Bye Bye....

August 25, 2011

I’m leaving on a big jet plane…leaving the country that has embraced me.  Leaving the incredible friends that have become family.  I do not know how to express my gratitude for the experiences of the past 3 months…for the unconditional kindness that was shown to me…the laughs we shared, the love of the children which opened my heart.  This morning the children came and hugged me one by one, wishing me a “safe journey.” I could not stop crying once I looked in their eyes.  They have become like my own.  I have no doubt that I will return soon. 

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I think about Usha praying and thanking god with her palms pressed together right before eating her simple meal.  Her food is plain…just rice and dal.  Yet the children are SO thankful for that food, for their Raksha family and for each other.  I have never seen such gratitude, discipline and patience among children.
 

The night before I left, the children and I sat together in a circle. Ujjwal (the oldest boy) read me a letter on behalf of all of them.  "Sapana Didi.." (Sapana is my Nepali name, and Didi means older sister – that’s what they call me), he said “Sapana didi, we love you. You are our family. We will miss you….come back to us soon…”  He said if it wasn’t for me, half of the children would not be in school…I don’t know if that is entirely true, but if I made a single difference in their lives it would be a fraction of the difference they have made in mine.  I am deeply appreciative, happy from the inside, and so carefree.  I laugh more, and believe so much in myself and in the power of love to transform any situation.

I decided to create a memory book for the children and girls, using the thousands of photos I took of them while I was there.  I gave it to them on our last night together, and it was a hit!  Over the course of the three months I also took a profile picture of each child. Those I printed out in larger sizes and gave to them as a gift.  They’ve never really had something of their own before...this is something they will never have to share with anyone. 
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September 25, 2011

I hope that in the course of reading this blog, my dear friends and family, you will feel inspired to reach out and support Raksha Nepal.  The organization is small, underfunded and struggling.  I just found out that the children have been turned away from school until all school fees are paid in full.  They have worked so hard on their exams, and yet cannot attend school because Raksha does not have the money to pay.  

Raksha Nepal exists on day-to-day donations, for the most part.  Please visit their website and learn more about the work they have done.  If you feel compelled to help, please do so.  


http://rakshanepal.org/ 

Thank you so much. 

With love,

Shabnaz

Raksha Workshop

August 22, 2011

Tonight I led a workshop for the girls, women and one male staff member of Raksha Nepal.  The ladies from Raksha Women’s School were also there.  Quite unexpectedly, one of the younger women began crying after an early exercise we did, and despite our efforts to calm her, continued to cry for a long time.  I must have hit a nerve on trauma she recently experienced…we were talking about things that we all have in common, and I asked them to step into the circle if they had experienced the death of a loved one.  

It is easy to forget that certain things, such as talking about people who have passed, are culturally relative.  In my case, sharing with others about my mom has always helped me to grieve and move my life forward.  However, I learned that in Nepal it is not appropriate to discuss people who have passed, particularly in a group setting.  This was an important and humbling thing for me to learn.   Nevertheless, I received gracious comments from the rest of the participants.  Most of them are young activists in the community, and this workshop is something they can go on to teach to others in their own circles.   


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Singing Children

August 18, 2011

I close my eyes and listen to the calming sounds of the children singing.  I want to remember this sound and this feeling forever.  We are on the Raksha Nepal rooftop and the kids are playing a game as the gorgeous sunset colors the sky and illuminates the giant Himalaya mountains in the background.  It is no wonder that the word for mountain in Nepali is "Himal".  They surround the Kathmandu valley just like a big bowl. 

These kids have become my family.  I love being with them, laughing with them, picking them up and hearing them shriek with laughter.  But most of all I love their singing.  It is a sound that brings tears to the eyes of every single visitor who comes to see them. 

Road from Pokhara to Kathmandu

August 16, 2011

I just lit incense to give thanks for our safe return home after the most terrifying ride of my life.  The micro (small bus) driver tonight sped at maniacal levels through narrow, dark, mountain roads with plummeting mountain drops on either side.  He did this while passing huge trucks and just barely missing oncoming trucks headed towards us.  I lost track of how many promises I made to god in exchange for our safe arrival in Kathmandu.  

