India: A Intensive Course in Love and Marital Counseling

Not every husband will take his longest vacation (since starting work four years ago) in India because his wife has left him to study a language there.  Kolkata is not really designed for the slow pace and relaxation that many may imagine when they hear the word "vacation". Luckily, my husband doesn't really like relaxing, and gets much more life out of intense and chaotic moments than from leisurely and restful days.  Its been ten days since Travis got here and he has already learned a good amount of Bangla, probably seen more of the city than me, has already gotten sick and healed from an illness, and made friends with a good portion of the population of Kolkata.  His energy and enthusiasm for the everyday here are quite astounding, humbling really, and an incredible inspiration. As I fumble around trying to figure out where I am going and worrying about getting sick or lost or hurt or whatever random worry pops into my head, Travis is diving in head-first, and inspiring me to let go of all the junk I try to control...or at least to start to let go.

I will let him tell his own stories (you can find them on his blog travisjeffords.com), but I will share that on Trav's very first full day here, he made friends at an Indian train station, got stuck in a monsoon rainstorm, figured out his way around Gariahat (equivalent to Times Square), and sat and chatted with two Kolkata Police officers who let him take pictures of them (quite a feat since the KP are known for being, well to put it nicely, stand-offish). And that was all before 1PM. Of course he also totally wore himself out and caught a cold, but, man, did he jump in without any hesitation--puttin me to shame. Since he has recovered from his cold, we have been having little excursions everyday, and it has allowed me to see the city in new ways.

Proof that Travis befriended the KP

Its always a gift to see a place or an event through another's eyes and to share the experience of new places with another.  Sometimes it feels like if I can't share something with another, either through photos or with them by my side, that it didn't really happen. There is something about the process of sharing experiences that makes them more real, more deeply felt. This is especially true of sharing life with Travis, who sees all of the little things I had never noticed before and more easily sees beauty than myself: the handiwork of the brick sidewalks, the organized chaos of the metro, the incredible way in which bus helpers manage not to fall as they take people's money, the way moss grows on the side of buildings. It has been such a joy to show him around Kolkata and to see his reaction to the everyday, which at first is totally insane and mind-bogglingly different, but, after some time becomes normal.

Travis-eye-view of the morning commute

And for a lot of reasons, it has been extremely important for our marriage to share this together. First of all, it has offered some brand new challenges that we have had to work through together when we are tired, dehydrated, hungry, and, sometimes, a little sick.  Probably one of the greatest challenges we had to negotiate when TJ got here was, basically, that Travis has taken on an incredibly difficult scenario: to go to a country where he doesn't speak the language, find sometime to do with himself in said country without said language while I am in class every morning, and do it all when you are the kind of person who finds incredible power in connecting with others but can only say "yes" or "no".  Moreover, there was this interesting challenge that I had not foreseen: I know the language. So we would go places and I would just jump in and take over in Bangla and make all the decisions, basically, because I could. There was no negotiating. I had just made a decision in an interaction in Bangla with another person and all Travis could do was hear my explanation of what occurred and what I had decided after the fact. And I would often lose my temper when he asked what the hell was going on because it was such tiring work to translate for him and speak in Bangla. On top of all of that he had to indulge all of my germaphobe neuroses. The first night he was here, I literally told him how to take shower and then bossed him around for the next few days asking him to wash his hands like an annoying mom. So, in brief he was utterly without control. That is alot to ask of someone and its not how marriage is supposed to work. I had to learn to back off, trust him and share with him the process of learning Bangla and translation. Of course because Travis is wonderful he assisted in the process of working through these challenges by learning some Bangla. He knows enough now to  get around ok and luckily for him, people just love chatting him up about how tall he is or how he looks like he is from Germany (?) or how they'd like to go to his country.

I have been really dumbstruck by Travis' courage and enthusiasm, but especially by the way in which his coming here and his approach to life here are a living out of his wedding vows. I mean, the dude got dropped in the middle of a giant Indian city  filled with strangers who cannot speak to him, and he did it, in large part, for me. That's love, y'all.  I was particularly struck by this when we were at a wedding last week.  Our friend Sriya (a fellow student in my Bangla program with her entire extended family living in Kolkata) invited us to her cousin's wedding. So we went to the far south of the city after buying a fancy Indian Punjabi for Travis, and went with Sriya's wonderful family to a stranger's wedding. Bengali weddings are totally insane. There are a billion people (none of whom we know) in a giant hall blasting with music and filled with food.  I can't really describe the chaos of the event, but at one point Travis got "kidnapped" by some Bengalis who were really excited to meet an American, and was taken to get sweets down the street. As he came back into the wedding hall, speaking his broken Bengali, sweating from the heat in the overcrowded hall and smiling ear to ear as a man dragged him around to introduce him to every stranger in the room, I was struck by the realization that Travis is the kind of partner we are all supposed to have and somehow I tricked him into putting up with me for a long time.

