***Warning: this is just a a typical kaitlin mcgarvey nonsensical angry/confused/hopefully hopeful but maybe just exhausted rant***
I don’t know how to start. There’s a lot on my heart. A lot my being is trying to understand and talk out. When you are in a place that speaks a very different language than yours, both of which you’re regressing in, you realize sometimes life makes the most sense when words aren’t verbally spoken, but you also realize other times without anyone to ramble and rant and process with, pieces of the world fill you until there’s nowhere left for tomorrow to go. And thus, we get pages of confused thoughts and feelings and words. It’s funny though, because in order to help me figure out what words I’m struggling with internally, I turned on one of my favorite songs, “Kothbiro,” which is in a language I don’t speak, Swahili. It brings clarity to the world and cleanses me of worry.
And so I begin.
I’m a runner. I think I’ve always ran. Not physically jogging around the park or straining my knees on a treadmill, but I run and I don’t stop. I like to think I’m always running to something, but in reality most of my life has been running away from things. I like to think I put on this facade of being afraid of nothing, but as everyone who knows me can surely tell, I’m afraid of everything real, everything true, everything that really matters. I’m not afraid of death or being beat up or getting a disease or of spiders or of getting lost on a train in a new country. Those things mean nothing. People say the worst that can happen is death, but I’ve always thought death is sort of the nice easy way out of things. I don’t mean that I think death is great and everyone should start killing other people so we can all go live in peace in some other world, but I mean when you see a person slowly starving to death or meet a person who has watched and participated in the killing of their family or hear the silence of a baby suffering of AIDS you almost wish death would come and free them from their suffering. And when you realize that you are too weak to help them escape their agony, you start to wonder why we were given life. the world becomes to much to bear, too real and harsh, and you think even if there is no life after this one, at least the suffering will also turn to dust and be scattered by the gracious wind.
I lack strength, and this is one of my greatest fears. I also fear that I lack love. I fear I have no contribution to transforming the world’s hopes into realities. And as my running has taken me to some of the most tragically beautiful places in the world I see, hear and feel things I know I can’t stop. And so I run. I convince myself that the more I run, the more knowledge and experience I’ll have to help someone somewhere in the world.
I ran to the Philippines. I am now here. I’ve reached the physical destination, but each day the emotional, mental and spiritual destination have yet to be realized.
I’m in one of the most peaceful places I can imagine. The Philippines struggles with corruption and an increasingly restless population and a plethora of other problems related to crime and economic crisis, however, Anda is an oasis of peace. It’s a life I enjoy living, a life shared with people I enjoy living with.
Even though I selfishly ran here for my own purposes of discovery or experience or whatever else it could be, it is the first time I feel I might be impacting a person or two. A friend used to tell me to slow down and stop worrying about all the social and political problems of the world. No one could change every corrupted man made system. He told me to focus on the individuals, and take every smile and every word with a single person as a step towards changing the world, for it’s only through pure genuine human relationships that the world will be changed. While I believed this statement in theory and told other people to live by a similar philosophy, the hypocritical part of myself told me I needed to end every war, every case of poverty, every disease, every moment of abuse.
I don’t know why the world was created or why we are here. I don’t believe in religion, but I do believe in a divine presence, a supernatural creator of some sort. Some call it God, others the Universe, others The Supernatural. Whatever It is, I think It did create us for a purpose. And that thought continues to wrestle with itself inside of me. I get so angry at It so often. The world is full of so much hatred and pain and anger and aggression and violence and injustice and greed and selfishness. It’s a terrible place. I like to believe that this Divine Presence is more knowledgeable than any human being, and due to my Christian upbrining I think I’ve come to adopt the concept of an all-knowing Divine entity. Nothing angers me more than this thought. It’s a juvenile frustration, but I’ve never been able to move beyond the problem of evil. How is it that an all knowing, all powerful, all present God could/would create such a world where She/He/It would know it was creating life only to be destroyed time after time again? This struggle defeats me and more often than not leaves me with immense grief. What are we supposed to do? What’s the purpose of all of this? If there’s something better after this, why not just fast-forward, why even have this world? if the problems will only continue, and our work makes no headway, what’s the point?
My host family noticed I’m thoroughly entertained by animals, so a few weeks ago they gave me a puppy. As you would probably expect from a dog of mine, he’s a little handful. He’s become a pretty tough little man, he has to be to survive, but he can’t sleep unless he’s snuggled in this bizarre contorted manner across my stomach and through my left arm. He rests his heart right where my heart beats. Intertwined together we sit under the stars like this for a while and when he is completely sound asleep I put him on his blanket so he can sleep for the night.
