Small God

When the Bajaj Foundation had their annual picnic, they invited us all to attend.  After helping make chapati for a bit, I was drawn to a small hut where I heard people playing music and chanting.  As I got closer, I realized I had stumbled upon a puja, a form of Hindu worship.  Standing in the doorway of the hut, I was invited to come in.  

The hut was packed with men and women singing and playing bells, one man playing drums and another on the harmonium.  Sitting on the ground, I began to nod my head to the music.  I felt the beat, the harmonium’s notes and voices wash over me peacefully.  Eventually, I was handed a bell to join in.  Watching others, I found the beat and returned to a state of flow.  I blissfully listened to the call and response between men and women as they collectively praised their god.

I find god in the small places like that hut. Not the big god whose name is thumped in mega churches and derisive public rhetoric, but the small one that connects two people of different faiths. The small god that is there when a stranger pours kindness on another and no one is there to be witness.  The small god that pumps wonder and awe into an observer of natural beauty.

That small god is testimony to the idea that what is small can be big.

While I was in India, I made a serious effort to connect with Hinduism, a faith that played an important role in the lives of many people I met.  I believe that it’s not only important to find your own truth, but understand what others believe as well.

My sister Elizabeth is a tremendous example of a Christian living out her faith.  Very few people actually take Christ’s words - and what is demanded by them - seriously, but she is one of them. She is one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met and gives me constant guidance in how to be genuinely kind towards others.  Her faith is beautiful, strong and powerful.

As a result of how important she is to me, I’ve also tried to understand Christianity and its importance.  Besides being a good role model, Elizabeth has been a trusted advisor in my own quest for truth over the years and I fondly remember our long talks over hot chocolate in the summer while we were both in Malawi. Although I have many doubts and questions to answer about my own beliefs, I’m sure that I found her god in that puja that day.  When I left the hut, I emerged with a deep sense of calm and felt my sister reaching out to me through time and space.

Moving a Crowd

The ability to connect with an audience is a unique talent.  If you are a charismatic public speaker, whole landscapes of impact and potential open up to you.  I’m drawn to people with the ability to move a crowd and deliver a message because I’m a firm believer that words matter.

Prashant is one of those with a gift for public speaking and watching him engage a crowd reminds me so much of my brother.  I got to work with Prashant for over a month on alternative energy projects and right off the bat I got a sense that he and Josh were kindred souls.

I made that comparison early on when I saw Prashant speak at the PRA:

I was captivated by the way Prashant spoke to the crowd at the beginning of the PRA. I couldn’t understand a word he said, but I understood the feeling.  Listening really is a full body experience and whatever energy and excitement in that room flowed through me as well.  It was evident that Prashant was in his element after 10 years of community organizing.  Later, when Manasi roughly translated what Prashant had said, it became even more powerful.  Essentially, he had told the crowd that we were flying up in a helicopter to get a view of the village, and we weren’t coming down until we understood everything that we needed to understand.  He then would point at various people in the crowd - young and old, male and female - and ask them, “What do you see?” … I saw a lot of my brother in Prashant.

While a few things were lost in translation, it was clear that Prashant was engaging his audience with demonstrable pathos and ethos.  Josh has a similar talent and it’s been inspiring to see what he’s done with a stage over the years.  Earlier memories of Josh paint him with the monstrous physical frame of a Stanford goalkeeper. As his physical frame has shrunk to a more reasonable size, he has become larger than life with his ability to share his passion for global health care through mobile technology. I’m going to embarrass Josh with a few of his good ones:

2013 commencement address to UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health’s graduates (text)

2012 Seoul Digital Forum talk

2012 talk with our dad on storytelling at the Chautauqua Institution

2011 Make a Difference talk

2011 TEDxChapel Hill talk

2009 Poptech talk

Prashant also clearly had devoted himself to being an expert in his field.  He pursued multiple degrees in social work and is always striving to learn more about the community he seeks to serve.  Josh also shares that drive to be an expert: I always see him reaching for a new level of understanding in order to amplify his team’s impact.

In Wardha, Prashant felt like an older brother to me.  It made me feel that somehow, Josh had made it to India with me.  I carry my siblings with me always, but Prashant gave some more substance to my normally intangible connection with family.

The Puppet Masters

Mahendra Phate is the kind of guy that makes things happen in the background.  As a senior staff member of the Bajaj Foundation, we had a lot of interactions with this Wardha native.  Mahendra runs the day-to-day operations of the foundation and was the point-man for many of our initiatives.

