Nov. 17–19: The Process of Coming Home

Now that I am home, recovering from jet lag, I want to show you the photos that were taken at the end of our week of rehearsals for the domestic violence play.  In my previous blog I talked about how we all were crying….maybe you can see how somber we all were as we were trying to say good-bye….”see you soon?”…..and wondering what that meant….

And so I left Bhubaneswar later that afternoon and flew back to Bangalore. The women of Salia slum deep in my heart.  They will continue to rehearse our play each evening until Dec. 5 when they perform it for the annual Parichay Foundation fundraiser. Part of those funds will go to projects within their Salia slum.

Returning to the city of Bangalore/Bengaluru from working with these great women, I particularly noticed these signs and the gulf that they represent between the rich and poor in India and the rest of our world.

The one on the left says:  “Here is an apartment that feels like a villa…”

On the right:

“Live large, Live Now!”– shows huge skyscrapers

I will skip the packing I did back in Visthar, and I will skip the 22 hours + it took me to return/fly to San Francisco.  But best of all was returning to Kathryn and spinning story after story on our 90 minute car ride back to Watsonville.  She had a few stories to spin herself since she had traveled to a conference in Germany and a meeting in Minnesota.  Yes, indeed, we are “sisters of the holy road! ” [a term we coined together on our first trip to India in l989]

So what am I to make of this journey to India? And all the various projects I was part of?  First I am taking some rest after this very intense journey and glad to have Thanksgiving week to do that and to indeed give thanks for it all.

I continue to be amazed at how the needs of the non-profit Visthar fit so well with my own.  And I am so very grateful to them for their openness to including me in so many of their projects.

Working so well with Visthar leads me to believe that if I could link up with other non-profits with similar goals [i.e. educational outreach to young girls, gender equity and sexuality trainings and workshops, theatre as a tool for participation and learning, ecumenical and inter-faith projects]…..and perhaps I could offer my skills in the U.S. and in other parts of the world as well. About the middle of my 6 weeks in India I realized this and it energized me, as it does now.  A newly formed group, Volunteers in Global Service, was a kind of silent witness to my journey to India.  As they organize further, perhaps they too will be a resource for myself and others.

And there are circles within circles.  Before I left for India this fall, I helped to create a play at our local Watsonville high school on the bullying of Mixteco young people by other students.  In many ways, that work fully resonates with and built bridges to the work I did in India.

Most of all, as I think it has been clear in my various blogs, the people to people relationships, reaching out to and being so warmly received by the incredible people I worked and created with [women activists, pastors, the young girls of Bandhavi School, seminarians and faculty of UTC, MSW students in Kerala, and the women of the Salia slum in Bhubaneswar….]  each one will stay with me and smile back at me for the rest of my life.  I can only hope that this deep connectivity that I feel will remain a similar point of light and warmth and hope for them too.

I will end this blog with 3 pictures and brief story.  Dr. Molly Abraham and her husband KC Abraham [a retired eminent liberation theologian] built a home for their differently-abled daughter Lisa and other women like her.  They called it Lisa’s Home.  Molly and KC live next door.  One of the young women, Hazel, sang a song for me when I visited entitled “One Day at a Time.”  It was a beautiful testament to living fully in the present moment, one day at a time. Lisa’s brother, Ajit Abraham, is the reason I found Visthar.  Ajit teaches in Kathryn’s department of Global Studies at CSU Monterey Bay.  I mused one evening over dinner how I would like to volunteer my services/abilities somewhere as part of my sabbatical.  Ajit immediately said, ” I have just the place for you! Visthar!.”  In fact he had written his dissertation on Visthar.  And so, with gratitude,  I close with pictures of Lisa’s Home, Hazel, and Molly and KC Abraham….and a grateful nod to Ajit.