The Taj Mahal

The excitement and anticipation had my mind filtering through thoughts faster than I could keep up. By 4:00 AM I realized I wasn't going to get any sleep. As I began my run, I felt the familiar firmness of the pavement beneath my feet. Soon I was lost in a memory of Mrs. Johnson's 4^th grade class. I was sitting in the left corner of my classroom at Challenger Elementary with my elbows propped on my desk staring at a projector screen. We were learning about the ‘7 Wonders of the World’ in geography, and that’s when I first saw it, the Taj Mahal. Its white domes, stunning spires and gothic arches had me awe struck. Mrs. Johnson told us about the legendary structure. I took in the ornate details, and my young mind thought of Aladdin and Agraba. I began to dream about far away places and I resolved that one day I would make my way to see the Taj Mahal along with the other 6 wonders. Looking back, I believe this is where it all began- my desire to travel and adventure to different worlds to see for myself what treasures and beauty are hidden in cultures other than my own.

We had left Vrindavan a couple hours back. Our coworker had given our driver instructions to take us straight to the Taj Mahal in order to get inside before they closed the entry gate. I had my heart set on not only going to see the Taj, but riding there in style…and by style I mean on top of a large gangly animal with a massive hump on its back and a neck like a slinky. I practically leapt into the little cart being pulled behind the massive camel I would soon learn was named Riju. I was ecstatic to see such an exotic animal outside of a zoo. With a little sweet-talking our guide agreed to let Lisa and I ride on top of this foreign creature. Excitedly I volunteered to go first. In fits of giggles I balanced myself and walked across the bar on the right hand side of the wooden saddle type structure. With a quick stride, I swung my leg over and grabbed onto the rope. Wow. Riju was much taller than I’d expected and his head was larger than my entire torso! As he began to move I laughed half out of fear and half out of excitement. You see, before this I was scared of even riding a horse, but after I had such a great time riding Riju riding a horse will be a piece of cake! He walked slowly, and with each step I moved up and down. He had some personality and at one point slinked his neck back to face me.

I decided to give him a pat on his head. His hair was coarse beneath my fingers and I became even more aware of his grand size when I noticed my hand was approximately the size of his eyeball.

We made it to the entry gate in about 10 minutes. Completely giddy, Lisa and I basically ran through the ‘ladies’ line towards the entrance and our volunteer ‘tour guide’ had to hurry to catch up (Note: I have ‘tour guide’ in quotations, because at every tourist attraction in India random guys will come up to you offering to take you on a tour for ‘a very good price’). Normally we never have these tour guides tag along, but this guy volunteered to take pictures for us and said we could pay him whatever we liked so we happily agreed.

We entered through the west gate and I caught my first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. I was breathless, and as I walked down the few steps onto the lawn I was just as enchanted as when I saw the photo on the projection screen so many years ago. We walked around the grounds and listened to all of the informative facts our guide spattered out. I’ve never taken more photos of a single structure before in my life or had as many cheesy tourist photos taken of me. I wanted to capture every single angle and detail of this moment on film. We saw the tombs of the notorious Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan, and his wife he had built the Taj for, Mumtaz Mahal.

As I felt the cool white marble beneath my fingers and marveled at the fire red flowers  I blissfully soaked in the fact that my dream had become a reality. I didn’t want to be anywhere else at that moment, and I didn’t want to leave.

After a couple hours, the sun had gone down and our guide told us the guards would soon begin to usher everyone out. In order to avoid being stuck in the chaos, we made our way towards the exit. It was the cherry on top of my fantastic Indian adventure, and I relished the fact  that the adventure was not yet over. A smile as wide as the Grinch’s spread across my face when I gratefully thought of my parents. At a very young age my dad told me I could “do anything I set my mind to”. As I recollected this memory I was overcome with gratitude and a sense of fulfillment. The Taj Mahal had captured my heart…not only because it is undoubtedly a beautiful work of architecture, but also because it symbolically means so much more…to me it represents being able to accomplish my goals and holds future promises of adventure and cultural experiences. I left feeling completely blessed. It truly was an opportunity of a lifetime.

