I think…

…I’m going to join the Peace Corps when I’m done with this leg of school. My friend Kelly just came to visit for about 24 hours, she got back from her trip/mission/whatever the Peace Corps calls it, in Africa. I’m trying to suck as much interesting and amaze out of the time I have here, and this is looking like a good next step. So Education and Youth Outreach, hopefully in Peru (really, anywhere is fine, though I really want to visit central/south America). Oh, and Juli just got back from a medical mission trip in Guatemala. Sitting in the Bay is beginning to make me very antsy, though I do appreciate the variety I have available within an hour drive. I really love being young, unmarried, and able to forgo comfort.

Other than that, I’ve been rummaging in my mom’s book collection (she’s been amassing a large-ish library since the seventies, I think, and there are some real gems), and pretending to learn the guitar. Pretending because I need new strings and haven’t pulled it together enough to get someone to help me restring. But my dad’s Ovation is sitting within reach, along with several exercises just looking at me plaintively waiting to be delved into while I waste time messing on facebook. I can play the two chord song from Juno.

I really like public speaking sometimes. Everyone HAS to listen to me.

Oh, hey.

I opened the doors
of the refrigerator to
A winter of thin wire.
Metal racks and decaying
tupperware.

And my neck hairs stood up.

(A poem a friend wrote on the first page of my new journal. That’s all I’m telling you.)
This blog thing won’t let me tab, I like doing the tab thing, it spaces things out more. I’m feeling pretty restricted right now.
So (Ah, that should be indented, I swear) I gave a presentation on Human Trafficking to my psych class, and it went really well. I read over all my India entries last night, looked over old notes, went to STOPTHETRAFFIK.org (if you never have, go do it right now please.) It stirred me up, raised a familiar block in my throat. I felt really connected during my talk, told personal stories of girls I met in half-way homes and the brothels. My 15 minute presentation turned into almost half an hour, people kept asking me questions. I didn’t want to sit down when it was over, so many things were popping off in my head, stories I wanted to tell, contributing factors I saw that people don’t hear about. I talked a little about NGO’s and volunteering, I could probably go a whole hour on just that.
Afterwards a bunch of people came up to me to ask questions about organizations, how I got involved, questions about my trip. It was amazing to see people inspired to help and get involved, it reminded me of when I first started learning: “Yeah, but what can I DO?” Right now, I think what I need to do is keep telling my stories.

keep Austin weird.

I’ve been trying to find a thread, something to make this blog stick. I’m not in a foreign country, nothing in my life really updates interestingly enough for me to tell you about. But hey, maybe it’ll come.

I’m in Austin, TX right now visiting my dad and the Haney family. I caught some of the South by Southwest music festival, Cayah has a new-ish french bulldog puppy named Banner who isn’t fully house-trained, throws up sometimes and doesn’t like his leash, but is so adorable, and it’s St. Patrick’s day. Meaning I’m having an entertaining and successful trip.

It’s nice to get out of the the Bay area. I’ve been debating the merits of both places. So far the most deciding factors have been: the Bay has the ocean,people in Austin are really nice. Has anyone else noticed how mean people in California can be? Is that all of California? I’m sure there are pockets in the middle where everyone’s nice, but it’s probably farmland or near Bakersfield, which I don’t really consider California. I think they should chop it up into two states, make the middle part of Nevada or something.

Back to the mean-people thing. I see it in huge contrast when I get back from Denver, Raleigh, or someplace where people make eye-contact and chat with you in line at coffee shops. As someone who talks to everyone, frequently people behind me in line or waiting for the same bus (who am I kidding, I don’t take the bus), I go through a mild culture shock when I arrive in a new city and strangers are friendly.

I guess what I’m saying is if they picked Austin up and dragged it closer to the Gulf of Mexico I’d move out here in a hot second. But if that happened, I’m sure the cost of living would skyrocket, plastic surgery would take off, and everyone would get snotty and rude. Back to square one. So I guess I’m better off just staying in the bay or braving the heat.

I think I’m going to continue here.

