Suffering

June 8

Yesterday we celebrated with a family whose child had been baptized. The children in the small nook of huts ran around wildly, jumped and hopped in circles around us, grabbed our hands with broad white smiles stretching across their tan white faces. New life.

Today we saw Father give the last rites. End of life. Today we met Suffering. We met her suddenly without any warning other than a quick briefing before we entered the crumbling hut. We probably should have seen it coming. All the outward signs were there. The mud walled house had a large gaping hole that looked like it had been blown out, but realistically was just a victim of situation. A small child stood at the outside of the door. His face read like a book. He had never met Suffering either; he was confused. Where had she come from?

As we entered, she knelt defeated on the floor, her knees clasped firmly against the cavernous hollow that was once her breast. The breast that surely once fed the children who stood solemnly, cramped in the room and by the doorway. Her slender frame had worn to a skeleton of what had been. She probably served cha (tea) to guests like us when we came. She would have smiled curtly as we thanked her for her hospitality and then shyly hid her face with her orna as do most Bengali women. She would have stood and fanned the room endlessly to cool her guests never accepting the plea to sit and relax.

But no, she did not serve cha. She did not stand and fan us. She did not stand at all; she crouched. She still hid her face, but she hid it between her bony semblances of legs, not a beautifully colored orna veil. When she finally glanced up I caught a glimpse of Suffering’s face. She had been sick for many days now Father said. There was a tumor on her shoulder which had apparently moved to her side now. No medical diagnosis was given or needed. She was dieing.

Sufferings face was sullen, battle-weary, and reluctantly defeated. Her skin was wrinkled and stretched. It draped over her bones, void of any muscle to fill out the form. The gloss of tears encircled her eyes which had apparently been dapped everywhere with her bloated hands. She had been crying, and the look of the bloodshot eyes around the room so had the others present, with the exception of the confused little boy still standing in the doorway wondering when his grandma was going to return.

Her husband crouched next to her, nearly as frail and withered as she. He crouched there loyally, faithful to the end, entirely aware of his inability to relinquish her grief. He did everything he could, and that was simply to be there. It was a cold hard relentless truth, but I couldn’t help but find an astounding beauty in that undying loyalty (or I guess as some would call it, love).

We heard Suffering’s faint cough. It was filled with pain but came so subtly that it seemed like she barely even had the energy to expend on this small outward display of her anguish. She just knelt there as if humbled by the entire situation, slowly rocking her weight back and forth and only breaking her melodious movement to cringe slightly from a jar or sear of pain. It’s amazingly ironic how we come into this world as a baby, so weak and so vulnerable, just to leave again slightly larger but just as weak and just as vulnerable.

We felt Suffering’s hand. We could offer nothing to her other than a sympathetic touch and a simple “Jesuna Rashong” (Jesus be with you). We felt her swollen hands. Felt our hearts sink as she gripped with what little strength she had left. Her arms quivered as she clasped her hands together while Father prayed over her solemnly. Yes, she had accepted her fate, but that’s not to say she wasn’t afraid. She trembled constantly, terrified, looking to Father for some sort of reassurance or relief. She quaked as she stared death in the face, all the while still suffering.

No, this wasn’t America. There was no bag of morphine to ease her into death. She bore her cross without any drugs, in the confines of a crumbling mud-wall hut containing only a single bed and some scattered clothing. Sometimes it seems like its almost more agonizing to watch suffering than to bear it (but probably not). It was obvious to me as I looked upon her that I knew nothing of this suffering. I knew pain. I have had my share of injuries and illnesses, but I knew nothing of this. I know its cliché, but as they say: pain is only temporary. This was to the end.

She trembled as she received the Eucharist and cleansed her mouth with water. Holy water splattered against the walls and the dirt floor. We exited. The still confused and solemn child hid as we came out of his doorway. We waved goodbye. Jesuna Rashong. As we rolled through the markets kids ran and played, wrestled over a ball, laughed and smiled. They stared with bright eyes and wide smiles as we drove by. Life went on.

We will remember you

June 3

Successful day of play it seems (seems- a verb of incomplete prediction. Getting pretty good at this whole English teacher thing, I know.) It doesn’t take an English teacher to write about a good day though. We played the scrambled sentence game again with the other group at the high school. Their cheering about shattered my eardrums. It’s a good thing the headmistress likes us, or we would probably be in a lot of trouble. Certainly my favorite part of the day though is after church when the girls stay to talk and play games with us. Today they brought us Bangla sentences to read. They forced me to read the first sentence not knowing what it meant, and upon finishing they burst out into giggles and cheers. Apparently it meant “I like you”. The next two were “You look beautiful” and “I love you” both of which were followed by even more cheers and more giggling (teenage girls will be teenage girls no matter where you are in the world). The next one I attempted read Ami tomake mone rakhbo. After this one they didn’t really cheer. They smiled, but they took on a more somber demeanor. I asked what it meant.