The Widows I Met in Vrindavan

“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.” ~Diane Mariechild

Sunday night I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve. Since my first week working for Maitri we have been trying to organize a trip to visit Maitri’s widows project in Vrindavan as well as Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Several times we’ve made arrangements that only fell through for various reasons, but finally the plans were set in stone and the car that would take us first to Vrindavan and then Agra would be at our apartment in 5 short hours.

 We reached Vrindavan around 9:00 am. The streets were already bustling due to a festival going on in honor of Krishna. Stands were scattered everywhere, where women, dressed in brightly colored saris, and their children sat on top of wooden planks stringing bright orange flowers into necklaces. We slowly made our way through traffic to Maitri’s center where the widows stay. At first the place looked completely empty, just a large concrete building with cut out open windows and doors. Laundry hung in between the columns and monkeys played near by on top of a concrete fence. As we approached a younger woman came out, wearing a black and white kurta with her hair in a bun. Her smile was warm, and after a few words with my coworker, Anita, she led us into one of the rooms where the women sleep. Immediately I felt like I had 10 new grandmothers! Each woman approached us, smiling so sweetly, they pinched my cheeks, hugged me, kissed my cheeks and one woman even braided my hair.

 

 After visiting for a little while, we left the center to go and see Maitri’s plot of land where they will be building their Aging Resource Center. Once it is completed they will provide housing and vocational training for 200 widows. Afterwards we visited an ashram where 70 widows stay. At this particular ashram they were not only feeding the widows who stayed there, but are accepting of others who stop in. Near the doorway were 3 small children who were also given food. I assume it was a young girl and her baby sister and toddler brother. The young girl smiled up at me with fire in her eyes and ushered her small brother to waive and look at me. She showed me her baby sister and laughed as she picked up her small hand. I wanted to sit and eat with them, but just as soon as we got there we were being directed to continue on our journey.

 

 It was mealtime when we returned back to Maitri’s Center. The widows sat in 4 lines, barefoot and cross-legged on the floor with their sectioned metal plates before them. Three of the women scooted large metal containers full of rice, curry and some other Indian dish. They heaped piles on each of the widow’s plates. They dug in, and I was amazed at the quantity of food their tiny frail bodies were able to hold. I was able to help distribute the bananas once they were close to finishing their main course. As I placed each banana into the warm hands of the recipient I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and happiness.

 

 It made me smile knowing that they are all well fed, and I enjoyed watching them chat and laugh as they ate. While I watched I realized India’s Holy Cities are set apart from other areas because they are places of gathering. I remembered a quote from Maitri’s website about widows.. that they “face a triple jeopardy: that of being old, of being women, and of being poor”. These beautiful women, who have spent their lives being wives, mothers, and grandmothers, escape situations of torment and abuse. They are often abandoned by their own families, have their homes and lands taken from them (even by their own children), and are viewed as “cursed” because their husbands passed before them and are therefore ostracized and cast out from society. I knew they were at Maitri’s center because they had nowhere else to go. At a first glance, their living conditions may look bleak, but as I walked around the center and sat on their beds as they proudly showed me their few belongings, smiled for photos, and sat eating together, all I felt was warmth and a sense of belonging. As our car pulled away I realized that I didn’t want to dwell on their pasts….I wanted to focus on the hope and life they have found in Vrindavan. Like leather, the wear of life's struggles and experiences has left them softer, more aware of the world and compassionate to those in it, and that with age they have only become more beautiful.

 

 They have found refuge in Vrandavan…safety in its Ashrams…comfort and solace among its people. Ultimately, they have found family and community in a place where they can love and be loved in return.

It's Real

All of it is real. It isn’t just something I read about anymore; there are real problems in this world. It’s my friends.  It’s my co-workers. It’s the children I tutor.  It’s my housekeeper.  It’s my neighbors.

