugging all the grumpy morning people. That might make my day.

One thing that I've come to realize is how easy it is to ignore everything around you, at least as a middle-class, commuting professional in D.C. EVERYONE has a freaking ipod, newspaper, some cheap paperback, knitting project, kindle, blackberry that gets service underground, etc. etc. People are totally lost in their own little worlds.

On the bright side, I get to eat PB and Js again, throwback to grade school. But it might take a while before the proportions are right (a little too much peanut butter). Normally, I would wad up my pb and j into a delicious wonder-bread ball and dunk it repeatedly in a glass of milk. Judge away, haters, I like my soggy food.

While my mind may have stayed put in Mrs. Burke's fourth grade, my body has aged 50 years. I have a FREAKING ULCER. Seriously, folks, my stomach grew rebellious with a diet of frozen boca burgers and red sauce from the jar annihilating my insides. As of now, my stomach is preparing to reject the peanut butter and jelly sandwich i so generously offered to it as a peace offering.
Gotta go.

But before I sign off, good news, I found a place to live! It is glorious.
More on that later.

A Day in the Life of a Recent College Grad

2009-06-03T00:05:00.000-07:00

"College Grad" should actually be read: "unemployed bum".

Today I....

11:50 am: woke up, ate stuff

12:30 pm-2pm: went to the car dealership and spent money I don't have

2-4 pm: Napped wonderfully

4- 5 pm: rode my bike pointlessly around st. paul

5-7pm: lost many rounds of tetris against Sudha and pretended to help with dinner

7-10 pm: ate dinner while watching Cillian Murphy beat up infected people in post apocalyptic London/Manchester

10pm - 2am: Had a couple of beers while shootin' the breeze with some good friends

Doesn't sounds too bad, huh? But I can't imagine doing this for very long. I hope this isn't the case, because I feel like my brain will turn to mush and my bones will become porous. And I really get my ass kicked in video games.

La Isla and inter-racial friendships

2008-09-06T08:05:00.001-07:00

I did my final independent study project with a partner (not so independent after all), an awesome girl named Sierra. Our interests merged at Lago Titicaca (yes, that is what it's really called) and the lake's relationship with the people who live around it. A broad topic, we knew, but, excited by our adventure (which is what we thought of our whole project, an excuse for adventure), we decided to travel there and then narrow our focus. We spent a good part of our time in Copacabana, a resort town/hippie mecca, interviewing people (mostly elderly people) and seeing what issues surrounding the lake were most salient.

Our research led us to La Isla del Sol, an island on Lake Titicaca. The people who live there are indigenous Quechuas, but speak a fair amount of Spanish because many work in the tourism industry.

Doing research as a dark skinned South Asian Indian girl with a blonde haired, blue eyed white girl in rural Bolivia proved to be more difficult than expected. Many people would look at Sierra and think, "hippie", and then see me and think, "guide". A conversation with two little girls running a small snack stand revealed their absolute incomprehension that Sierra and I could be friends. It dawned on me that they had never before witnessed an inter-racial relationship that was free from an economic agreement. For them , it had always been the dark one selling to the white one.

Interesting how that works out, huh? It made me realize that almost all of the interactions we had had with Bolivians involved some sort of financial transaction. Our host families were paid, our instructors, etc. The SIT program didn't really enable a lot of interaction with Bolivians outside the program/outside an economic agreement. We'd have to be super outgoing and trustful (which I felt like were qualities I did not possess while abroad) in order to make friends, which is complicated anyway, when you are probably exoticized and there is a certain power dynamic going on between native and foreign and white and dark.

As one of many uncomfortable situations to be in, the one on the isla surpassed all. I had grown up where having a friend with the same skin color as me was a novelty, not the norm, and I had, in fact, grown quite comfortable with it. But the feeling that I was an outsider persisted within the group of American students. This had been a pattern repeated over and over again throughout my time in Bolivia, but finally surfaced in full form in our conversation with the little girls. Children are so unabashedly honest, we have a lot to learn from them.

Es una barbaridad!