“I will remember you” spoke up one of the girls softly while they all looked down shyly at their feet.

“You will remember us?” questioned one of the girls, hoping for reassurance.

For some reason and I don’t know why, it’s a strongly ingrained in the Mandi woman’s mind to fear that they will be forgotten. They even have a song about two lovers, that goes “Do not forget me….dah dah dah dah dah” (I don’t know the Mandi part). Even in my last class at the NGO World Vision, the only woman in my class, who had hardly spoken a word the entire six weeks, raised her hand and asked, “Maybe when you go, you will forget us?”

I cannot count the amount of times I had to reassure these people I would not forget them. I took a moment, and then I responded, “I promise, I will always remember you.” I almost felt guilty that I had to say it. How could I ever forget them? I had barely been there a few weeks, and my life was turned upside down by their beauty, by their innocence, by their love.

Teaching English? A challenge is a challenge.

June 2

“You will be teaching some very basic English classes” says Father T-McD in his email. “Yes, a three hour class on teaching should suffice” says ISSLP.

“Actually you’ll be teaching three classes a day to three very different group sizes with even more drastically different levels of proficiency. On top of that, pretty soon you’ll be giving a two a day seminar to a group of teachers on teaching English”

I could say it seems unfair, and that would be true. I could say it is nothing like what I expected, and that would also be true. I could get upset, pout, and bathe in self-pity at our lack of preparation, but that would do nothing for me or anyone here. A challenge is a challenge. That’s all it comes down to. It may not be packaged the way we expected it to be or wearing the guise we thought it would, but it is a challenge all the same. It turned out that this challenge actually required me to be resourceful in a way I never had before. You find out a little about the depth of your character by pushing yourself past your comfort zone. “Our greatest feat is not in never failing, but rising every time we fall.”

It took some time, but John and I have embraced our challenge. We are taking on the task of teaching with the ferocity of two boxers just released form their corners in the final round. Admittedly John still tends to drag his feet quite consistently, but for the most part his spirit has improved. I’ll admit my biggest challenge here is probably dealing with his mood swings and somewhat womanish sensitivity although with practice and guidance I am steadily improving. Sometimes I have to just take a deep breath and relax even when I feel like strangling him.

Anyways we continue to look for ways to spice up our teaching approach. Today we played the scrambled sentence game with our high school class. It was pretty much chaos with all the girls in my class (I still think more and more are showing up). We gave them candy which was probably a bad idea because we can only go downhill from there.

The more we look at it however, the more it seems that English is probably the most valuable use of our time that we could commit to these people. There is no type of manual labor that we could perform more efficiently than some man here, and in performing that sort of task we would essentially only be stealing a job from someone who actually needed it. We are here most importantly to learn, so no matter what our trip will be worthwhile, and if nothing else the next time a white person comes through this village they should at least be greeted with a smile and a “HELLO. HOWAREYOU?” in still very broken English. Although the man might also be swarmed by a group of little munchkins with outstretched hands beckoning “pen”, “chocolate”, and “basketball”. Oh well, not my problem.

June 1

3:00 p.m.

There appears to be more girls in my class than usual today. They are extra giggly. Upon asking them to say something they like about school, I receive my most urgent wave of volunteers yet. Most of the responses consist of “I like my English teacher” or “I like you” followed by large outbursts of giggles. I have a growing suspicion that many girls care very little about learning English.

6:45 p.m.
Suspicion confirmed when girls ask if I am married or if I have a girlfriend. My response of no cues yet another outburst of giggles and oddly enough the performance of a traditional Bengali love song.

7:00 p.m. “We want make friends with you”

“We like come to America”

(Dinner bell sounds) Saved by the bell… great show

The Refugee Scar

(caption: jackfruit- the natural version of banana laffy-taffy)

Father Lawrence who is a lawyer happened to mention to me that he was a refugee to India when the war of liberation was going on. He told me he remembered very well when he returned home to Bangladesh, and it was a free country. There was nothing to celebrate though. The country and the people had been ravaged and raped. They had no food, and the government could not help everyone. He was only six years old, and he and his younger brother were the only ones in his family who were not bedridden with illness. Consequently, they had to find food for his mother and sisters, but there was none to be found. They resorted to eating the stalks of banana trees and any plant they could find. He mentioned his brother later in the conversation, so I know that he lived through it. I did not ask about the rest. The people of his generation are permanently scarred by starvation. The situation is very different now, but still people starve and from the sound and crack of his voice it is very apparent that this scar still aches.