It was easy to see my father in Mahendra.  Both share a quiet, mischievous smile that indicate they’re up to no good, or more often than not, something very good.

The two men also have in common an aversion to the spotlight.  When our group was trying to interview the Bajaj staff for our website’s bio page, we were having a huge problem nailing down Mahendra for some time.  He was always busy and focused on macro through the management of the micro.  Often you can find Mahendra in the background of a scene, making a phone call in order to get something done and keep the chains moving.  My dad also prefers to pull strings away from the foreground like a puppet master, letting the good speak for itself and others take the credit.

Two years ago, my dad took on a new job in NYC as the Executive Director of Climate Nexus, a climate change advocacy group focused on changing the conversation in the United States.  Climate Nexus helps direct the focus of attention of the public by identifying tipping points in the ongoing climate change coverage and discourse.  Like Mahendra in Wardha, they’re getting things done.

Digging through some old notes on my computer, I found a nugget of wisdom from my father, copied from an email he sent in 2009:

No fear. With each step. Trust your mind and your body, as one. But you must do it with every action, every step. You have to focus, like a laser beam, on the immediate task at hand. And then the larger goal is achieved.

As we walk through life, we will come across examples of people who point their energy like a laser.  Mahendra and my father are bright examples of embodying that focused philosophy and I’m thankful to have had the chance to see my father in a new light because of my time in India.

The Strength of a Mother

When I first met Kalpana, I couldn’t help but think of my mom.

Kalpana was just starting to realize the extent of her own power and begin testing the strength of her new-found wings.  With the help of the women’s support group, she was opening businesses, making a better life for her children, leading the women in their first tastes of freedom and chasing big dreams like political office.  She is fierce but compassionate, expressive and confident.  She’s a role model for women everywhere – just like my mom.

Back home in the States, my mom was embarking on a new journey as a professor of physical therapy at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.  She had been considering the idea of moving to the university level for years after her first foray into teaching at the University of Malawi over one of her many summers in the Warm Heart of Africa.  This past fall, she saw an opportunity to teach and jumped at it.  Before her new appointment, she had been working in public schools with children with disabilities for as long as I can remember, making an enormous effort to establish long-term relationships with her patients over the years of dedicated service.  Mrs. Nesbit was a quiet yet powerful force in the lives of many beautiful children.

While I know her expertise and incredible care will surely be missed in those schools, I’m so glad she made the jump to California.  I’ve seen my mother rack up additional degrees in physical therapy, working late into the night after work, ferrying us to and from soccer practices and making dinner for all of us. (I think we’re to the point of having to call her Dr. Dr. Nesbit…)  I believe that her knowledge base - and her potential impact - has gone way past the one-on-one interactions that have been the staple of her time in the elementary schools.  She has so much to teach about how to care for others as a physical therapist but more importantly, as a human being.  She has taught me about compassion for others, how to understand obstacles in other people’s lives, the need to empathize with someone’s story in order to help and the importance of tenacity over the long haul.

There are some people who by circumstance will never meet, but sometimes I wonder what would happen if Kalpana and my mother - two strong, extraordinary women - could be in the same room.  I like to think that they would trade knowing smiles.  I can only hope that from our brief interactions over a few weeks, Kalpana was able to see some of the strength of my mother in me.

Reclaiming Curiosity

I’ve been battling stomach pain for over three weeks now; thankfully, I think I’m slowly but surely on a path to normal.  I already wrote about sickness, but when it occupies so much of a day, it lingers in the cluttered hallways of the mind.

Now that I’m on the road to recovery, I’m determined to reclaim a few things I’ve lost.  First comes the body, for the mind cannot exercise itself without a robust vessel for transport.  Next comes my appreciation for food.  More importantly are the intangibles.  For me, sickness dulls one of the most important emotions we have available to us: curiosity.  Illness forces you into the groove of the comfortable as you try and figure out what works and what doesn’t.  Anything too new, too exciting is simply too much.  A day without leaving the house isn’t depressing, it’s just what provides you with a little bit of calm in a tumultuous ocean.

Normally, this plummet in curiosity as you stay in the ship’s cabin isn’t that bad.  You hunker down and you recover; you gather your troops for the next battle.  This time, however, is different.  I’m in another country - another world, really - and the adventure that awaits me around the corner has put a premium on curiosity.  It’s the kindle for the fire of life.