2008-06-10T14:32:00.000-07:00

This blog's name and this particular post refers to something Mrs. Natalia Mendoza, our gracious host on Isla del Sol in Ch'alla , said to Sierra and me while staying at her house. Every morning, we would drink hot sweet tea and a piece of white bread, while Senora Mendoza made the morning soup. That's right, soup for breakfast! Living on the island is no piece of cake, and you need your energy. But the only problem was that neither Sierra nor I drink tea with sugar. In fact, Sierra had cut processed sugar completely out of her diet before coming to Bolivia. So after a few days of sickingly sweet tea (I mean half a cup of sugar in my cup of tea, no joke), I asked for tea without sugar.

Senora Mendoza: "No azucar?!" (No sugar?!)
Me: No, muy extrano, yo se (No, very strange, I know).
Senora Mendoza, shaking her head: No azucar, no azucar! Es una barbaridad! (No sugar, no sugar!? It's a barbarity!)

As she shook her head at us, she gave us two spoonfuls of sugar anyway. She laughed and tromped out of the room, as she usually did.

I miss Senora Mendoza.

I have a mullet.

2008-06-07T12:59:00.001-07:00

My mother allowed me to study abroad in Bolivia under two conditions:

1) That I do not fall in love with a Bolivian
2) That I shan't cut my hair.

Fair enough, I thought, considering she didn't list don't do headstands in the middle of political protests or hitch-hike into Brasil or graffiti the streets of La Paz with an anarchist feminist group or get arrested. Unfortunately, I failed to live up to my promises. I strayed from the path of a good, polite, and considerate Indian girl and put my family's honor to shame.

I cut my hair.

To be more accurate, an Italian ex-hair stylist from Germany cut my hair in the back of a bar in Copacabana. His name was Sergio, and he was the first friend Sierra and I made on our independent study adventure. He was born and brought up in Germany to Italian immigrants. He and his brother shared a passion to beautify the world and chose to assist in this tremendous goal by going to cosmotology school. For proof of his talent, he had brought with him a photo album of his work. He seemed pretty legit. He was also the best dressed hippie in Copacabana, not to mention the cleanest-looking.

So we met up with him at the said bar, and we got to talking. He told us he was traveling all around South America and cutting hair along the way to fund his trip. I figured, when the hell else am I going to have this opportunity? So I asked him to cut my hair. He had already cut 3 other's hair in the bar that night and they looked amazing. He got all excited and immediately got his supplies out. I made the mistake of telling him to do whatever he wanted.

....3 hours later (or what seemed like 3 hours later) my shorn hair had collected in the corner of the room, like a dead possum (or five). Sierra and Cari were looking at me funny, and Sergio looked exhausted. I was getting a little nervous by now because Sergio, halfway through the haircut, had said, "I just don't GET Indian hair!". I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to get out of that??

Once he had finished, I reluctantly pulled myself to the bathroom mirror. Even in the dim light, I knew this was the WORST haircut I had ever gotten. It was a mullet. that's right, a genuine, bona-fide business in the front, party in the back, uncle jesse MULLET. But Sergio was so sweet and he had just told us about his paragliding experience today where he got electrocuted and nearly escaped death, that I didn't have the heart to tell him I didn't like it.
So I just smiled and handed him 50 bolivianos (equivalent of $7, which I think was the most he'd gotten for a haircut).

Oh well, hair grows back right? Until then, I can break out my neon pink tights and headband and pretend I traveled in time from the 80's.

Thoughts from rural Bolivia part V

2008-05-31T15:46:00.000-07:00

I used to think that being an American of a different race gave me extra credibility in the eyes of Bolivians. Extra cred for what? of being more informed, concerned, and aware of the cultural and social implications of a first worlder in a third world nation.

My experience in the campo changed all that. It didn't matter that I was the same color as my host family. What mattered were my strange clothes, my fancy red backpack, my toilet paper, and the gifts I brought and gave to the family. The simple clothes on my back and the few material goods I brought with me was enough to create a large gap between me and the family. They signified a vast difference in economic and cultural backgrounds, so much so that any gap bridged by being of a darker skin color was only widened again, possibly further than before.

Never have I felt so out of my comfort zone. I had to ask myself, what takes priority in defining my identity? Skin color, gender, appearance, or economic/class background? I realized that it's different depending on where or what kind of situation I'm in. It's disempowering to think that others' perceptions of you determines your role and influence your interpretations of your purpose in a certain situation.

