Namaste and Potatoes: Lessons in Gratitude

 Western society cannot begin to comprehend how lucky they are and choose not to believe the fact that they take that luckiness, and the lives they are able to live, for granted. I have caught myself, merely today, with a sudden feeling of superiority and stupidity, mouth agape as these children struggle to understand the novelty that is my language. We [Canada] as an advanced society have been given a great deal in order to continue our lives with as little struggle as humanly possible, but to what extent do we recognize these things are given and not just received? It is a privilege for these children to experience an education, yet to us, it is a burden. Having to follow through with the same thing for months on end, but for these kids, it is seen as structure in the midst of chaos. I refuse to take for granted how lucky I am to be a building block in their foundation.

As the day slowly began, Bijata, Kathryn, and I were welcomed to the SDSS by smiling faces and comforting namastes. The daily ritual was to commence with devotions to a God I have difficulty believing in. There is so much beauty in the community religion produces, and I have the means of adoring that. Nepalis end with their personal prayers sent out into the open, allowing whichever spiritual being or belief to answer should that person ask for it. I view this as my personal take on the tradition. Whether it is correct or incorrect, this is a fact that I believe in, despite biased responses regardless. Later on, I was to watch a video concentrating on the creation of the program and the societal change these young people made on the view of the disabled. Their son and Bijata's late husband, Bikesh, was a main participant in the video and spoke so highly of his wife in every way he could. He really loved her, and she him. You can tell in the way she continues to mourn. One of these days we shall make a connection. One of these days I will ask her the bold questions, beg for her wisdom. Today was not that day.

I was quite quickly thrown into my work and befriended some incredible women for the sake of the children. Impash was one of them, a young lady who chose to work with the children in my 3-month home (the DRC) before heading off to college to aid later on in child services. She wore an optional headscarf, had red press-on nails only on the right hand, and quite obviously was a person who followed the "trendy" cultural way to carry yourself and identical personality type as most due to Western, mainstream, social media. I was comforted by that fact, almost mentally taken back to Canada. Another lady, Rajuna, joined us in the room. We constantly moved chairs around to aid her fitting her wheelchair into the room and under the table. I wondered mostly if she forgets in the time she is buried in her work that she cannot move herself; she is attached to this chair that may love her more than she ever will it. There was another lovely woman who went by Gabby. She was South American and moved to Nepal for whichever personal reason she chose not to disclose with me in that moment. She was fluent in Nepali, yet chose to speak English to the Nepali women, perhaps as a way of showing gratitude for my sake. This small, lively team was struggling to put together a party to celebrate the kids on their national day, Children's Day, to prove to them how special they truly are. That they are not the outcasts they've been cast as, they are still human.

It was later that afternoon when my perspective began to warp. I was seated, observing a class of five kids with ages that varied between 6-16. I sat in a more comfortable, yet taller chair than the rest of them, who sat in small plastic blue chairs surrounding a blue plastic kids' table. During that time, they learned about colors. Ten different colors, exactly. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, black, white, and brown. They continued to spell the colors, then associate them, pick a favorite, and stare intently at the page, forcing themselves to memorize it. They were to write phrases the night prior as their "homework" that read out "______ is ________ color." One had written the phrase "potato is pink color." I wanted to laugh but resisted the urge as the thought that he actually thought this snapped me quickly out of endangering this child's boldness. Not that he believed the color was correct, but that he believed the word was. For the past hour, I had been watching five children learn how to speak my native tongue with such difficulty, and I realized I am one of those people who overlooks even the basic necessities that have been handed to us. There are two ways I see about adjusting: I could be hyperaware of every basic need I have never had to work for, but I feel that hides from the human experience of making mistakes, being selfish at times for you don't know any better, etc., or I could try and continue on as to how I was before. I knew all about my privilege and my fortune, but I never looked into it. I refuse to choose the answer now. I believe it has always been lying ahead, and I am just about there.

Returning to the DRC, I chose to stay with the residents of the building to aid them in their homework. Throughout the past few days, I have been feeling as though I was hiding from them in my room (though it is quite untrue) and that I was harming them anew by being here, but not wanting to surround myself with them, somehow making them feel more like outcasts. It was later learned that this was a helpful move for them. I had been approached by several of these kids with questions on what some words meant, what words worked with what phrase, and mathematical factoring. I sat with the lovely lady from the first night in the dorm rooms, and we struggled to figure out (and remember, sadly enough) the factors of 20. The youngest girl there, hardly making past the kindergarten age minimum, was in awe of me, perhaps since my skin tone ended the coloration flow of the room. She was learning how to draw her D's by tracing them over and over on a page. I was unsure whether she was asking for my confirmation on them, whether she wanted me to draw them, or something else entirely different my overtly mature brain could not come up with on the spot. I nodded and greeted her work with a thumbs up and a smile. I befriended this young girl who does not speak a lick of English, and yet I do not feel lost speaking to her, for she is a child and it is as though we are playing, the way she chooses to speak with me. Later on, she asked something, and my friend and at-the-moment seatmate translated it for me. I was once again struck by the overwhelming feeling of stupidity in not being able to comprehend the English they speak to me due to the accent they have over it. It feels subconsciously racist, and the thoughts that drift in and out of my mind during these times about what these children think of me, what these new people think of me, what they are saying when speaking in their language in front of me—are they laughing at me? Did I do something wrong? Maybe I am only exciting to them. I know I have offended them. Maybe they laugh only to be kind—are cruel and unbearable at points. All the poor child wanted to do was head to the washroom, and I could not understand.

After overthinking every little detail of today, I have come to a short but tidy conclusion: we do take everything for granted. It is the human in us. I am sure people who have nothing are still able to find something and forget they had it handed to them. We are allowed to forget to reflect on our fortunate lives and thank whomever for what we have and how we live, because we constantly make mistakes and incidentally harm others and become hyperaware of that. We do not take the pain we inflict on others lightly, and we realize our mistakes. They are not taken for granted, for those are chosen to be fixed and mended. Do not overlook kindness nor the feelings of others. Take time to reflect on what you have been given. And if all else fails, be grateful.

Namaste.