Roads in Mists

Helene and I have left Gram Vikas.

Our departure takes place exactly four months after we arrived, wide-​​eyed, on Gram Vikas’ lush campus at the beginning of winter. I won’t lie: we had hopes of staying here one year, so this is us cutting it short. It’s hard for me to reconcile my emotions on the subject, as I feel both relieved, anxious, happy, and defeated at the same time.

On Leaving Early

In the winter of 2002, as Helene and I were considering moving to Shanghai, I had a long, meaningful chat with my friend Mathieu, in an Irish pub in Montreal’s Côte-​​des-​​Neiges. I told him then about my fear of failing to adapt to China, of having to run away before I truly had a chance to call it home. And the words he told me then stuck with me to this day:

“Even if you end up only staying six weeks in China, you’ll be someone who has lived six weeks in China. Leaving won’t take that away from you.”

And so, here I am. I am someone who has lived for four months in rural Odisha, volunteering for a rural development NGO.

And that’s a huge success, and a life experience that will stick with me for years to come.

Keep Moving

There are other successes I can count on. Overall, my time at Gram Vikas was very positive and successful. I quickly found meaningful work within the organization, and we made fast friends with volunteers and colleagues from India and abroad. I wrote multiple grant applications for Gram Vikas, which will, in all likelihood, help Gram Vikas tremendously with the financing of their operations. I leave on a positive note, and I sense a gratitude for my contribution from many of my colleagues, including Gram Vikas’ founder and executive director, Joe Madiath.

But Helene was not so lucky. Through a series of unfortunate exchanges, she ended up without any possibility of helping Gram Vikas, and thus was stuck at home, with nothing to do while I toiled away in the office. And as the Gram Vikas campus is remote, with no easy means of getting to town and little in terms of entertainment value, she knew it couldn’t last. Frustrations mounted for me as well, and seeing my life partner in an unhappy position ground at me until we reached a breaking point. Coming to Gram Vikas was a joint adventure for us, and although I appreciated her patience while I was busy in the office, we had to come to the inevitable conclusion: this was not working out for us.

It was time to move on.

The Shifting Road

So here we are. Sunday morning, we bid farewell to this exciting, exhausting, frustrating, magical chapter of our life, and went off into the great unknown once more. Helene yearns to teach in South Korea again, her first home abroad; I figure I’ve dragged her to enough places that I owe her at least to follow her to a modern country like South Korea.

As for myself, I’m divided as to whether I want to pursue international development. A big part of me wants to, but I need time to distill and ponder this experience. Another part of me wants to shift gears and explore other options.

When I look back on my life, I see a straight road, with clear markers along the way, all pointing to the same destination. But whenever I look ahead, all I see is mist and curves.

Maybe one day I’ll look back on this time and find that the mists have cleared from this part of the road, leaving only a straight line. But for now, all I can do is walk forward in the fog, and keep my eyes peeled for the goal.

What About This Blog?

I’ll likely write some other posts, summing up my experience in international development, as well as some advice and thoughts that someone else out there might find useful. Then we’ll see where Helene and I want to take it.

Whatever happens, blogging will remain a constant in our lives. We’ll inform you of our plans when they emerge from the mists.

But for now, we are taking a well-​​deserved break in Puri. Out there is Kolkata and Manick’s bench, then a plane to Thailand, in search of Happy Places.

Beyond that, it’s all in the mist.

Picture Credits: Mist, by Manjeet Panda. All rights reserved.

In the Eye of the Storm

One… two… Is this thing on?

Three months since our last blog post… And to think I had such good intentions of diligently posting, chronicling our experience as we enter the development field. I saw myself tracking the stirrings of my global consciousness, following the transformations of my worldview as it happened in real time.

But here we are, three months later, and the page is still blank. The draft folder is empty.

Let’s catch up!

Yes, we’re in rural India right now.

It’s been two months and a half since we’ve arrived at the Gram Vikas campus; a lifetime, as the cliché goes. In retrospect, I don’t know very well what I expected out of this, but it’s fair to say I had no concept of what life would be like working for an NGO in rural Odisha. Before I came here, I was sitting in a little brick house in my mind, feeling the sturdiness of the walls I built for myself, firmly rooted in certainty. There, I planned how I would catch the sail winds, with a sense for manifest destiny.

Then a tornado came, smashed the house like a fist, and carried me away to another continent.

What it means in practical terms, I have yet to fully articulate, or even admit to myself. Once the shock of transplanting my life to India has passed, there remains the sense of a deep unease with the world, like the memory of an earthquake. Something about the world has changed, in a way profound and invisible. The surface remains untouched, but a great force stirs my mind in new directions. The mountain appears immobile still, but its depths have already given birth to relentless tremors. The fissures are cracking their way up to the surface.