In el campo, it was clear that my nationality and economic background took priority over every other factor of my identity. It's funny because I definitely try to play down my privileged background because I feel like it lessens my credibility as a liberal student out to 'change the world', if you will. But I could not deny my higher economic status in the campo, just because it was so embarrassingly obvious. I need to acknowledge, due to my sheltered and privileged upbringing, that there will be some aspects of inequity and oppression that I may never understand, try as I might. But does it count that I try?

Thoughts from rural Bolivia part IV

2008-05-31T15:02:00.001-07:00

The family didn't treat their animals the way I expected them to. They kick their dogs and throw rocks at the puppy as a favorite pastime. When the father was milking their cow this afternoon, he nearly ripped the cow's nursing calf away from her udders, in order to obtain a bucket of milk from her. And then he would hit the calf everytime it tried to nurse with a thin switch. How can you hit a creature that is trying to do the most natural thing it knows how to do? I was appalled. They also have this tiny puppy, named 'negrito', that they kick around too. Rosa actually peed on the poor thing. I don't really blame Rose, though, because seh doesn't know that it was wrong. IT gives me hope to see that the other older kids seem more sensible and kinder than the younger ones. I actually really like all the children, with one exception: Yaneth. And even then, I can't dislike her, because she probably has some sort of behavioral problem that not being dealt with properly. Her kind and caring side shone through though, at the most unexpected times.

Let me tell you about one of the craziest days I had in the village: I was resting with the father abuela (the dad's mother), and the kids after harvesting some potatoes, when the neighbor came over to visit with her little son. She became very excited when she spotted my camera and asked me to take pictures of her sons. Being that I had a dinky old film camera that didn't zoom, I was taken aback, but agreed to do so anyway. So I went over, met her kids and husband, and stayed for quite a bit. I found the mother much easier to talk to, and I was a little desperate for a mature conversation, so I decided to stay for dinner. She was eager to feed me, and I was eager to eat something that wasn't potato soup.

I noticed something was up when the kids came to the house and tried to lure me back to the house with stories that they were all leaving to eat dinner at their aunt's. I believed them and started to follow, but the neighbor wouldn't hear of it. She said they were bad kids and that I shouldn't listen to them. So I just stayed, once again.

When I returned to the house, only Yaneth, Lisbeth, Eddie, and Rosa were there. They were all standing atop potato sacks, facing the road, and shielding their eyes from the sun. When I asked them what they were looking at, they told me they were watching their father leave. I received 3 different answers as to where he was leaving for: Santa Cruz, Peru, and Argentina. The reason? The mom was still angry at him for coming home completely snookered that one night. He took yon Kevin with him too.

Talk about a difficult situation. I was left alone with these kids. The father had left the family, and I had no idea when the mother would return. Thank god for television. I don't know what I would've done without the power rangers to save me.

The mother returned well after everyone had gone to sleep. She arrived with the baby and Vismar, brandishing a new DVD (Bambi 2), which he immediately popped into the player, much to my displeasure.

I let the kids break the bad news to the mom about her husband in the morning. It would've been difficult to convey this to her, as I speak no Quechua and she could never really understand me when I spoke to her in Spanish. I really couldn't read her reaction. It seemed a lot like apathetic indifference. She just went about her usual tasks as if nothing had happened. I felt so in the dark about everything. I had no idea what was going on in that house.

The power dynamics in my relationship with the family felt pretty one-sided. I was completely dependent upon the kids to help me understand what was going on. They definitely knew it too, and often took advantage of this to tease me. I wonder what they really thought about me. Am I just another crazy gringa? Or am I an intruder in their intimate private world? The way they treated me, I felt like they saw me as a crazy gringa, trying to understand life in the campo. And I suppose that's pretty accurate.

It really bothers me when people idealize country life and poverty. Yes it's admirable and remarkable how little you really need to live your life, but at the same time, it's easy to idealize an existence you yourself don't have to live every single day. It's really difficult. 8 yrs olds cooking their fathers dinners. I don't every want to make my child to that. But I feel like I have a life philosophy that's completely different and almost incomparable than this family, due to the vast material and cultural differences of our backgrounds.

Every night I was there, I dreamt of my family, my friends, my home. That alone tells me that it was not the place for me.

