Finally home

So I've been complaining a lot lately.

But to be fair, I've been feeling WEEEIRD since I've been home. It wasn't until tonight that I remembered where I always feel at home, always loved, always understood.

It's not the Old Dundee Bar. It's not the Underwood Bar.

Wait for it...

Lower Saint John's.

... pause for the anticipated eye roll from my non-religious/anti-religion friends...

Lower Saint John's is the small chapel underneath Saint John's Church, the heart of Creighton University's campus. It's got all the old furniture no one uses anymore and it's walls are just removable partitions. But each one of those 30 seats is filled with someone who chose to be there. Bluejays t-shirts, scrubs, workout clothes, business suits. Come as you are.

You know, I don't go to church a lot when I'm not home. I tried in Thailand, but there were only two Catholic churches, both of which were a bit too missionary for my tastes. I went to a few Jesuit Masses in India, but as I wrote in my blog, I didn't dig that scene either.

There has to be a level of trust built in for me to really open up and accept the homily and the gospel, and I have turned out to be not very trusting of religious communities I don't know. But I trust all the Creighton Jesuits with my spiritual life one hundred percent.

I was working in Fr Doll's office today when I heard my dad looking for me around the Jesuit house. He walked in and invited me to Mass with him.

And right when I walked in, I breathed a little easier. I listened as well as I could (it's hard for my mind not to wander). And gave the sign of peace to people, hugged my dad. I took the Eucharist and sat, with that familiar taste of wine and wheat on my tongue, closed my eyes and gave thanks.

Thanks Creighton Jesuits, for welcoming home without knowing it.

A quick note about the rape

My friend Jess has been covering the backlash in India after a college student was brutally gang raped on a bus in New Delhi. The bus was crowded and no one stopped it.

Protests at India Gate have escalated by the day. 

After reading Andy's blog I realized I have something to say, too.

Some politicians are verbally attacking protestors rather than the assailants. On this list of sexist remarks made by Indian politicians, one politician opposed the long-pending Women's Bill saying it only benefits urban women, whom he called "par kati auratein" (women with short hair).

Another article came out to say that hundreds of politicians running in Indian elections have been charged with sexual assault, including 30 charged with rape.

Supposedly this is a country that takes care of its women. Supposedly, in Hindu tradition, women are revered and respected. I heard the same thing on the Rosebud Native American Reservation when I lived there. It seems that the places that laud their cultural traditions of respect for women are the same places where women are afraid to go outside.

For the past few months I have been interviewing women in Tamil Nadu and New Delhi about sexual and gender-based violence. I am writing stories about the lack of protection and care for refugee women. They all say the same thing, as do the men, "Refugee women are in the same boat as the Indian women–no one is safe." It's not that "this neighborhood is not safe for Chin women," it's "this neighborhood is not safe."

Delhi is a city where nearly every woman friend I know–Indian or foreign– has a story of being groped, grabbed, intimidated or worse.

Then I head up to Kashmir for a holiday. And the man who owns the houseboat simultaneously says that the men in Delhi are pigs and that the women in Kashmir are safer because they dress like modest Muslims. So, he was essentially saying Kashmiri men are no better, they just have less to lust over. Besides, a quick Googling of "rape statistics Kashmir" came up with this article that said of the 1,336 rape cases since 2006, only one rapist has been convicted. And one has to wonder why more women won't report it. Beyond reported rapes in Kashmir crime statistics are broken down into categories such as; cruelty by husband, molestation and dowery death…

Thank God my boyfriend stepped in and gave the usual spiel about educating young men and responsibility the older generation in the community should burden and blah blah blah or I might have lost it... and then I would have been just another short-haired, American woman making the argument.

But Kashmir is a single state. And this instance of the bus rape in Delhi is just one that happened that day. A woman is raped every 22 minutes in India.

Perhaps this is not my fight. Rarely do I identify as being a woman. I have not attended any protests. And yes, as an American I should take the plank of wood out of my eye before commenting on India. But since this blog is my soapbox, I can say this to all of the men out there making jokes, all of the politicians refusing to lift a finger, and every piece of shit who gropes or leers or scares a woman in the streets just for fun: Fuck you, you fucking fucks.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to walk to the metro alone. Hopefully I'll slip safely into the "women's only" car because women aren't safe in the presence of men. Incredible India indeed.

All photos by Jess Letch

My crime in New Delhi? Love pollution.

I am guilty of love pollution. Write me up. Lock me away. Try and get me, coppers. You'll never catch me alive.