Which way this will take me, no one knows.

I wish I could express my feelings in more concrete terms, but the more precise I try to be, the closer I stick to the skin of things. The bones of my experience lie deep within a well that I cannot explore with the full light of my consciousness.

But when I come up for air from the depths of this experience, this is what I see around me:

I see a peaceful campus at the fringe of rural Odisha, teeming with life and colors.

I see new friends in distant lands, with which I work, eat, laugh, commiserate, and explore this new life.

I see people from an ancient culture, yearning for the same as me, always the same: dignity, hope, respect.

I see luminous chaos and mud-​​stained joy in the labyrinths of the city.

I see the mist-​​hugged hills in the morning, and the saree–clad women gathering firewood, smiling and greeting me on my runs.

I see myself, most of all: teeth clenched, eyes wide, grinning at the world.

Why Help Abroad?

When we tell friends about our choice to go work in India in international development, one question returns often:

Why help abroad? Why not at home?

There’s no denying there’s plenty to do back here in Canada. We may have a good standard of living as a whole, but there are still tons of areas for improvement, whether it’s with the uncomfortable problem of homelessness, or with the Innu living in precarious conditions.

That being said, one of the gifts that travel has given me is a larger sense of empathy for my fellow human being. (Or, perhaps more accurately, it was always there and travel has helped me bring it to the front of my values.)

In other words, I do not distinguish along national lines when I react to human suffering. I feel a closer kinship to my friends and immediate family, but beyond that bond of closeness, I feel as strongly about others regardless of where they’re from.

Every human suffering beckons me to help.

When you consider, say, India and Canada on an equal footing in terms of the validity of the people requiring help, it certainly appears that there is more work to be done in India than back home. But I’m under no illusion that the amount of help I can bring would be greater in India than in Canada. That is to say, there might be more work to be done globally in India, but my own contribution to the overall sum of human dignity and well-​​being is probably equal if I apply it in North America or elsewhere.

Why, then, have I decided to move to India to help out?

Down to it, the decision to help abroad is selfish.

Travel is a huge personal value for Helene and I. We love traveling, encountering other cultures, and then learning and adapting to them. We love the energy and movement we feel in places like India, and we find life in Canada to be too tranquil and predictable in comparison.

We feel as strongly about working with rural communities in India as we would with lending a hand to the marginalized and disenfranchised in Canada. If we ever get tired of traveling, we might feel compelled to help back home; but for the time being, travel makes us happy, and we’re glad we can go to Orissa to work there.

As my friend, writer and activist Minister Faust, once told me:

Helping others requires joy in your own life.

Travel makes us happy. Hence, it’s the best way for us to help humanity as a whole, in our own small way.

Photo credits: Double room with a view of the giant by Jeremiah John McBride — CC BY-​​ND 2.0

Treasures in Time: Godzilla Noodles, Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan — September 12^th, 2009

This tiny restaurant featured vintage Godzilla movie posters, much to Daniel’s delight. The noodles, made fresh before our eyes, were awesome. Since we don’t speak Japanese, ordering usually involves pointing at menu pictures (when there’s some), or pointing at random at items. That’s usually a great way to get something tasty!

Thoughts on Travel

As we prepare for our new adventure, we spend a lot of time reading online resources.

We’re big fans of a forum known as India Mike, for one. India Mike, in many ways, is the Indian equivalent of Raoul’s China Saloon: it brings together a community of people (Indians, expatriates and travelers) who hold a genuine interest for India, and who trade info, travel tips, photos, and stories in a friendly atmosphere.

The general attitude on India Mike is the opposite of that of the vast majority of travel bloggers, who attempt to showcase the exotic side of a destination for the benefit of readers who will most likely never visit it.

Even the very best travel blogs are written by travelers who merely pass through a country, and then explain it to people who don’t travel much. In writing for their target audience, they maintain the point of view of a stranger. It creates a distance: those they visit are the odd ones, not them! They do not truly experience the place, and thus they fail to embrace the fact they they are the ‘weird ones’…

Now, we love to share our travel experiences with friends and family, of course! But that’s not why we travel. We travel because want to understand the world, and ourselves… It’s impossible to explain everything. Many times, we only begin to understand a long time after we’ve experienced something. It took us a good year to even begin to process our three years of living in Shanghai!

We can’t explain everything that has changed with our personalities and our worldview. Some things have become so “normal” for us that we have a hard time imagining that they have not always been this way.

If life is change, then travel is life at a hundred miles per hour!