It's pretty strange because my father was raised in a small village outside Bangalore. This existence and lifstyle isn't that distant from me. Or at least, it shouldn't be. But when my father came to the states, he left his village roots behind him. Sudha and I don't really know too much about his life in the village. We used to tease him about being a village boy, collecting cow patties and walking barefoot. He is not ashamed of his village background, but he definitely could not re=live it. In fact, he's quite the germophobe. This stay has made me certain that I will visit my father's village once again.

Wednesday, March 19th

I spent nearly the whole day sitting with the abuelas, drinking chicha (a beer brewed from corn) at the neighbors. They were bad mouthing the childrens' father, chastising him for leaving his wife with 7 children under the age of 15 to feed. This was all in Quechua, so I simply smiled and nodded and continued to be bored out of my mind.

There was a man also sitting with us who questioned the fact that I was from the U.S. He thought I was Bolivian. So I began my prepared spiel about why I was brown and from the states. He asked me other uncomfortable questions such as:
1) How much did your plane ticket to come here cost?
2) Do your parents send you money?
3) Can you buy me chicha?
4) Did you know that Suma means "to add" in Spanish?

I did exactly the opposite of what I planned to do when asked these questions. I blatantly lied. I used to think that was unethical to do so, but I felt very uncomfortable, like I was in an interrogation room. I didn't want to seem like a clumsy, spoiled, privileged little rich kid. Which is, sadly, what I am...but trying to change. I don't know how. This was definitely more difficult than I thought it would be.

But MAAAAAAAN, abuelita arrived super borracha (totally smashed!) at the end of the day. She danced around the house, chased and slapped the kids, and threw me around the room while the kids forced a pollera (traditional dress) on me. She screamed at the top her lungs in Quechua and threw her head back and cackled. She was delightful.

Thursday, March 20th

My last morning in the village. I began thinking about how I must seem to them, my family for 5 days. I show up, with my boy clothes and expensive boots, a seeming neat freak who's littered the field near the house with bright pink toilet paper. She washes her hand too much and doesn't even bother to learn Quechua. She hogs one whole bed all to herself and can't even peel a single potato properly. She makes faces when we blow our noses and thinks she's too good for the food we give her; she's never finished a whole plate! Why should we bring her into our home and put our intimate lives under her scrutiny? We don't owe her a damn thing.

And they would be right to think all those things. Who am I to judge them? They were kind enough to take me into their home and open their lives to me for 5 whole days. I'm grateful for that.

Thoughts from Rural Bolivia (children are insane) Part III

2008-05-31T14:35:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, March 18

The nights were unbearably chilly. After that first night of dreamless, death-like sleep, I didn't have a single peaceful slumber. I woke up every so often in the middle of the night, and in the mornings, I awoke, cramped up because I spent every night curled up in a ball trying to stay warm.
I didn't feel very healthy there. I was always tired, never the perfect temperature, and always hungry. Even though they always doubled my portions, I can never eat more than a couple of spoonfuls of potato foup. I felt feverish all the time.

The act of eating can make anyone seem vulnerable. But when I saw those children squatting on the floor, diggin into their tasteless potatoes as if they were kids meals and crying for more, it made me lose my appetite. I felt so disgusted with myself. I have the world at my disposal, yet why do I still complain?

I hope someday I'll be able to come back to this family. see how they're doing, see if they remember me. On my first day, Vismar told me he wishes to come to the states. I hope he does.

Children have so many different facets. I really think it's true, that saying that children are like sponges and soak up everything around them. All of them are so sweet with the youngest, Leni, the baby. They kiss her over and over and often carry her around the house singing songs. But the next moment, they are throwing rocks at the dogs and slapping each other's heads. Your actions around your kids matter so much, because they pick up your habits. It shows how much you represent your upbringing (although this is very debatable).

I was and still am confused about the school situation. All the children go to school normally, but Yaneth didn't go to school the whole time I was living with her family. This is troubling because 1) she was going to fall behind in school
2) her parents were letting her for my sake
3) she is absolutely intolerable at times.
Already she has made me promise to get apples for her. She also repeats the same facts over and over again: that I am fat, and that she is skinny, that she wants to wear and keep my glasses. Not to mention her habit of constantly asking for gifts. I just felt incredibly uncomfortable around her.