Women come into Maitri daily to seek help for abuse they’ve suffered; the children I tutor are way too skinny; the families I walk past on the way to work are living underneath highway overpasses; the children that stop my auto rickshaw to beg for money dig through the garbage piles for food.  The “real” world is pressing down on me everywhere I turn.  My smallness and inability to do anything significant is pressing down even harder.

It was a nice bubble that I lived in.  Hearing and reading about the problems of the world, but still getting to retreat into my secluded, safe space.  Yes, it’s comfortable to be ignorant and unaffected, but is that really a good way to live?  While people were suffering around the world, I was reading their stories from the comfort of my large, clean home or researching their problems in a university classroom (and I didn't have to walk miles to it or fear for my life while at school).

I can choose who I want to marry. What I want to do.  Where I want to live.  How I want to be treated.  Where I want to go.  These choices used to be classified as “rights” in my mind; however, I am now realizing that they are privileges that so many women in the world do not enjoy.  I am not going to waste these privileges that I have been given—if I am lucky enough to have options, I am going to make the best decisions possible.  I do not have to fight for myself, but I will fight for others because it is wrong that so many girls throughout the world do not even know that there are other options.  It is wrong that a girl was shot in the head for trying to go to school.  It is wrong that 67 million children do not go to school, and more than half of them are girls.  It is wrong that 7 in 10 women around the world are victims of physical and/or sexual violence during their lifetimes.  It is wrong that 14 million girls are married before age 18 each year. It is wrong that medical complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death in women age 15-19.  It is wrong that around 3 million girls each year are victims of genital mutilation or cutting.

If any of these facts make your blood boil, like they do mine, then we must take action.  Knowledge brings responsibility.  I am lucky to be working for an organization that is taking action--and I'm even luckier that Maitri is letting me see these problems and work on them, too.  We cannot sit idly by while, around the world, these very real problems are affecting very real people.

I am Learning

"I am learning to say thank you.

I am learning to say please

I am learning to use Kleenex,

Not my sweater, when I sneeze.

I am learning not to dribble.

I am learning not to burp.

I am learning to chew softer

When I eat corn on the cob.

I am learning that it's much

much easier to be a slob."

As the room broke into applause, Shiksha smiled shyly and took a quick bow before joining the rest of her classmates off the make-shift stage in Maitri's basement.  

For weeks, the children that visit our Tutorial Center have been coming extra hours to learn and rehearse for the "Little Star's of Maitri" show.  On Wednesday, they showed up in their cleanest clothes, best jewelry, kohl-lined eyes, and colorful streamers to show off all their hard work.  With Winnie Ma'am and the General watching from the seats of honor, and many parents and siblings present to watch, the show began. 

Mahima recited a poem about her shadow - in beautiful English, I might add!  Amit and Vikas sang adorable Hindi songs.  Nitesh, Sonali, and Aman performed "The Boogie Woogie," which we call "The Hokey Pokey" in the States.  The three musical dance numbers were executed with so much enthusiasm - there wasn't a still foot or an un-smiling face in the whole audience.

These children have grown so close to Kat's, Kaitie's, and my heart in the short month we've been at Maitri.  Each day when we walk down stairs to the classroom, they all stand and say precisely, "Good Afternoooon, Ma'am!" Then they sit and wait with expectant, eager eyes, ready to learn all we have to offer.  It was so fun to see their enthusiasm for school translate into their enthusiasm for art, music, and dance.  

We are SO proud of our "Little Stars" and feel so lucky to be part of the institution that helps them grow - Maitri.  

The Same Sky

Here at Maitri, we are in the beginning stages of our campaign to eradicate violence against women.  The campaign centers largely around a pledge to never participate in or allow violence against women to happen to any individual in your life, including yourself.  

Right now, we’re conducting research within the general public of India to best strategize our communicative approach.  We’ve spoken to several people, but one man’s words made my heartstrings pull especially tight.

He was sitting alone in the food court of one of Delhi’s largest malls, drinking a small cup of coffee and reading a book.  We asked for a few moments of his time, and he invited us to sit at his table.  As we introduced our cause, he nodded with understanding, telling us he’s an attorney who’s done much research on the lack of legal representation for women in India.  Even without knowledge of his career, it was clear to me from his intellectual enthusiasm and informed opinions that this man had been highly educated, and I concentrated on absorbing his insight.

