Trekking into Triggers

I have long since returned to the SDSS amidst the passing of my seasonal depression and fight with an unnamed and unidentified parasite. Nevertheless, I was in higher spirits and thriving off of greater energy than I had been before. Entering Bijata's office, she informed me of her plans for the day. We were to take a half day in order to head out to one of the tourist destinations of Kathmandu to purchase the necessities for our trekking adventure the next week. Yes, I am climbing a

mountain. Yes, I have no idea what I am doing. Yes, I am terrified. However, it seemed too good of an opportunity to pass up, and I've gained a spontaneous spirit, one I seem to be cursing to the wind at every chance I get afterward. The morning continued on as we sat through devotions (to which I have concluded I go mainly for the songs, the ones Bijata always seems to make us miss with our tardiness—which truly isn't an us issue, I merely have a perspective issue of willingly going to the devotion of something I have deliberately attempted to escape) and I continued on back to the Jhilko Project office. I knew not when I was leaving, nor what to do during this time, so I sat on the floor with two other young girls—Namrata and Ester.

Ester survived as the cook's daughter, allowed to run around and had only appeared the day before, which led the questions of the stability of their lives to enter my mind. I asked nothing. They were not my answers to hold had I asked. Namrata, the other young girl, was walking with a bamboo walker held together with a couple of strings, and her blue-casted leg rested on a black sandal laced around it. I surmised she had a type of backward footing and needed surgery on it to reconstruct it. Her other foot was left hidden in a large grey sock. She was excited to speak with me in the few English phrases she knew. It was a simplistic conversation, but a conversation nonetheless—more than most others can claim with me. She chose to play with plastic food and put as much as she could find onto a beige plastic tray and pass it to me. I found this game quite interesting, for she wanted to pretend to feed me, pretend to nurture me. Children are always seen playing what they want to be and what they have been exposed to in their lives; all make-believe is a compilation of what they have been accustomed to and know of. Her wanting to feed me and that giving her bliss seemed to create a prime example of her relationship with someone I am expecting to be a motherly figure to her, witnessing how connected she was to a few of the factors the job entails.

It had been a solid fifteen minutes of being fed fake food, and although the butterflies of happiness were churning in my stomach from the attention I was receiving, the main thought in my mind was how do I stop this? This experience taught me I have absolutely no experience with children and have no idea how to come to their aid while simultaneously being at my own. I witness a lot of my proper childhood slip in during these times with the kids as my not wanting them to survive a minute of feeling neglected or that they were in the wrong for my proper decisions that are meant to help me, not harm them (and at that point, how am I not harmed in the harming of these connections I've made?). I was saved by Bijata telling me we were leaving and walking away to commence the task as I scrambled after her, feeling like a fool for I was hardly working where I traveled countries to be that week.

Once in the car, I was sent to the back, drowning in memories of my childhood and the sentiments that accompanied those thoughts. This increased my anxiety every few minutes and stuck as the theme of the day, much to my disappointment. A coworker of Bijata's was in the front seat, preparing to guide her to our shopping destination. I was truly hoping this wasn't true, for I knew nothing of him and was not in the mood to be placed into an even more awkward situation than I was already in. As she drove, Bijata announced we were to pick up Gabriella on the way so she could serve as our guide through the unknown territory of trekking supplies.

I wasn't so much interested in Gabriella as a person as I was in the dynamic she and Bijata have. It reminds me of my mother and her friend who'd do outings together, and I would tag along. I was a third wheel when I was much younger and have begun that trend once again. New place, new age, yet everything seemed to stay the same.

We entered the parking lot and began our smaller segment of adventure by trekking through a tight-knit and busy tourist destination. This man dragged us left, right, and backward into this small cavern we needed to climb a few flights of stairs to get to. In the process of it all, we were fifteen minutes earlier than the opening of the store and needed to "camp out," so it seemed, at the bottom of the staircase. Once it finally opened (a term used lightly since they could have just waltzed us in, regardless of the timing issue), the tight staircases really didn't open into anything bigger. It was difficult enough entering without a crowd, but when one o'clock struck, the gossip got out of hand and everyone seemed to know this secret.

While looking for shoes, I stood there unbeknownst to it all. I knew nothing of what I needed or, on that front, wanted, so I stood there blindly until they handed me a shoe and pushed me to the corner to try them on my own. I felt conflicted by this, since I was an adult now, and this was an adult thing I needed to do; however, I was surrounded by people who were far older than I and just as demanding as my own mother. They were all huddled in a section speaking their common language and sending me off to do things. Once again, the emotions of juvenility and being the extra rushed back to me, and I immediately desired to do nothing but lie down. It was the thought that I was voiceless once again in my life, that I was a child, and I had to confront the emotional impact third wheeling seemed to have on me in a time of already existing discomfort. I do, however, believe third wheeling is psychological and not true in reality if you don't make it that way, but it takes the confidence I did not possess in that given moment. The shoes fit, so I took them off, eager to rejoin a group I knew I'd stagger in regardless, and I was yet sent back to that same corner to figure my bag out, retry the shoes and, so it seemed, re-ponder my life.