Can’t say I was surprised when, after the 10^th near-death incident, as our van tried to pass yet another giant truck on the one-lane road, our driver finally plunged the van into the storm drain on the right side of the road to avoid an oncoming bus.  Needless to say, I was in shock, and hanging in a very precarious position at the top end of the vertical van, so I wasn’t sure what to do.  We finally got down just in time to see Menuka stopping a black SUV and asking for a ride to Kathmandu.  

This is the same road that used to be full of Maoist ambushes during the ten-year conflict here.  Bus-fulls of people were burned alive when they could not give money to the insurgents.  Earlier, on this same road we also saw a group of people carrying a woman to the hospital.  She was having a difficult pregnancy and was being carried in a sack held up by a long stick that two men carried.  In the rural villages it is difficult to access health care, even during emergencies.  Most of the hospitals in this country are located in the cities; nobody wants to open them in the rural areas because they are difficult to access. 

Menuka tells me, “Women here survive by the grace of God.”  Many women here die during pregnancy and labor because they lack access to healthcare.  Menuka’s own mother walked herself into the fields each time she was in labor, and gave birth to 8 children by herself in the forest.  


I once heard one of my Peace and Justice colleagues ask, “Why do you consider maternal healthcare a human right?”  I was never able to formulate a response to that question until now.  When we have an epidemic of women dying during childbirth – dying from something that is easily preventable, but inaccessible due to poverty –the domestic government is responsible for providing them with the care they need.  In Nepal’s case, the domestic government is unable to provide this.  Therefore, the international community has a moral responsibility to prevent these deaths from happening.  We have the equipment that would alleviate their suffering. To prevent these women from receiving it when they need it the most, due simply to their economic status, is inhuman.  

Saying goodbye to my students

August 7, 2011

Sitting in my room, surrounded by the loving and protective energy of the ladies of Raksha Nepal Women’s School through the bagfuls of bright flowers they gifted me today.  Eyes are still puffy and am still feeling the warm afterglow of the heart-felt blessing each student whispered to me as she put a red tikka on my forehead. I am so thankful for these blessings as I prepare to say goodbye to Nepal, something that is unimaginable to me right now. 

It is raining outside, my favorite time of day.  I am thinking about the time I have spent in Nepal, the incredible people I have met here, and the relationships we have cultivated together.  Each group of girls I have spent time with…has impacted me deeply, profoundly.  I feel a transformation happening through the interviews with girls the past few days.  There is definitely a shift there, and a strength in the sharing of stories and in the healing that comes from that process.

The girls have made me promise to return, and I intend to fulfill my promise.  

Workshop with Survivors

July 30, 2011

Today I led a story-telling/forgiveness workshop for 20 girls who have been rescued from trafficking, most of them from India.  They are between the ages of 13-18.  I asked them to paint about their dreams and then to share their painting(s) with everyone in the circle…the drawings were amazing. Almost every single picture included their families and villages.  In them, the girls were strong, powerful and courageous.  


I am so inspired and uplifted by them.    

First Workshop

July 29, 2011

Today I led a workshop for the staff of Shakti Samuha (another anti-trafficking organization based in Nepal).  Their staff is mostly comprised of survivors rescued from India and countries outside of Nepal.  The workshop was entitled “Alternatives to Violence” and is a compilation of the many workshops I myself attended while in my first year of graduate school.  The results completely exceeded my expectations.  I had been so nervous that I expected the worst.  Instead, everyone participated (even despite the language barrier).  People shared in a way that I don’t think they had ever done in public before, even the guys.  I told them about the Rwanda genocide and the Holocaust (which a large number of people in Nepal apparently don't know about), and linked those two tragedies to roots of violence (fear, misunderstanding, lack of communication, etc).  We also talked about the war in Nepal.  There was a question about how to deal with state-sponsored corruption, which is a huge problem here in Nepal.  I was not sure how to answer that one, so I gave examples of non-violent resistance movements that have worked (Gandhi's "Satyagraha" and Martin Luther King Jr's movement against racism).  At the end of the day, the participants gave positive feedback and asked me to return with more workshops :)  Whew.