Week 4: In my ~thoughts~

Things are getting real, my friends & sometimes processing experiences isn’t too pretty.

Coming to Aarti one month ago, I was scared of what was in store for me. I was unsure of my position and privilege as an American university student temporarily working in a small town in India. And now I know why.

Here, we are given so much respect in the workplace and while it is so welcoming, I also do not deserve it. I do not deserve the feasts and heaps of delicious food that are served to me everyday. I do not deserve the special treatment of people serving and cleaning after me. I have done nothing to earn this respect.

Outside of working in the office, I constantly crave spending more time with the girls. I love spending time with them, getting to know them, building community, etc.

But it is selfish. I cringe at myself for wanting to feel *fulfilled* this summer and wanting to feel like a part of a community in which I clearly do not belong in. I am coming into a community that has been built by such amazing girls and womxn since the beginning of their lives. They hold each other with such unbreakable, amazing ties of sisterhood and I am nothing but an outsider standing in awe of them.

Contrary to what one may initially think, these girls are not all orphans. Some of their families have had to make the incredibly heartbreaking sacrifice to have someone else raise them because they cannot afford them and/or give them the lifestyle that they need to thrive or survive. I think of my own parents and family who have worked so hard to give me their best, but whom I never thank enough for all of their backbreaking labor as immigrants in the U.S. And although I want to say I can understand the girls, I do not.

I have seen when their families visit some of them and I have seen when they say their goodbyes, they leave, and the tears that follow.

Oftentimes, the girls ask me with so much curiosity in their eyes who my mother is. What her name is. If I have a picture of her. Can I describe her in words? Do I have any siblings? But many of them do not even know the names of their own mothers and who am I to show them my family who has not had to undergo such heartbreaking separation?

I want to thank and hug all these girls for their warm welcomes and for taking us in when we really have no business being here. I want to tell them that they are so strong for having endured everything in their lives and continuing to build each other up when all society has tried to do is push them down.

I want to tell them that they are beautiful just the way they are and that their beautiful brown skin does not need any skin lightener. That they should have never been abandoned by their families. That society shouldn’t be this way.

But I cannot plant questions or ideas in their heads that will grow in them and consume them while I just ignorantly walk away to the westernized world. I wish I could assure them that if they work hard enough, they can be anything they want to be and more. But what an ignorant, selfish lie.

And at the end of the day, I get to go to my air-conditioned room, continue to be served food, and enjoy the accommodations that I do not deserve.

I have come to discover that I am the problem. And I feel trapped. And sometimes I just wanna go on a walk or a drive and think things out, but what a privilege that is in itself right? To even have that thought pass through my brain. I am so emotionally constipated with emotions that I cannot process and questions that I have no right to ask.

We are all walking mysteries carrying so much pain, trauma, memories, and stories that deserve to be heard. And my voice should not be valued more than others. For us American travelers, global fellows, white people, etc, it’s time to stop talking and start listening.