The worst human emotion is regret.  Every other one - anger, jealously, sadness - has built into its DNA some way to climb out of the ditch caused by the emotion’s damage.  Not so much with regret.  It tears you up from the inside, like the stomach pain that has been my personal demon.  There’s nothing you can do about it but let it go with your breath, the official timekeeper of the eons.  The only way to really confront regret is to never meet it.  I don’t want to look back on my time in India and remember how a bump in the road of health made me complacent.  Curiosity is the natural antidote and I’m reclaiming it now.  

Like an explorer in uncharted territory, I’m beginning anew my adventure in the land of experience.  Backpack stuffed with curiosity, I will make the earth tremble with my footsteps.  I will leave my mark with my memories.  The world is mine - ours - for the taking.  Engagement, fueled by burning curiosity, is mandatory.

Finding Enso

When I was thinking through packing for my trip, I was guided by a philosophy of minimalism. Looking back on my time staying at Gandhi’s ashram, I had the perfect chance to dive deeper into that philosophy and to extend it beyond material possessions.  There, I spent my time searching for enso, a Japanese word that means circle and “symbolizes a moment when the mind is free to simply let the body/spirit create”.  Create what? Create  thought, meaningful interactions, good writing, a balanced spirit… anything.

The accommodations were simple and straight forward.  The beds were thin mattresses with a small, hard pillow.  Our “showers” were just hot water in a bucket.  The meals were vegetarian and simple, but tasty.  The ashram is an early to rise and early to bed environment and there’s a non-existent night life.  Internet was accessed through USB sticks that connect to the cell network.  They’re relatively fast, but we lost some, some stopped working and there was a lot of people that wanted to use the few that were functioning.

Despite all that, I really enjoyed our time there.  I tried trying to wake up early enough to go on a short run before breakfast, sometimes in the company of Suraj, who was one of our jack-of-all-trades helpers (hot water, cleaning, supplies, entertainment).  For the first few weeks, I went the same route every time, occasionally pushing a little further when I felt up for it.  I came across three villages, packs of dogs that are sometimes not very friendly, kids on their way to school, migrant workers in beautiful fields and lots of curious onlookers.  When Nico, who also enjoys running, was bitten by one of the dogs I changed course and began to explore the other direction.

A few things have changed that I hope to keep now that we’ve left the ashram.  I’ve gotten much more efficient at processing emails.  I was always pretty good, but since other people are wanting to Skype with their parents I’ve tried to limit my time and make the most of the time I had.

I also care less about Facebook and checking random sites.  I’ll log in to see what a small group of people I really care about are doing, respond to anything worthy and send off a message or two (I’m doing an experiment using the Dunbar number to try and actively create more value in using sites like Facebook).  But most of the time my notifications are just event invitations that I don’t care about.  

We’ve become too attached to the dopamine rush that comes with seeing notifications, whether they’re emails, texts or Facebook.  The ashram gave me a chance to really break from that  cycle and I would really do well to maintain a degree of distance in the future.

The lack of consistent internet freed up my time for me to do other things, more important things. I’ve been trying to focus more on producing quality writing and the ashram was a very conducive environment.  I had a surge in dream journaling, with some pretty intense and vivid dreams.  I’ve been reading a lot more and diving into the texts assigned for our classes here.  Most importantly, though, I began to spend more time with people, whether they were my group members or Suraj and Akash up to no good.

Minimalism isn’t necessarily about cutting out everything, just anything that gets in the way of doing what you want to do.   The ashram was quiet space where I could focus on finding enso and the moments where I threw off the weight of pointless things were precious and the stuff that life is made of. The connected world can wait patiently.  It’ll still be there when those moments are over.

Life is a People Sandwich

When I was in Malawi in 2009, I had a funny thought: life is a people sandwich.  How you build your sandwich - your combination of meats, cheeses, and toppings - determines the taste.  This is also the case with life. The people you use to fill your sandwich determine what kind of experience you have.

I figured I’d take a moment to talk about the people who’ve made my sandwich a hearty one.  I’ve talked a lot about what I’ve been doing and it’s about time I talk about who have been doing it with me.  After all, it’s the people that matter in the end.  Be warned, it’s a pretty big sandwich.

If we all returned to our rooms at the ashram, the first porch would be shared by the room of Nico and Emily next to Asha and Lexi.

Nico Slate was one of the first professors I interacted with at CMU.  I took a seminar class with him my first semester on Barack Obama and the history of race in America and ever since then I’ve done everything I could to take his classes.  A definite mentor in my life, he’s colored my CMU experience with optimism, big ideas and even bigger dreams.  He was the architect behind the semester and we all wouldn’t be here without his enthusiasm.