We'd then entered a new segment of the building, which was another room filled with wooden crates of clothing. This was the busiest area and, unfortunately for already nauseous me, the warmest. Regardless of the fans, it was sweltering in that room. I tried to follow Bijata as best I could, probably like a lost puppy in the perspectives of others, but she sent me on my way to find the clothes I was supposed to have listed that I needed. I knew not. Thank goodness I was told. While digging through a bin for what felt like up to an hour, I found fewer and fewer small labeled items and was being pushed more and more, my parents' anger issues deciding to bubble up in me. Once we'd found all that was on Bijata's list (and my imaginary one), we found a man sitting on a staircase that led to nowhere. He would take the clothes, shoes, poles, bags, label them number-wise and toss them aside, coming up with a reasonable price via an astonishing show of mathematics. He'd packed all of my bought items into the bag I chose, and I was the center of corny and, frankly, repetitive and obvious jokes from the three I traveled with about how I was "starting my trekking already" by wearing this backpack, this symbol of my lack of self-worth, back to the car.

Instead of heading back so soon, I was brought to a restaurant (one I originally believed they were joking about going to) for lunch. I was not complaining, for I was starving and was grateful it was "Mexican food" since that was all I had been craving these past few days. We'd sat down, and Bijata chose to order two plates of fries for the four of us and chicken momos, a Nepali-type dumpling, which were not too bad. Gabriella agreed that she wanted one too, and they both looked to me (who wanted the taquitos, personally), and I agreed. I wanted the adult meals. I wanted to be like them. Choosing my own thing seemed weak. Unfortunately, our "guide" ordered something different, then the other two were debating changing, and I regretted not saying anything. And once again, I sat there, pondering my own life, something I could have done without the help of these three. It angered me how Gabriella wasn't even fluent in English or Nepali (ignore a prior post where I stated she was; I knew not of her, and that is how she was introduced to me), and they still chose to speak the language I couldn't. I could, of course, pick up context here and there, but the reality of it was I wished I laughed when they laughed, I wished I knew what was happening, and I wished I felt I was the adult I'd matured into.

It was all so dehumanizing for me. You may all view me as weak through this passage, and perhaps I am, but I survive deeply sorrowed and easily poked and pushed into places I take the long routes around so as not to enter them. I was naïve on my birthday, believing the world would shape around what I needed it to, and this experience allowed me to realize it wouldn't and it was my hands and my mentality that needed to shape, such things I fear I may never have in the time they're needed.

We'd returned to the SDSS, Bijata, the nameless man, and I, and I went on to translate a French children's book they had for whatever reason. This returned me to my roots, calming me, allowing me to feel in control and somewhat like the smarter one in the room. I never got around to finishing since the teacher there wanted me to aid her in the making of a birthday sign. I happily complied, and as we were circled by kids, I calmed myself by colouring in hand-drawn balloons and odd-looking streamers. She needed to leave early, so I chose to finish the colouring on my own... with the help of a couple of the kids; one eraser and one gift-drawing colourer.

After an hour or so of colouring, I headed home with Bijata, who was on the phone with the young boy she had befriended and complained to me about earlier. He had been, all throughout the past seven days, asking, if not begging, to venture on this trip with us. Now, Bijata had made a good point during her shutdowns of his requests, those being that we were headed on a trek with a 4:3 ratio of race, light skin tones reigning, as three of Bijata's American friends were set to join. So her friend had called tonight asking if they could make food together. He began guilt-tripping her with you're taking everyone but me on this trip, the least you can do is make food with me before you leave me. So, Bijata, being the kind and inviting soul everybody knows her as, brought me along with her to the grocery stores for the meal prep and to be a taxi service to this "friend" of hers. She began speaking and joking with me on the road, one of her statements being abrupt and stating she thought me to be quiet and "out of it" during our shopping experience, and I did not have the heart to tell what I have just told you.

Once returning to the DRC, I sat with the kids as Bijata and her mother made the dinner her friend claimed he was going to make in return for her buying the groceries and allowing his own invite. I found it difficult to eat as the day's anxiety washed over me once again, and I was grieving silently in the corner with my plate of rice. My trigger? Bijata and her daughter. They are so similar to my mother and my relationship, yet so much closer to the relationship I wanted to have with her as opposed to the one I did. It was heartbreaking, yet revealing, for so much more of my life's trauma had sprung up, and I only chose to confront it. 

Today was filled with not only triggers and anxiety, but loneliness and misery to tie it together. However, there were light moments in the day, and I have learned that as difficult as it is to accept and find in the days, they are the comfort and the beauty in the matter of grief and distress. I hope you all find a sense of beauty in your greatest struggles and identify with it as best you can.