That day, Yaneth locked me out of her house and refused to give me the key. I was running a fever and could barely stand. She wouldn't talk to me or look at me until I said I was going to leave for Cochabamba. Bad idea. She was terrified that I would leave and that she would be blamed for it. So she hid the key and went to go get her father (this all occurred over the course of an hour and a half, approx.). To my embarrassment, the father came and made her give me the key. Yaneth and I were at peace once again when I made her understand that I wasn't actually going to leave. We watched Kung Fu Hustle, which kept order for a little bit. THEN, yon Kevin, the other little one, ran outside and refused to come to me. So I sat there, waiting for him to get sick of the game and return to the house, when Yaneth came to try to control the situation. She aggressively attempted to force him into the house, causing him to fall. Yon Kevin's nose began to bleed and he began crying uncontrollably.

I ran into the house for my tissues, and when I came back, Yaneth took them from me and promptly assumed the role of responsible older sibling. She shushed him, cleaned him up, and tucked him neatly into bed. These kids never ceased to impress me.

Thoughts from rural Bolivia part II

2008-05-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

Sunday, March 16th.

Fresh cow's milk tastes like thick cream to someone who's only drank skim milk her whole life. I just can't believe I drank a whole cup of milk straight from the udders of a cow. I even saw the mom milking it. I gave most of it to Lisbeth.

I had gone to the river yesterday with Vismar, who turned out to be my little guide for the rest of my stay. We went with Yaneth to wash the children's clothes. That bolivian soap is STRONG, let me tell you. Nearly took of my skin.

I really wanted to go back to the river, (one of the most beautiful places I've seen anywhere, wedged between the motherly mountains and filled with greenery) and waited until Vismar came back home to take me. When Vismar came back from selling bread (fried dough to be exact), we went down to the river, met his mother washing clothes on the way, and picked up his little brother, Eddie, on the way. While they swam, I sat and watched them, while trying to clean my shoes (they had already started to emit an unpleasant, goat-like odor).

On the way back, Vismar decided to make a pit stop at my 'amiga's' house. He kept asking me what her name was, but I had no idea which 'amiga' he was talking about. 'Mi amiga' as it turns out, was Julia Schute. Her family has a number of apple trees in their yard and the apples were soo delicious. Their house was also much nicer than the house my family lived in. More property, plaster walls, and nicer furniture.

It was nice to see someone I knew, a friendly face that I knew that wouldn't laugh at me for not knowing how to wash clothes by hand or peel potatoes with a blunt knife. This stay in the village definitely made me realize how privileged a spoiled I really am. While Julia and I exchanged stories of our families, the boys played futbol outside and munched on applies.Her family, at least the younger children, refer to her as "gringa", and often forget her name. She, like me, had problems in knowing what her role is at the house. Unlike me, she wasn't able to help the mother around the house, and instead, resigned herself to being the babysitter, a role she enjoys, although she was mostly bored, like myself.

Vismar and I headed back to the house. No one was there and Vismar left too. to where? I had no idea. But I found Lizbeth in the back, harvesting potatoes, so she got me a harvesting thingies and we did it together. I had never farmed before, unless you count my family's square foot chili pepper garden. Harvesting papas was quite the experience for me. I really enjoyed it because I finally felt like I was being helpful. I was actually disappointed when they called me inside. I then helped them peel papas with the mather. The mom peeled about 4-5 papas for every one of mine. Even the 8 yr old came in for a bit a peeled more papas than I had total, and then left to play with her siblings. I was grateful that they didn't laugh at me too much.

During dinner, Yaneth grabbed my arm and said, "Mira! Papa esta borracho!" (Look! Dad is drunk!). OF course, I did not follow her to gawk at her drunk dad, and continued to eat my soup as if nothing had happened. It certainly was a strange atmosphere. All the children were whispering to one another and giggling. They then gathered in the kitchen, quiet and still. I couldn't tell if they were scared or amused or both. I just hoped he wasn't a violent drunk. In the end, he stumbled around the yard a bit, sang a little diddy, and passed out for the night.

The next day, I was told that I would accompany the kids to school and was excited to do so. Better than just sitting around the house, for sure. But as it turned out, I was to stay at home with the 3 youngest kids (not including the baby) and the father. The mom had gone with Lisette to drop her off at the high school in the next town. So I was left at home, the reluctant babysitter, once again.