Emily Mohn Slate, his better half, shared the room with him.  A professor in English, Emily came a little late to Doha but immediately gelled with the group.  She has a tremendous talent to provide useful feedback and appreciate diversity of thought.  She also has a background in advising students and watching her help people through applications, cover letters and next steps is a treat.  I faced off with her in a game of langdi and she was a tough foe.  I caught her, but also completely ate it.  She has a few posts up on a blog here.

Next door to Nico and Emily, you’d find Asha and Lexi’s room.  I took a class with Asha (one of Nico’s, actually) a year ago but didn’t really interact with her until this trip.  Within a week in Doha, I completely laid into an organization (Invisible Children) that was a big part of her experiences in high school and she not only took it in stride, but she used the conversation to think bigger and constructively.  I really admire that about her.  She shares a bit of my philosophy of pragmatic optimism so it’s been really useful to have her to bounce ideas around with. She’s shared some of her thoughts here.

Her roommate, Lexi, was another unknown to me before the trip.  What I’ve found over the last few months is that Lexi can be really quiet, but when she does share something it’s often something that’s worth a listen.  A budding poet, I’ve really enjoyed hearing her share her work with all of us.  As someone terrified of others reading my writing - yes you, reader - I can identify.  Seeing her interact with the kids at the Vision Leadership camp was a true pleasure: she has a knack for getting a group involved.

A few feet away is another porch shared by Greg, Wesley and I.  Greg is the CFO of Visions, an NGO that runs leadership and empowerment trainings for kids in South Asia.  During our stay in Wardha, Greg was really there just as back-up but when we came to Chennai to do the leadership training camp I saw a whole other side of him.  He’s a pro at what he does and I could see how alive he was doing what he loved.  One of my favorite things he shared with me was that you never know how you will impact people you work with.  The kids we spent time with at the Visions camp came from a Dalit background (the untouchable caste) and Greg shared with us that even a touch - a high-five, a hug, a playful shove - could mean the world.  It made me rethink the idea of impact and also relates to my idea of the non-possession of good.  More on Visions here.

Next door to Greg was my room, where Wesley and I shared a room.  Wesley is outwardly kind and social.  It was fun watching him instantly make friends in Doha in a new culture and it requires special talent to do that.  More importantly than that is listening to him take deep dives of thought in our group discussions.  My favorite moment so far, though, was watching him help Greg, who flew out of Chennai this past Monday, get packed and make it through a bout of food poisoning right before his flight.

Leaving our porch and continuing down the row of rooms, you’d find the next porch, shared by the rooms of Marcy and Molly next to Marielle and Mariem.  Marcy is a jokester.  We have a very distinct dynamic where we can riff off each other and there is no drop of energy.  Marcy is also one of the most sincere people I’ve met and brings a light with her wherever she goes.  I will always remember the dance parties in Mohanji’s car in Wardha, where she put awesome tunes on a USB to play on the sound system.  In a perfect goodbye to our stay there, on the way to the airport we were stuck at a railroad crossing and we all got out of the car for an impromptu dance party.  (There’s a video somewhere…) Marcy is really into photography and you’ll always see her finding a good photo.  Right now she has a few up on her blog here.

Molly would be in the room with Marcy.  They have a really unique energy together because Molly is silly like Marcy but not with the same high energy.  She’s incredibly thoughtful and has helped me through being sick a few times during the trip.  She also possesses the almost impossible ability to challenge people without being disrespectful.  I’m pretty awful at that and would do well to take some notes from her.  She jumps into things without fear and I wish everyone could have seen her simultaneously learn business concepts and then empower women to discuss them in various workshops our group led.

Next door to the two M’s was another set of M’s: Mariem and Marielle.  Mariem is a student at Carnegie Mellon University’s Qatar campus in Doha and joined us for the semester.  She was there from the very beginning, greeting us all at the Doha airport and has been a fantastic asset to the team.  She has so much to share about her experiences in Tunisia and Doha and I often feel like I’ve only cracked the surface of it all with my pestering about the Arab Spring.  Mariem is also incredibly graceful under pressure and pain: the other weekend she dislocated her shoulder and endured it with a calm and collected demeanor.

Marielle is Mariem’s roommate.  I’d taken some Spanish classes with her but didn’t know that much about her outside of the classroom.  She’s passionate about water and its pervasive role in our daily lives.  She has also taught me a lot about the philosophy of art.  She comes from an artistic background, ended up studying biology and then switched to global studies but maintains that art is good for everyone, even if you’re terrible at it.  I think that’s a really worthwhile perspective.  She also has a curious mind and asks a lot of important questions in our group discussions and I love hearing about her stories about growing up abroad.  You can read her blog focusing on water here.