One night as I was putting Todd to sleep I had a little epiphany. Not a huge discovery or anything, but something reaffirmed my belief that we were created to love each other. We were created to connect and share life with other life. I’ve been here for six months, and in those six months I can probably count the times I’ve had physical contact with another person on my right hand. That’s, of course, excluding all the super awkward and uncomfortable touching of my love handles or non-existent butt form my co-workers, but it made me incredibly grateful for Todd. Just having that physical contact with another living, breathing being makes me feel more whole, more complete. I don’t know why the world is so terrible and messed up, but I do know we are here to share it with other living things. We are here to feel each other’s pain and joy. We are here to support and love each other. And we are here to question and mourn and hate the injustice together.
I started a writing club several weeks ago, and I was sure it would just be another one of my many failures in life. I was sure instead of creating an environment that would allow people to discover their love of writing; I would somehow instead make them resent writing, and thus their feelings and thoughts. I was sure students would stop coming after the first week or so. A miracle has happened there is a huge group of students who seem to thrive off of this opportunity to write and express themselves every week. I hold 5-6 hour long sessions a week, divided by class section, because there are too many students for me to work with in just one session.
I’ve never been a mother, but I feel so connected to these students and so protective of them that my heart breaks and my heart rejoices on a daily basis. I ran here having no idea what I was getting myself into, and I’m so grateful that this is where I found myself because the students I work with are absolutely amazing, and I so badly want to help them. Unfortunately, because I was running I fear that I’m not the right person for them. I’m not qualified and I don’t have the experience they could use to help them improve their school-work. But, for some reason the students have started opening up to me. I’m so full of gratitude for their willingness to share their lives with me, but I’m ashamed to say such a thing because so many of them have so much suffering in their lives.
Some of the best people in the world are some of my best friends, and they are working on a fundraiser to get money so we can get some books at my school. I told my writing club about it and they wanted to write pieces that could contribute to the fundraisers. There is one section of students several people at the school told me would be a waste of time to focus on for the club. They told me these students wouldn’t take it seriously, and that there was no possibility of improvement for them. I was working with them earlier this week, which will lead me to two stories.
The first:
I was explaining some of the editing I had done on a story written by one of the students. The story was about the lives of her grandparents and her parents. When it is completely finished she told me I could share it with people in the United States so I’ll post it on here. Until then, you’ll have to trust me when I say there is something about this story of her family that elicits such a strong emotional response that you don’t know what to do. You want to heal the world, but you know you can’t, so you simply sit in awe of the courage and strength and resilience and desperation of her family. The thing is it’s not a story that stands out from the other stories of students’ families. It’s not an unfamiliar story for me. it’s the story of the family I’m living with and the story of my neighbors. It’s the story of your average Filipino family living in poverty. I think that’s why it’s so profound. The words and the sentences are simple. Her English isn’t advanced enough for much more, but the sentences and words mimic the lives of her family. Short and sharp and predictable. The story is all-too familiar and all-too real. It is the story of people battling each day for survival. The desire for survival doesn’t come from an abundance of wealth that can be spent on travel and adventure and good food and technology and a safe house. it comes from the desire for human connection and a desire for companionship.
This same girl wrote me a thank you note for helping her gain strength as she’s dealing with a very very difficult home situation at the moment. She said she has been using writing to help her release her feelings, and she thanked me for telling her that her writing was good because she was always scared to write because she’s in the lowest section. She said it inspired her to think it might be possible to have a different life than the one she was before expecting to have. I have no idea how this happened simply through the writing club, but I’ve never received a more meaningful thank you note. I was overcome with pride for her and her accomplishments and I was filled with anger towards life for hurting her in the ways it has.
The second:
In that same group, I have found that the girls are willing to make mistakes and experiment with their words. They are much more willing to write than the boys are, but the boys continue to come to every meeting. I want the boys to start expressing themselves too, and I want them to gain confidence in their work. I decided to do a little experiment. Most boys here love violence. They love war and they love fighting. I think war is just an “exotic” topic for them as they spend all their time fishing or in the rice fields. It’s something “manly” and adventurous. This kills me a little inside, but I decided it would be an opportunity to get the boys to write.
I have the movie Blood Diamond on my computer, so on Monday I told them we would be watching a move about a war. They were thrilled. I started the movie for them and they were mesmerized. They were impressed with the guns and the jeeps and the alcohol and drugs. They would cheer at different points of brutality. I then paused the movie and pulled out my map to show them the very real country where the war had taken place, and I told them the stories of the child soldiers I met and worked with in Uganda to give them perspective on the lives of the boys drinking and doing drugs in the movie.