...

See, awhile ago, Saadia sent me an article about Delhi's newest form of pollution, fogging the air and putting the city's children at risk. No, it's not auto and truck exhaust. It's not the smelting or burning trash in the streets. No, my friends, this pollution is much more serious. It's the pollution of love, and that cannot be tolerated. I should know. I've been caught–and scorned–for it.

This article she sent stated that more and more young couples are kissing freely in the streets and parks. This, of course, is creating mayhem for the older generation in India.

I know how conservative Delhi is. Three people were arrested in June for kissing in public under a colonial “decency law” (Thanks a lot, Brits). Last Valentine’s Day, there was an effort to catch young people kissing on camera and put it youtube to publicly shame them.

When I walk down the street with my what-have-you holding hands we get stares. It could be because I look like a boy, or because we're so cute, but I know the real reason. We are billowing love smog in everyone's faces. We might as well be disrobing right there in front of the chow mein stand.

Anyway, here's what happened.

After living in my new apartment for all of 20 minutes the aforementioned what-have-you and I stepped out on the balcony for some fresh air. While enjoying our cigarettes, we did what we do all other moments of the day, and what I would argue all "lovers in love" do – we laced fingers and whispered into ears and touched lips.

That's right, I admit it, ok? We kissed. We were polluting, right there where any woman or child could see us… if that child looked five floors up from the street or was standing on a rooftop with a set of binoculars.

Well, this was too much for the gentleman who lives across from us and was apparently watching. As a concerned citizen and the purveyor of the moral high ground, he stepped in. So imagine me, eyes closed, pressed up against a certain young man, mind cloudy and heart fluttering, to hear scoffing and noises of disgust coming from the rooftop across the street.

Real pollution in New Delhi. The white is low-hanging pollution. 

The black is what the sky should look like.

I didn't turn to face him, ashamed that I had dirtied this pristine city with my affection. But my partner in crime turned to see him brushing us off and shaking his head. As one would do in any large city with neighbors, we more or less ignored him… until there was a knock on the door.

As it turns out, this Dudley Doright, this Boy Scout, this citizen watchman, called our landlord to tell on us. She sheepishly walked into my unlocked apartment and beckoned me in the hallway. Embarrassed as all get-out to be put in this situation, she told me a neighbor was complaining that I was acting "inappropriately.” In my defense, how inappropriate can I be when my boyfriend is wrapped up in a thick cotton sweater–sorry, jumper– and busy smoking?

Well, the situation has gone unresolved, for now. But Molly and Louis have a new sworn enemy. And Church Road in New Delhi now has someone to answer to if they are caught enjoying their lives and being in love. There's a new sheriff in town, and this town ain't big enough for the both of us.

Mother Theresa's Calcutta

I visited Motherhouse in Calcutta this morning. I went to Mass with the sisters and a load of volunteers. Father Maria Joseph, a Jesuit who I am working with this weekend, was kind enough to have one of the sisters unlock the museum and the room where Mother Theresa's tomb is. So I got my own private tour and experience, which was wonderful.

After touring Motherhouse and sitting in Mass with everyone, it makes my last blog seem kind of ridiculous.

The women there accept their work and their challenges with such grace, that it makes me envious, another thing I should probably feel bad about.

Now, for those that know me, know that I am not a graceful person - be it in the situation of a first kiss, or meeting new people or even trying to walk up a flight of stairs; grace is not my strong suit. But I am trying today to look at grace in a different way. Instead of wondering why I am in this situation or trying reframe it or imagine or draw my way out of it, instead of just running down the clock, I should look at where I am and what I am doing and appreciate the challenge. You know, with grace.

...keep in mind I am writing this while smoking a sneaky cigarette out the window of my room. Smoking isn't allowed on the premises of this Jesuit compound, and while I technically quit when I was in Omaha, I bought a survival pack on my arrival to Calcutta. So with one hand out the window, listening for footsteps of Jesuits in the hall, I am trying to write about grace.

Not very graceful, I know.

But I'm still trying to learn something. Maybe grace isn't about the way you carry yourself, or whether or not you sneak cigarettes or make bad jokes when you're uncomfortable with the new batch of Jesuits you've just been introduced to.

Grace, at least for me today, means being able to fully experience what you are doing while you are doing it. Accepting the difficulty as well as the achievements and just sitting with everything that is happening.

Easier said than done, for sure. But that's my goal for today. Work is hard. I am being eaten by mosquitos and I feel really really lonely. And that's all ok.