Keep heading further back and you’d reach the last porch of the team, shared by Manasi, Marie and Tahirah.  I took a class with Marie last semester and then we found out we were both going to India, so there’s been some continuity this year.  Marie is a fierce family member and talks about all her family with very obvious love and care, especially her nieces and nephews.  She’s carried that same intensity into her work mentoring in Pittsburgh and I’ve enjoyed watching her in action here in India.  At the Visions camp she was in my group and had a useful line of thought: if the kids are enjoying it, then it’s okay to be hands off sometimes.  It was a worthy reminder as I tend to be very engaged.

Tahirah has also been in the classroom with me because we share the same major of International Relations and Politics.  One of the things I really admire about her is her honesty and it’s been put to good use in our discussions on how to do meaningful work in the various places we’ve traveled.  She has a tremendous eye for a good photograph but an even better one for the right word.  I’ll never forget the night where we all came together to share something - a song we like, something we wrote, something about ourselves, etc. - and Tahirah read a flash fiction piece she wrote.  When she finished reading it to the group, we all had a collective pause and then burst into applause.

Next door to Marie and Tahirah was Manasi, who was our tireless translator for our time in Wardha.  Manasi has a really quiet nature to her, is unafraid to laugh at herself and slow to judge any of us for our excitement with the exotic.  It should go without saying, but Manasi was fantastic at translating.  It takes a unique person to convey the powerful stories of the people we met - the women, volunteers, beneficiaries of projects - and then to tell to everyone in the group.  It requires that you listen with every fiber (she’s mastered the art) and then commit yourself to the colossal task of sharing everything you’ve heard.  Time and time again, she succeeded and opened the door to many beautiful stories in Wardha.  She also put up with me asking her a lot of questions (I like to ask random questions to people to see what they’ll say) and by the end of the trip I created the Manasi Rule, which gave her 24 hours to answer a question because I wanted to give her time to think about it.  Manasi’s time with us was temporary like Greg’s, but she was a huge part of our time in Wardha.

There’s many more people in this sandwich, but these were the ones who were more or less in the “group”.  I think I’ll have to share another sandwich at the end of the trip with all the people I’ve met along the way, but looking at this one, it becomes pretty obvious that I’ve had a complex and fulfilling meal with me all along.

Life is a people sandwich. Take a bite.

It's the People

Walking through a Shiva temple near the ocean with a mind stuffed with facts from the tour guide, I realized I would probably forget it all by the end of the weekend.  Without a doubt, the temples I had seen that day were a sight to see: they had beautiful figures hewn into the stone over 12 centuries ago and told ancient stories of gods, heroic deeds and the ongoing interaction between heaven and earth.

That’s not what makes a journey, though. It’s the people. It’s always the people.  It’s not the breathtaking sights, but those whose breath is stolen.  It’s not the greeting of the early morning sun that you remember, but the friend who fell out of bed to find it with you.  It’s not the amazing meals you share, but the smiles and laughter of those around you who have a shared sense of not only where we’ve been but also where we might go next.  These people are your cast of characters and they are our storytellers: all unique and equipped with a full canvas of emotion.

A few weeks ago we visited a temple complex that probably covered two dozen acres.  The structures were massive and the carvings ornate.  We had the chance to go deep inside one of the temples where the heat was maintained at a withering intensity to match the shrine’s holiness.  We had another opportunity to see another inner room, but this time I passed and instead decided to sit and watch people in the open-air hall that marked the entrance inside.  It was here that I witnessed real beauty as people from all walks of life came to pray, dropping their body to the floor.  Hinduism, still strange and unfamiliar to me, did not make much sense as I was herded into those inner rooms, but the quiet reverence that these temple goers displayed told a story I could understand.

The world is ours and powerful, a strength that only comes from a collective ownership and engagement.  Like gravity, people give a stickiness to these stories to aid our faulty memories.  Forget about the sights you see and the facts you pick as these are just the backdrop for your story.  Instead, collect stories filled with people, augmented by experience, and you will find that they will never leave your orbit.

Waging a War on Sickness

This is also posted on our group’s blog here.  We’ve been taking turns posting on it every week - this week was my turn - and there’s a lot of cool thoughts being shared there from others in my group.