Now, before I had pressed play I was not entirely convinced this would work. I was fully aware that they might just think I endorsed such insane behavior, or that they still wouldn’t do the writing assignment at the end of the movie, or that they might start fighting more at school. The negative possibilities were endless in my mind, but I also thought that it might possible compel them to write.
Blood Diamond is a three hours movie, so on Monday I had to stop it after an hour and I told them that I wanted them to start writing about the war in Sierra Leone from the perspective of a child soldier. I wanted them to explain what they felt and saw and tasted and heard. I wanted them to explain the things they did and didn’t do and the things they missed about life before war.
The next day that group of boys came to me during their vacant to see if they could watch more of the movie even though it wasn’t our club meeting time. I put it on for them and this day explained the trade of conflict minerals, diamonds and oil. I explained how developed countries and MNC’s sponsor these wars in countries very similar to the Philippines to become richer. I talked about the current war in Congo and how countries just continue to turn a blind eye decade after decade. The boys became solemn and quiet and were writing in their notebooks as they were watching. I wasn’t sure if they were writing for the assignment I had given them or if they were doing hw for another class, but I just let them write.
There was no more cheering, and there were a lot more questions after I stopped the movie on Tuesday. I was worried that this might be too brutal or harsh for them, but I feel they’ll be okay in handling it. They’re about to graduate are seeking information about the world beyond Anda. I’m also sure to follow every negative writing assignment with something more positive that way the negativity isn’t the only emotion being manifested through their words. As they were walking out of the room they each came up to me and showed me what they had been writing. Each of them had an entire notebook page written (I haven’t seen them write more than 5 sentences for any in class writing assignment, so this is huge). They told me they weren’t finished yet, but that they were working hard on ideas and that they were writing their own words/not copying (another huge success). They said thank you for sharing with them about this war. I’ve never seen them act so mature and so responsible with their work. It’s as if me treating them as intelligent people who are able to hear and think about complicated issues despite their poor grades and school comprehension, completely transformed their attitudes towards themselves. Keep in mind these same students spent todays’ class reading the poem humpty dumpty. I have no doubt if I was about to graduate high school and was treated like a child unable to comprehend real issues, I too would be discouraged and unmotivated.
Today in class I gave my second year classes the option of two writing assignments. The first was to write a mythical adventure about a hero who undergoes a personal transformation. The second was to write a letter to the president about world issues they want they president to address. I was sure most students would write the first option because they love fictional stories that involve magic and unkown creatures and power etc, but many students wrote the letter. So many students wrote about poverty and asked the president to get more jobs for their parents and to lower the prices of food because their families are all malnourished.
I feel like I live this blissful life here. I walk with the cariboua as the sun is setting, I find peace in the rice fields, I love the simple yet complex lifestyle. But, the truth is I’m not living in poverty. Not truly. Maybe compared to life in the United States, but not really compared to my neighbors. I get to leave in two years. I know every month that your tax dollars will be sent to feed me and pay for my rent. Even though I have many moments of hunger I get enough calories, and if I really wanted to I could go to the market to get more food, and the peace corps sends me vitamins and minerals to supplement the ones my diet doesn’t have. I’m spoiled. I go to school all day but when I come home I just have to grade papers and read and write and bathe and wash my clothes etc, but so many of my students have to take care of their siblings and work in the fields and do a plethora of other things necessary for survival.
Poverty is a tragic thing, and it’s something that affects such a significant percentage of the world. I have many thoughts on this issue as I’m reading more and more books on economics, but that’s for another time.
I guess I wrote all this to say I don’t understand life. I don’t understand why suffering exists, and why it exists on so many levels. I’m on this beautiful island where life is peaceful compared to war torn countries, but there is still great pain and great despair. There is hunger and there is poverty. There is abuse and there is depression. All of these things are interconnected just like all people are. I think suffering is felt on different levels and a person suffering from poverty and malnutrition is affected more extremely by it than, say, someone like me, but I also believe that the suffering of a single person is felt by the whole world. As long as one person is hungry the world can’t reach its’ fullest potential, thus all life is affected. Until we take the time to realize our humanity is the direct result of protecting the humanity of other people, we will never know really know why we are here on earth or what life means. We will never understand the Cosmos, for God is most understood when move beyond ourselves and see the whole image of creation, when we realize how little and insignificant we are, but how vital each breath of every human being is to our enlightenment, to our purpose, to our communion.
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