He said violence against women is an urgent issue in today’s society, perhaps more so in India than anywhere else.  Fueled by a mindset of agressive male dominance, India has not been able to make the progress past such violence that other nations have achieved.  He attributed this lack of progress to a widespread inability to accept change.  According to him, the call for change will only be heard if it comes from religious or political leaders.  Political leaders, however, will advocate for nothing that does not fall within constituent popularity.  In India, constituents are driven most deeply by religion, thus their favor is granted on religious terms.  And religious leaders will never relinquish their patriarchal power.  He tried to explain to us the resulting mindset – tried to help us understand what we are up against.

“To many men here, women are objects only – not human beings,” he said.  ”One cannot feel sympathy for an object.”

If a girl is not human, what reasons exempt her from abuse?  An object cannot feel pain.  It is not destroyed by domestic violence, its body and emotions are not scarred by rape.  Its cries are empty and its suffering irrelevant.

But women are not objects, and their pain is not irrelevant. This man theorized that whatever haze of culture, religion, or tradition distorts the eyes of these men must be cleared.  Women must be recognized as members of a shared human race.  Yet many women are unaware even of their most basic human rights – the right to feel safe, the right to a life without abuse.  So they never speak up, because to speak up would be unfaithful.  The reality of such destructive beliefs makes my teeth clench together and my eyes burn, and to confront it makes my head spin.  I'm beginning to feel the passion for change that fills all the dedicated individuals who work within Maitri.  

Our friend in the food court did not soften his thoughts with any false optimism.  But he also expressed hope.  "If we are patient, and we continue to push, making women aware of their rights and helping men accept change, progress will come.  As progress always does."

-----------------------------

The first rains came last week.  The air was so heavy, I should have expected it.  But when the skies turned gray and the all-too-familiar pounding of falling raindrops surrounded the office, I quite literally jumped out of my chair and ran to the door.  Mintu, one of Maitri’s employees, and a volunteer were standing in the doorframe, looking on at the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen.  Within moments, the dirt road was a river of mud, the few installed gutters gushing water from their drain pipes.  I looked at Mintu, for some reason feeling like I needed permission to step out from cover.  He sort of laughed and stepped aside to let me through.

Hopping down the steps I stopped in the very middle of the street, where awnings couldn’t interrupt my claim to the sky’s falling gift.  My feet rooted in the mud, I turned my face up to the clouds, breathing in the smell of wet earth as deep as my lungs would allow.  I must have been giggling like a little kid because Mintu was laughing at me and the volunteer found me so odd she snapped a couple pictures.  Unlike the complaints that always accompany rain at home, the showers bring smiles to Indian faces.  All of a sudden the street filled with people, the kids screaming as they scooped up whole handfuls with which to splash one another.

For me, though, the rain brings more than mere relief from the heat; it brings home.  It brings familiarity, and it brings a reminder that we all live under the same sky, which delivers the same elements, no matter where on Earth’s face you might be standing.

One, One, One

A glass wall separates the area where the interns and several staff members work from the tiny room where Winnie ma’am consults and listens to the women. These women come in often to share their stories. Each story is different, but they all have one thing in common; They’ve made the courageous decision to leave an abusive relationship.

 Tuesday I spent hours researching violence against women for an upcoming workshop. Winnie ma’am saw 3 women that day. My throat tightened as I read a BBC article that revealed haunting stats on crime against women.. one crime against women every three minutes, one rape every 29 minutes, one dowry death case every 77 minutes, one case of cruelty by husband and relatives every nine minutes. 

The number of cases continues to rise and the government and authorities continue to push such cases to the back-burner. The husbands often bribe lawyers and court officials to deem the complaints illegitimate and quash the case leaving. Perhaps the most disturbing fact is that according to Unicef’s “Global Report Card on Adolescents 2012”  57% of adolescent boys and 53 % of adolescent girls believe domestic violence is justified.