Aside from learning how to face challenges together as a team, our time here together has been good for our marriage because it has challenged us to consider what it means for us to live out our wedding vows. When Trav and I got married, the final words of our vows included vowing to strengthen one another to better be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.  The kind of disparity between rich and poor, and the totally visible poverty that you see the second you step foot outside your room here means that you have to face the call of the Gospel at every step.  When I read Matthew 9 the other day, in which Jesus is running around on his last puffs of energy healing people who are sick or have broken bodies or are even at death's doorstep, I couldn't help but picture Jesus on the streets I walk everyday. There is certainly the kind of need here that the Bible describes. Most certainly TJ and I have learned that we need very little, and that we are astoundingly privileged to have education and medical care and communities that love us and clean water and food and shelter and loving families. The number of people on our Earth with all of these is incredibly small.

For anyone at Travis' pre-India party, that hat should look familiar
That's Rakesh,  Travis' new friend

But the thing is that Jesus doesn't call us to give and to serve out of guilt--out of the guilt of having or the guilt of privilege, which so often hangs over me--but to move past that guilt to love. You give because you love, really love, another person. Its the loving that's hard, not the giving. I personally haven't been able to move past the guilt to the love. But recognizing my failure to love here has helped me to realize that I need to change how I think about service and the Gospel in my everyday--not just here but in my everyday back in the States.

 I was schooled in care-free love in a brief encounter with the Sikh tailor next to my house. This gentleman works all hours, everyday, and has been for years, so much so that he cannot sit up properly any longer because he has been leaning over his sewing for so many years. I had gone by yesterday to find out if he could make me a sari blouse. When he explained that he couldn't, as I stood to leave, he handed me a small piece of fish wrapped in newspaper. I couldn't understand the gesture at first. I thought that maybe he was showing me how little he eats as a way of asking for money. But I quickly realized that he was just offering me his dinner. I couldn't comprehend such care-free and automatic charity. When I see need on the street I calculate so many things: how many people are watching? is it safe to reach into my bag here? did i give enough?... But this man just automatically offered me his food.  I thanked him and told him I wanted him to eat it.  Today as I passed his shop both he and his son greeted me with the warmest smiles and nomoskars (greetings of respect and love). They both acted like I had done something for them, but I hadn't. Quite the opposite.  That little encounter proved not only that giving can be quite easy but that I can be changed and given the sustenance of love by those that, according to economic conditions, have very little.

It has been such a gift and an important, perhaps heart-changing, and marriage-shifting challenge to process all of this with Travis. I hope that everyday we can better see God  and live out love better here and at home because of what we have seen and experienced and because of the people we have met, that we have loved and that have loved us. I feel like I am inconceivably blessed, not only to have what I have, to have experienced what I have experienced, but also to be partnered with someone who loves me so much and who challenges me to love others the same way.

Tomorrow night we are going to hang out with Sriya's cousins, and then Friday we plan to have a secret dinner with Sandhya and the other staff family members in the house. So stay tuned for our next adventures.

Please continue the prayers for health and safety. We miss you and love you and can't wait to love you better!

During a good Saturday walking around old Kolkata

Travis in high spirits at the end of his first day (at the local cafe we eat fried fish and tea at)

Humiliation in Every (Good) Way Possible

Its been a long while since I last updated everyone.

I have settled into life in Kolkata and the frantic attempt to try to fit an entire language into my head in 8 weeks. So for the past three (wow! times flies) weeks I haven't felt like I've had much to share. My days have consisted of waking up, Skyping, furiously drinking tea, catching the bus to school, being shamed at school for the shear number of grammar rules and words I can't remember, stuffing my face with rice and lentils, catching the bus back home, studying for 6 hours, furiously drinking tea, Skyping, sleeping, and then repeating it all over again.  My focus on studying has meant that I haven't made much time to just "be" in the city or truly "see" it.

Of course, the truth is that there is plenty to share about this place--about its beauty and complexity, its demands and the frustration it can cause, about the way it is changing me in big and little ways. I've just neglected to truly stop and notice them. I've been too busy trying to feel comfortable and trying to communicate--two things that go hand in hand.

Here are few things I have seen and experienced but failed to share:
-Long talks over tea with Sandhyadi, my "Indian mom"(not the home-owner but the head "worker" in the home), who cooks the grandest food and gives you sugary tea and hugs when you have a bad headache, and is super good at correcting my Bangla.

She shares with me little bits of her life and I try to speak enough Bangla to tell her about mine.  She left her village and her husband to have her daughter, Pinkey in Kolkata so that she could make better money for her family and so Pinkey could go to better schools growing up. As a consequence, she never sees her husband and she literally works from morning to night.  The other day I was joking around with Pinkey and Rakesh in my bedroom. They were telling me that my floor was much cooler than my bed and I should sleep on the floor with the cat. I jokingly said, "Sleep on the floor! I'm not a cat!" I had never seen Sandhyadi's room that she shares with her daughter. I thought it was upstairs. But as it turns out, it is the empty room just down my hall. I didn't think anyone lived in there because there was literally nothing in it. But I had to wake her up early one morning to open the gate to the house and she and Pinkey were sleeping on the floor with a pillow and a sheet.  I had no idea. The person I care about the most in this house, who literally feeds and clothes me, watches me flit in and out of the house with my bed and my air conditioning and my bottled water and my new little things I buy at stores, literally has nothing but the clothes she washes and dries on the roof. Sometimes I don't know how she looks at me without anger, but she doesn't. She just loves on me and tells me that if I'm happy, she is happy. There's alot to unpack in all of that socially and politically, but basically, our inequality is just not fair.  The fact that I know enough Bangla to speak with her and form a relationship with her will probably be the most important part of this entire trip.  I have no solution to the inequality between us.