Religion Smidgeon

MAY 26

We have finally settled in our new home for the next six weeks. For the last 36 hours we have constantly been on the move: visiting, greeting, celebrating, and exlporing. We left our two friends Sean and Jim at Pergacha, and we have moved into our room at Jalchatra. We will start teaching tomorrow which I know will be challenging. I am nervous, but this journal entry is dedicated to recapping the last 36 hours.

Our visit to Notre Dame College was marked by beautiful songs and dances (video posted of one of the dances) from the children at the literacy school, broken English speeches from the teachers, and a tour of the campus. We then joined the Fathers in their evening prayer. Praying with priests somehow reminded me of the exorcisms that you see in movies. When they recite a prayer they don’t just melodramatically rattle of the words or stumble aimlessly through the lines. When these priests prayed, it seemed as if they were commanding the words to rise off the page and take form. There was a certain power in their voice, a certain authority that made the prayer seem much more moving despite the actual lack of content and excessively flowery language.

Moments into the prayer, almost as if in response to heavenly declarations, the loud speaker from the mosques nearby began blaring out the evening call to prayer for the Muslim citizens. I felt my heart grow heavy like some type of gravity was pulling it all inward, crumpling my heart like a withering leaf. I felt the way you would, if you were watching two friends compete ferociously for some goal and you knew tragically that no matter what, they would really both be losing. This pain was not a pain for me, or even for a friend for that matter, but simply a pain for mankind in general. It seemed disheartening and actually ridiculous that there could exist so much dissension and so much hate between people of these two religions in the world when at that moment I was absolutely sure that we were all praying to the same God. Who cares about the means by which we do it? Spirituality is spirituality no matter what way you dress it up or what form it takes. We all worship. We all give thanks. We all seek to understand this higher Being. What does it matter what name we give it? “God is but one, known to man by many names” – Mahatma Ghandi

I coincidentally am reading the book Life of Pi about a young Hindu boy in which the author writes, “Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christains, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians in their devotion to God are hat wearing Muslims.”

The problem most certainly is ignorance. People fear what they do not understand. Fear breads dissension and dissension breads hate. It’s a vicious cycle broken only by learning, learning about others and their beliefs. Taking a giant leap over that gap of knowledge and hopefully outstretching a hand from the other side so others will follow. It seems disheartening and actually ridiculous, but for now all I can do is pray as I’m sure some young boy of another religion will do somewhere else in the world. Time for sleep.

My First Night in Bangladesh

MAY 23

Ding…Scrape…Thud

Ding…Scrape…Thud

As I lay in bed on my first night in Dhaka, this curious noise seemed to echo through the walls of my room. John lay fast asleep oblivious to the noise that seemed to be slowly making its way into our domain. Half expecting someone to appear in our window, I lay terrified, silent, and still, protected only by my draping bed net which acted as my imagined cocoon of safety. It was about ten minutes before I gained the courage and/or the energy to search out the source of this perpetual scraping. As I peered out the window, I made out the silhouette of two young boys hard at work shoveling gravel with the Ding of the metal shovel the Scrape of the rocks against its surface and the Thud as they were dropped into the foundation of the apartment building being constructed. In the city of Dhaka they are always building; there is never enough room for the 15 million people that crowd the streets everyday. These young boys could be no older than twelve years old. I found out later that they work at night because it’s the only time the trucks can avoid the chaotic traffic to make it into the city and dump the gravel. My curiosity, however, lie with the reason these young boys were working. Maybe they had to help support their families. Maybe they had dropped out of school. Maybe they were enslaved economically. Maybe they were just trying to eat. There’s certainly a different set of priorities for people here.

As I arose in the morning to the songs of birds, the glimmer of the light coming up over the tops of the rugged apartment buildings, and the smell of the market fish and sewage wafting in the air, there lay the two boys snuggled next to each other under a mosquito net on the ground where they had been slaving away all night. They looked very peaceful. I was forced to realize that no child that age in America would even dream of working through the night like that. However, they lay there with their hands just barely touching, as if to show some sort of kinship to each other through it all. I would guess they were brothers, but regardless it was a touching companionship to witness. My brief glimpse into their life just made me wonder more: Where was there home? Did they have parents? Why weren’t they in school? I guess I’m really not in America anymore.