Yaneth drove me absolutely CRAZY. Everytime I tried to write in my hournal, she would ask to draw in it. I would give it to her, delighted, but then she would scribble a bit, and give it back, saying she was tired. This cycle happened several times. Then, she told me that her mother had told her to cook. Being that she was a tiny 8 yr old, I didn't believe her, and tired to distract her from cooking. She insisted upon cooking, and in the end, I let her do whatever she wanted, and just tried to make sure she didn't hurt herself in the process.

This is one competent little girl. Before I knew it, she had boiled a pot of potatoes and friend 5 eggs. I just couldn't believe it! Considering I still barely know how to make a pb and j sandwich at the age of 21, this little girl really took me aback. She called her father out from the field where he was harvesting papas and brought him a plate of them. Crazy, no?

I was so nervous the whole time, that I would get in trouble for letting Yaneth do whatever she wanted to in the kitchen, but her father silently took the plate from Yaneth and ate quietly in the corner. It was very strange...although now that I think about it, I bet my father would've been delighted if I had made a meal for him at age 8. A good housewife in the making.

After playing with the kids a bit more and slipping the ducks my extra food (I couldn't eat that many potatoes! I felt like I was turning into a potato), I helped the father harvest more papas. It's back breaking work, but it was so satisfying to catch a glimpse of red potato skin amongst the mountain of pure black soil.

I felt very uncomfortable when Yaneth asked me if I had brought more toys. In all honesty, I believe I brought more than other on this program, but I wished I had brought more. In addition to the customary fruit and bread, I had brought nuts, raisins, a harmonica, playing cards, and temporary tatooes. But nothing I could've brought would've seemed enough.

Thoughts from rural Bolivia

2008-05-28T23:14:00.000-07:00

I realize it seems a bit backward to begin a blog after you come back from a trip, but that's exactly what I'm doing, so suck on that. Unreliable internet access as well as limited funds (internet cafes are not expensive, but it adds up) and time kept me from keeping a virtual diary of my experiences/thoughts/feelings/all that good stuff on my study abroad in Bolivia.
This entry (and possibly many of the following entries) consists (or will consist) of excerpts from a journal I kept during my village stay in Bolivia, an experience I believe to be one of the most valuable I had in Bolivia. I began the journal as part of a homework assignment, which are generally in Spanish, but I chose to write in English for privacy reasons. The family I stayed with would often flip through my notebook, and ask me to translate what I had written. I depended on this journal to help me process the overwhelming differences in lifestyles, philosophies, and behaviors of the people around me and in the end, it grew to be my closest friend in the 5 short days I spent in Tiraque, a rural village 2 hours south of Cochabamba, or as the Bolivians call it, "el corazon de Bolivia" (the heart of Bolivia). Here are some of my thoughts during my stay in the village:

Never in my life did I think I would be watching Kung Fu Hustle dubbed in spanish in a Bolivian village with two small children climbing all over me. But it did indeed occur my firstday in Tiraque.
I really didn't know what to expect before I arrived in the village. I wasn't nervous, but I wasn't excited either. My mind was a complete blank, although I told myself I was just keeping an open mind.
When I arrived at the house of my new host family for 5 days, the first thing my new mom did was give me an overflowing bowl of potato soup. I actually enjoyed it, before I knew that that's what I'd be eating for 5 days straight. The family had 8 children, all under the age of 15. They were:
Lizeth - 14 yrs
Vismar - 12 yrs
Lisbeth - 10 yrs
Eddy - 9 yrs
Yaneth - 8 yrs
Rosa - 6 yrs
yon Kevin - 4 yrs
Leni - 2 months
The parents, Felisa and Fredi, were surprisingly young, too, only in their 30s. When I told them how old my parents are, they nodded gravely and said in Spanish, "Very old, your parents. Like grandparents."
I knew that I was going to have to be very patient and flexible in a house with so many young children. I'm a bit of a germophobe, brought up in my plastic-wrapped disposable world, and was somewhat horrified by the children blowing their noses into their sweaters and throwing their garbage every which way. Not to mention the 'bathroom', a hidden clearing behind the duck house. I wasn't so bothered by the fact that I had to 'nature pee', so much as paranoid that someone would see me.
They asked me when I first arrived if I wanted to stay in my own room (they had cleared out a small area in the potato shed). I decided to sleep in the same room as the rest of the family, because I felt that would truly bring me closer to them. Although the roof leaked, my bed was filled with fleas, and the youngest cried all night long, I slept really well that first night.

More to come...