I am more than my sickness.  I am more than my stomach pain, however tormenting and however frustrating.  I am a human with a unique story waiting to be told to the world. My sickness is a temporary infliction brought upon me by misfortune and it’s a distraction as my hand tries to write the next chapter.    Sickness is only truly devastating when there is nothing to combat it.  Thankfully, through the help of others - doctors with medical advice filtered through dependable institutions, friends with back rubs and family across the globe wishing good thoughts my way - I will avoid any devastation that this sickness could offer.  I get the chance to continue the writing of my story because someone’s got my back.

Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky. Every day, millions succumb to sickness without the support that I enjoy.  Some have never seen a doctor, some don’t have the resources necessarily to do anything with the knowledge that could save them.

Sickness isn’t just about the the individual and the physical body, though.  Sickness is found in groups, in systems, and in ideas.  If there’s anything I’ve learned traveling the last few months it’s that I am incredibly blessed because of the opportunities and support that exist in my life that I too often don’t notice.  My health, my education, my freedoms - these are all aspects of my life where any sickness I encounter is met with firm resistance and support.  I can’t imagine the difficulty one might face when sickness runs rampant in those important parts of life.  What I find so inspiring about the eclectic group of people gathered together for this semester is the innovation and determination that each person brings to the table as we all wage a war on sickness.

Physical sickness is an exercise in immense humility: the body and mind are breaking down.  You become incredibly grateful for any reprieve.  I hope that as I recover and come out of my own personal destruction, I will use that humility in my efforts to find ways to prevent and treat sickness - in its many forms - in whatever way I can.  One night this past week I woke up at 3am from my stomach hurting and shared this one Facebook:

Woke up with stomach pain and found my sister on Skype. Even across the globe she’s still a wonderful comfort. It’s important to take a moment and realize all the beautiful people who are out there ready to support you when you’re in need. Here’s to them.

If someone has me, I’ve got them.

A Warm Compliment

I wrote this as one of our weekly journal entries that we send to Nico and Emily.  I was looking through them and decided I’d share some.  While untimely, it’s worth showing the evolution of the trip.  This one was written on March 3rd and in response to experience with being part of a needs assessment exercise called a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA).  The PRA depends on villagers to get an understanding of history and needs before any developmental work is done.

I’m grateful to have had continued opportunities to work with Prashant, a project manager who deals with biogas, over the last few weeks.  From our very first conversation at the Bajaj Foundation headquarters early in our time here, I had asked him why he chose this work.  Sometimes when English isn’t your native tongue, things spill out in beautiful, unexpected ways.  He told me that he saw the struggles of the rural farmers - his own community - and that he “feels”.  I knew I was in good hands when we did our biogas and grocery store field visits.

I was captivated by the way Prashant spoke to the crowd at the beginning of the PRA. I couldn’t understand a word he said, but I understood the feeling.  Listening really is a full body experience and whatever energy and excitement in that room flowed through me as well.  It was evident that Prashant was in his element after 10 years of community organizing.  Later, when Manasi roughly translated what Prashant had said, it became even more powerful.  Essentially, he had told the crowd that we were flying up in a helicopter to get a view of the village, and we weren’t coming down until we understood everything that we needed to understand.  He then would point at various people in the crowd - young and old, male and female - and ask them, “What do you see?”  There are certain people in life who I know would help cure the illness that runs rampant in politics.  I saw a lot of my brother in Prashant and I sometimes wonder what people like the two of them could do in our dysfunctional system.

After Prashant explained the purpose of the exercise, we broke down into small groups to conduct the PRA.  My group constructed a 50 year timeline of the village in the areas of education, health, and agriculture, looking at 10 year chunks.  During the entire discussion I really tried to hone my ability to listen.  One of my favorite quotes is especially relevant here, some wisdom from Harriet Lerner: “If we would only listen with the same passion that we feel about wanting to be heard.” Even if you don’t speak the language, you can learn a lot from watching people speak and how the translator responds.  Manasi and Prashant are really good translators for this very reason: you can glean a lot of info from their reactions.

Marcy and I definitely enjoyed the session.  At the beginning the group was very shy but by the end we definitely had a cast of characters.  The way the women would interrupt to correct something always made laugh.  The playful chiding of the young scribes by the old farmers illustrated the age dynamic in India and the group loved it.

I was honored when Prashant told the villagers that he didn’t need to translate as much because we had listened with our hearts.  It was a warm compliment from someone I really admire.  The idea of public service in my own life is still so far off in my mind, but if I ever get there I hope that compliment can still hold.