-Bus culture: it is chaotic and cramped and you'd better know what you're doing when you get on or off (because the bus doesn't really stop), but in general, the bus culture in Kolkata is pretty wonderful--at least from what I've seen and experienced. If you are a lady and you hop on and there is a man sitting in the "ladies" section, the other riders, and especially the other ladies, will sternly tell the man to get up and insist that you sit there--this doesn't just apply to white folks like myself.  If you are a scared and lost looking foreigner, the bus helpers will take pity on you and come and poke you when your stop is coming up. If you are a scared and lost looking foreigner and you can't seem to find the right bus, a billion different people will go out of their way to tell you which bus to take and then tell the bus helper where you are going. If you are a super cute and super old Indian woman, the bus will actually stop for you to get on or off--the only time an Indian bus really slows down. Oh, and, if there are two dogs having sex in the middle of the road, buses will move out of the way until they have, um, well, finished.  Its the only thing buses move out of the way for, but, its a nice gesture all the same.

-Indian haircuts: I went to a nicer place to get my haircut, because I had seen Tim Felton's video and wasn't ready for such an intense massage experience. I got this really wonderful guy named Raza. He took alot of time cutting each piece and seemed to have a really good time. In the end, he basically chopped off all my hair, and then smothered my head in hair gel and hairspray until it looked alot like a spikey ball. Then he took alot of pictures and everyone in the salon looked on.  I don't think women regularly get my haircut. I couldn't exactly tell if they thought what he was doing was really cool or if they just thought I looked ridiculous, but, maybe it was a bit of both.  Before the haircut I got a pretty sweet head massage while I was getting shampooed. Aside from a few painfully intense moments during the massage, it was totally delightful.

Then....

amidst my own little enjoyable moments on buses and in markets and hair salons, trotting about and feeling enlightened and like I'm "roughing it" to experience the world, there is this moment all around me: a mom and her kids sleeping in the mid-day heat on the street. She gently fans her kids to ensure they don't over heat. A dad and his little boy sleep in the middle of one of the biggest intersections in the city. He has found or purchased some earbud headphones that he shares with his son to help block out some of the sound so they can sleep. I catch a short moment in which he gently strokes his son's forehead. I walk on to school worried about whether I'll get there on time.

India and the people that live here are not for my enjoyment or contemplation or enlightenment or consumption, much like is often depicted in books and movies of foreigners like myself "experiencing India". Everyone living here is a child of God. Some with more money than I will ever have, some with generous hearts, some who have greater need than I'm likely to ever know. But they don't stop existing the moment I stop noticing them or experiencing some great new thing because of them (I think this is how many films and books about India tend to depict it). And in truth, sometimes my mind thinks otherwise. It is easy to make yourself the center of the universe, in large part because it means you don't have to think about what happens to that mom or dad when you walk away and do nothing.

Everyday, I try to maintain that feeling of comfort that I need to feel like I'm not about to totally lose it, and still at the same time, maintain legitimate care and concern for the people all around me. The two seem unbalanceable.  To really recognize the humanity and need of everyone is to be really uncomfortable, to recognize that you don't need the comfort, and that the comfort is what stands in the way of you being with others and being in the world. I am fully conditioned to need comfort so its very hard to let go of the stuff that makes me feel safe-especially when I am here.  The words of Christ to leave behind our stuff and follow are particularly powerful and seem particularly impossible when I'm here.  I feel like all I can do sometimes is recognize how far I have to go before I can be ready to serve...I just ethically rev up and stall out alot here.

But, I'm not doing it alone. Not just because The Holy Spirit walks with me, but, because I got a very important package in the air mail on Thursday:

 He looks pretty good for having traveled for like 4 days to get to me!

I feel so incredibly blessed to have a husband that is willing to fly across the world to be with me.  Already, just three days since his arrival, we have experienced so much together, and have realized so much about our lives and our marriage and our privilege and the difficulty of living the Kingdom.  I will share some of those stories in the next post. But for now, I can say that I hope that with Travis we can better figure out together what to do with what we've been given and have the courage to share it, because we've been given alot, and its not meant for hoarding. So far we have learned that our time here is likely to be full of humiliation--learning humility by recognizing your own foolishness--in language, in culture, in consumption. Its positive humiliation.

On the note of Travis' arrival, I will leave now to spend some time with him. Your prayers for my continued health and for his health and safety while we travel are much appreciated. I also want to share that Pinkey came down with a high fever on Friday. She is going in to the doctor on Monday to check for malaria. Will you hold her and her mom, Sandhya up in your prayers? I will update you on what they find out at the doctor.

We hope you are all doing wonderfully and love you!