We have to constantly learn. To pull yourself out of your routine is the best way to learn who you are, and what you can accomplish.

What we’d really like is for you to join us “on the ground”… Two hours in India are worth a large pile of novels and essays! If we can but tempt you to go see by yourselves, whether India or another country that interests you, then we will have succeeded!

What did you think of the pictures above? Do you find them fascinating? What we find fascinating is not that we see these things in India, but rather that they surprise no one. They are normal…

Photo credits:

1. Champaner Road © Luca Belis
2. One Armed Baba © Sama of India Mike. The “one-​​armed baba” has kept his right arm up in the air for decades in devotion to Shiva.
3. Sound Sleep or Levitation? © Lucas Belis

All photos are taken from collections on India Mike.

Treasures in Time: Bali Rice Paddy

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia — September 24^th, 2009

I love this peaceful picture, even though I know it’s a bit of a lie. Despite what all the Eat, Pray, Love of the world claim, Ubud is far from the tiny Balinese village lost in the jungle! We had to walk a solid twenty minutes to escape the tourist district of town and find this heavenly view.

Treasures in Time: Sudder Street, Kolkata

Kolkata, West Bengal, India — February 1^st, 2010

A bird’s eye view of the chaos of Sudder Street! From the vantage point of the bench in Manick’s tea stall, we see, from right to left: one of Manick’s daughters washing dishes, the flute vendor with his ‘flute tree’ on his back, passersby, Manick’s magnificent buffalo yogurt, a beggar who specializes in befriending tourists before getting their cash, other passersby, and Manick’s arm. What’s missing from this picture: noises, smells, joy, and the feeling of sitting at the very heart of the world…

Treasures in Time: First Days in India

Kolkata, West Bengal, India — February 3^rd, 2010

If a single picture could sum up our one year trip, it’s this one. We had just arrived in Kolkata, and sat on the bench of Manick’s tea stall, submerged by stimuli and emotions. We drank his amazing chai tea (his own secret recipe) and enjoyed this tiny oasis in the midst of the chaos of Sudder Street, overflowing with humanity, joy, and activity. India is not just a different country: it’s another planet altogether!!!

Treasures in Time: Shisha in Souq Waqif

Doha, Qatar — April 4^th, 2010

The road to Doha, the capital of Qatar (a small country next to Saudi Arabia, in the Persian Gulf) was not an easy one. A stressful half-​​hour in a taxi to reach Chennai airport, in the south of India, in the wee hours of the morning; a five-​​hour flight on Qatar Airways; an early cappucino at the airport in Doha, as I tried to get used to seeing everyone wear clothes I had only seen in movies; and finally, the long wait for our new friend, who would pick us up after work and bring us to her home.

On the picture is Daniel, in one of Souq Waqif’s many cafés, enjoying a shisha (narghile) flavored with apple juice.

The Wind at Our Backs

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.“
—Attributed to Seneca the Younger,  1^st Century AD

I don’t believe in fate. Not really. But I believe in auspicious beginnings: those times when things align just so, and the world opens up before you.

This has led me to personally believe that what we call “destiny” is just the default option. If you struggle to change it, other opportunities open up. Some seem like insurmountable mountains, and you struggle your whole life to make them happen.

But sometimes, the wind blows at your back.

When Helene and I decided to move to China in 2003, we felt the wind blow into our sails. We had tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to find work in South Korea; but the moment we decided to go to China instead, everything came together. We visited Shanghai for the first time at the spring of 2003, and I landed a dream job at Ubisoft without breaking a sweat.

India is filling our sails once more.

It’s hard to explain India to those who have not gone. But to those who have, there is a common wisdom about the subcontinent: it warps reality. It obeys rules outside of causality and physics.

The second we decided that India was a sound choice for a first job in international development, things came together very quickly. Over emails and Skype, Joe Madiath of Gram Vikas immediately made us feel welcome to join him in Berhampur, and things just seemed to click.

Then, a month ago, out of the blue, an opportunity landed in my lap.

I’m working as a web development consultant for the next four weeks.

I wasn’t looking for a job per se, but the stars aligned somehow. The job is a challenge, both in its technical details and in the fact I have to enter the corporate world once more; but the result of this effort is a monetary “safety net” that goes a long way to alleviate our fears about moving to rural India.

In a very tangible sense, it feels as if the Universe is telling us: “Stop worrying about money and just do it. Go be awesome.”

That’s the thought that carries me through days in an office, even though I haven’t worked a desk job in two years.

Soon enough, it’ll be time to go be awesome.

Picture: Chilka Lake, Orissa by Kartik Anand–CC BY-​​NC-​​SA 2.0