superstar

I feel like it’s common for travelers/workers returning from a developing country to post pictures of themselves surrounded by hoards of happy, local children.  I always was a little envious to see these things and I wanted to be that person—that person embraced so lovingly by the locals.  I am certainly in no role to criticize but I will record how I actually feel about this issue at the moment, and that is that the desire for these pictures, for this kind of proof of your awesomeness is a kind of materialism.  A first world luxury that, if unanalyzed and recognized, can blind you from the reality at hand.  The reality is that you are not here to take pictures.  The reality is that for all their smiles, these children are living in poverty. 

But smiles can be distracting, and god damn, they smile a lot. 

Perhaps it is hypocritical of me to be so critical because suddenly I have tons of pictures of me in these very same situations.  When I go to primary schools, when I walk down residential neighborhoods, if I even show the slightest interest, if I even reveal the presence of a camera for a moment, I will be mobbed.  Mobbed by jumping, dancing, clapping, screaming, laughing mobs of children who are just dying for a handshake, for my name, and if they’re lucky, for a picture or autograph.  It’s easy to just shrug it off and be flattered, to amuse the kids and to amuse yourself but, I have come to realize, the situation is not so simple.

It wasn’t until a few days ago that I noticed how blinding a smile can be.  I was searching for a particular primary school in Old Hubli, and when Dev (our local staff) pointed out that we had reached the school I could not help but feel a piece of me stand still as the rest of me moved onwards.  Does that make sense? I felt pinned in a way…pinned by shock? Surprise? I don’t know.  But the thing is, if Dev didn’t point out this school to me, I would have walked straight past it assuming I had just passed an old building or run down office space.  Rather, there was a Kannada medium school there.  240 children squeezed into a three classroom building.  No desks, no chairs, no lights, no toilets/latrines—not even broken ones.   So little room that the students cannot even experience a full day of school because standards 1-3 use the area from morning to noon, then standards 4-6 have class from noon to late afternoon.  My whole impression of the infrastructure can be summarized in one word: dark.  Everything was dusty, dim or damp.  The administration (one principal) and teaching staff (4-5 teachers per session) were clearly devoted to their students but nonetheless had forsaken the competency of their government.  But the students could not help smiling…and for the first time I could not bring myself to smile back.

I couldn't smile back because in the midst of all these smiles, all this flattering attention, all the effort put into noticing stares and avoiding stares and feeling like some kind of Bollywood superstar, I had forgotten to take a look around and put things in an objective perspective.  Like really look around and really think.  If I remembered to have done these things I would have noticed sooner that despite all these smiles and happy faces, these children are living in conditions that are just completely unacceptable by any standards.  

I don't really know what I'm trying to say.  Only that....when I first came to India, I happily declared that I was a foreigner and I can't be anything but a foreigner.  But I didn't come here to be a foreigner (and certainly not a tourist), I didn't come here to stand out or draw attention or bring a little excitement to the lives of others.  Maybe these things will just happen naturally, but that is not my purpose for being here and I need to stop letting it faze me because it clouds my vision.  I need to stop viewing things from a foreigner's perspective, but rather from an objective one-- and the object of this endeavor is to make a change, an improvement, in the life of another.  By any means necessary.