I was checking my wordpress just for the hell of it, and the option “Write” in the upper left hand corner of the screen looked so inviting. I love writing, so I decided to keep on with this blog, even though I have nothing of real consequence to say. Maybe Marie or my sister will check it every month or so, that’s enough for me. I’ve been writing a ton in my journal since I got back, but there’s something about sharing what I put down with other people that I like. I’m definitely going to have to revise that last statement, I don’t think it made much sense.
I keep trying to write stories, mostly cause I haven’t since I was 16, but it’s HARD. I don’t know what to write about, so many other people’s stories bore me (sorry), and it feels stiff. I should probably start with my own. Story, that is. Why is it so much easier to write about Nothing than to write about Something? Or am I just weird?
Today I was signing up for classes (I’m on the 12 year program, it seems, for undergrad. Life is so distracting), and I was telling my mother how frustrated I was getting with their website. I was feeling very criticized by it. She looked up at me from her coffee and asked if I was really having an emotional response to a website. Well, yeah, I was. It kept re-routing me, using pretty condscending language, making me log in again and again. All in all, a very rude and churlish website. not a fan.
Oh, and I decided not to revise my need-to-share thought. I can’t be concise and super-readable all the time.

yeah, there it is

So I’m sitting here in my nicely mid-range hotel listening to “amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.”
Since I’ve been here, whenever I thank God for grace and safety and peace and my family and everything else wonderful in my life, it sticks in my throat. What about them? What about the millions on the streets, the girls held against their will, the destitute, the lost children who don’t have a place to go? The fathers who have no way of feeding their families? The sick and the alone, the HIV positive, the young men turned to crime because they have no hope for their future, the girls who sell themselves because it’s the only way they can survive? What about them? Why can I trust God for my safety, pray that I don’t get sick, when millions will sleep hungry on the pavement tonight? If God loves us all equally, why does it seem like He only takes care of some of us, me and not them? The injustice brings tears to my eyes, the frustration builds in my throat. I’m here, I’m seeing, but no matter how much I want to give, this will still be here.
The thought comes unbidden into my mind: it would be so easy to go home and forget all of this. Chalk it up to travel and life experience, remember these emotions as part of a youthful idealism. I’m still processing, having poverty so present every day isn’t something I’m used to, and the stories we hear are pretty gut-wrenching. There are a million trite answers to this, but none of them answer, just evade. It’s a part of the world, of humanity, I can’t understand.
As far as my prayers go, I can see wrestling with this going two ways; either feeling that there’s no way a merciful and loving God could allow what happens to people, or finding the whole thing so incomprehensible that there must be a Creator that it makes sense to. I’m pushed towards the latter. What I’ve seen and heard throws me so far outside of what I can comprehend, there has got to be a God that understands.

Everyone here thinks we’re German or Canadian

After spending the weekend in Purnata Bhavan (House of Wholeness) in Igatpuri, we’re in Goa, the Hawaaii of India. 

Purnata Bhavan was really peaceful, surrounded by green hills, waterfalls and mist. The compound is home to women and children who are either infected or affected by HIV. We stayed in one of the houses with 2 house parents and about fifteen kids. The kids are so adorable, they called us Didi, Hindi for older sister, and the women showed us how to make chapatti (flat Indian bread). It’s hard watching kids in the later stages of AIDs, but incredible how they support each other.

Goa is unreal, it’s feels like the setting of a fairytale; gypsies sell jewelry on the beach and call you darling, there are big houses painted bright colors with gated courtyards next to huts with palm leaves for roofs almost swallowed up in ivy. I think i was attacked by a spider in my sleep, there are 50 red bumps up one arm. Last night at dinner a local looked at my arm said ”I know how to make that better” and ordered tamarind. He took my arm and smeared the pulp over all the bite marks, saying it would stop swelling and itching.  Pretty awesome.

The issue of begging is really kicking me in the face. Do I ignore it, say it’ll only make the problem worse, give to everyone, give only food, give to children, give to who I think deserves it? None of the answers seem to fit, they all seem either impossible or selfish. I’ll continue to wrestle with it, let you know if a light shines down and deposits some profound wisdom into my lap.