As I continued my research, the articles containing testimonials of women who had experienced domestic abuse for years was never ending. Even women who come from wealthier families and have lawyers, doctors, and pastors as husbands have come forward. I had put off reading up on the infamous gang rape in Delhi that occurred just this past December. After I read the graphic and violent case description I couldn't read anymore. I felt completely sick that something so terrible existed outside of horror films and other forms of fiction. 

As the last woman left Winnie’s office, she tidied a stack of papers and let out a sigh. I smiled as I glanced at the plaque tilted against the glass that reads "well behaved women rarely make history". Her eyes were tired and wary behind her tortoise shell cat-eye glasses. This woman has shown me just how much one individual can do. I realized that organizations like Maitri are here to help solidify these women’s decision to leave. They let them know that despite what cultural factors have taught them to believe, they deserve a life without fear.

I continue to meet women who were victimized and are survivors of such relationships.  Removing themselves from these circumstances takes much more strength than I’d previously recognized. Making the decision to leave is the most tremendous first step, because for so long they have had their decisions made for them. Leaving is not only making the conscious decision to stand up for themselves despite of cultural norms, but they also have to make these decisions and navigate their lives feeling completely alone. This decision more often than not puts them at odds not only with their husband and in-laws but even their own parents and siblings. These women inspire me and are reminders of the strength within each individual.

As I sat in my chair brewing over everything I’d just researched I remembered my favorite quote.

 “I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time- just one, one, one. So you begin. I began- I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn’t pick up that one person, I wouldn’t have picked up forty-two thousand…The sam thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin- One, One, One”—Mother Teresa

 With such daunting statistics it’s hard for me not to become overwhelmed and feel “responsible for the masses”, and discouraged when I recognize that combatting the most difficult issues takes years and years of changing cultural mindsets. But I need to remember the power of the individual. I need to remember the women I've met who are survivors and look for the women like Winnie and other at Maitri who are creating tremendous change. In the end, each person helped is one more person whose life was changed for the better. One individual can produce just as astonishing statistics. “Just begin- One, One, One”.

Back to Real Life

Its hard to believe that its finally here: the very last week of our internship with Maitri.  3 1/2 months have gone by so fast and we have learned so much.  To recap, here are a few of the fantastic experiences we have had working as interns.  

• Serving the midday meal and distributing sarees to the Widows in Vrindavan

• Learning to sew with Project Maitrigram

• Health camps with the Homeless Resource Centre

• Visiting and touring Indian Parliament

• Practicing english and math with the kids in the Children’s Tutorial Centre

• Attending events such as One Billion Rising, to raise awareness about violence against women.

• Participating in Bhoomi Pooja to initiate Maitri’s new land in Vrindavan

• Helping with planning and organization of Maitri’s National Seminar entitled: A Promise is a Promise: Time for Action to End Violence Against Women

• The launch of the “Count on Me Pledge: Maitri’s campaign to end violence against women.”

• Getting our HIV test at Maitri’s Integrated Counseling and Testing Center. 

We are certainly sad to be ending this chapter of our Indian experience.  Working with Maitri has truly exposed us to many of the issues faced by India today.  With it, we have gained, not only a better understanding of challenges, but a love for the country we have been so fortunate to get to know.  

The effects of India cannot easily be explained.  Until we experienced it, we had no true understanding of its energy, its people or the lifestyle we would be entering.  I think I speak for both of us when I say that we were in no way prepared for how much it would change us.  India and Maitri have provided us with the tools to achieve a higher level of understanding of our own priorities, our strengths, but most importantly, our flaws.  Living here we have accessed and acknowledged them, and tried, actively to let ourselves grow.  India is a self discovery safe zone, emerging from which, will be one of the greatest challenges we have yet to face. 

With 3 weeks to experience India as tourists before returning home, we hope to make a smooth transition back to real life in Salt Lake City.  Thank you Maitri, for the opportunities.  You have certainly given more to us than we could ever give to you.  The people from this organization will stay close to our hearts for the rest of our lives and we hope the same goes for you.