I'm Off to India. Wanna Join Me?

I was greeted by humidity.  The baggage claim was filled with people from all over the world, some transient, some coming home, some leaving.  After waiting in line for what seemed like forever the immigration agent asked me why I had come to India.  “To do volunteer work,” I told him.  He nodded his head in true Indian fashion, stamped my passport and sent me on my way.  Stepping outside the airport my friends and I experienced something we had never encountered before.  India.

India isn’t always an easy place, but it is beautiful.  India is a rising power on the global stage.  The country is a leader in technology and cricket, among other things.  However, most of the country lives in densely populated, underdeveloped communities.  Sex trafficking and disease are on the rise.  Many lack access to the education and resources that you and I take for granted. 

But I wasn’t thinking about any of this as I jumped in a taxi and headed for the bus station.  We weren’t home yet.  During the five-hour bus trip from Delhi to Jaipur I tried to make reality set in.  I was in India.  India. 

When we arrived at our host’s home we were greeted by a young girl around the age 9, the same age as my little sister.  She had a leg brace on one leg and a smile that consumed most of her face.  She’s from a small slum in Jaipur.  Her community is known to some as the “puppet people.”  They make, sell and perform with puppets.  The families in this community live in dire poverty. They have no access to sanitation, very little access to (dirty) drinking water and almost no access to education or medical care.  The organization we were working with visited the community every week and brought food and vitamins for the children.  On one visit they found this little girl in the corner of her home. She had broken her leg and her family could not afford her medical treatment.  With no options they left her in the corner.  The group was able to bring her home and fund-raise for her surgery.  When I met her she was almost fully recovered, healthy, happy and alive. 

In the same community I met a woman with a newborn baby.  She explained through the translator that she and her child were sick but she could not afford medicine.  At the time I was naive to the illness of poverty, but now I believe it was TB.  Two months after my visit I learned that the baby died. 

Another family in the community lived in a single room.  The family consisted of a 12 year old girl and two younger boys.  I believe the youngest was around age 3.  They invited me to sit on their bed and immediately the youngest crawled into my lap.  He snuggled in and would not let go, his heart obviously longing for a mother.  The interpreter explained that their mother had died in a fire and the father was a truck driver.  The daughter had been living in slightly better conditions with her grandparents and attending school.  When her mother died she was forced to stay home and take care of her brothers while her father was away for weeks at a time. 

As I sat with the women and children of the community we shared laughter. Not even able to speak the same language we still managed to talk about life’s hardship and beauty. 

Before going to India I did not understand the concepts of global health, infrastructure or development.  Now I am obsessed with them.  Call it a calling if you will.   I am devoted to the development of the global community that I am a part of and I am striving toward a future where resources are better allocated and utilized, and education, health care, and women's rights become fundamental aspects of community development.  

I’ve been awarded a $500 scholarship to travel to India with a group of medical professionals, engineers, college faculty and fellow students.  We will be working two hours outside of Jaipur, Rajasthan in clinics and helping build sustainable infrastructure including composting toilets.

To cover the cost of the trip I need to raise an additional $2500. I will be able to save a large amount of this money and have already received some donations. 

My first trip to India was difficult.  I had never before experienced such poverty or diversity.  The longer I am away the more I want to go back. I'm excited to be apart of a program that is bringing medical care to those who usually cannot access it as well as implementing sustainable infrastructure that will have long-term effects on the well being of the community.   This trip will invest in the people of Rajasthan and fuel my education in International Development.   Please consider investing with me. 

Thank you,

Jenn

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To donate via pay pal either click the button on the top left of my blog or send donations to jennrp@gmail.com.  You can also send a check to Jennifer Pekol, 2615 NW 56^th St, #204, Seattle, WA 98107. Anything you can give will be helpful and used with integrity.  

 Global Impact: Experience Rajasthan
Aug 20th-3rd

2010 Book List-This Year With Reviews

Book reviews terrify me.  I'm not sure why.  Probably because I just spent hours taking it all in and now you want me to spit out a few sentences summarizing the book.  But, last year I sped through fifty books without giving a single review.

Here's my list so far this year.  I'd say it's pretty impressive considering the quarter I had.  I'm working on quiet a few books over my break and have a good list for the spring including the ones for school.  

Please add your suggestions.  I have more than enough books on my shelf to read, I'll probably buy plenty more, but I want to know you are reading and get some suggestions.  

1.  Stones Into School, Greg Mortenson  

Written in what feels like a rush and using a bazillion pages to tell the Central Asia Institute’s story in Afghanistan (a story that was hinted at in Three Cups of Tea), this book floored me; the Afghani men who represent the antithesis of the Taliban, the desperate fervor for life.  Afghanistan may hold my heart more than any other nation.  Afghanistan has the second highest illiteracy rate the in the world and not only one of the highest birth rates (seven births to each women), but the country’s infant and maternal mortality rates are just as high.   I could go on forever, at least fifteen pages, as that’s how long my research paper was this quarter.  But I suggest, for the hopeful side of the story, you read Stones Into Schools.   Mortenson presents a look at the Taliban, the most forgotten people in the most remote corner of the world and how pockets of the US Military are changing their approach.  Every page of this book cries out “everything must change.”  And I cried through every page. 

2.  The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien

How many reviews have been written on LOTR?  Must I give another?  Let me say this much—the trilogy stands as a testament to passion.  The amount of time and creative energy that was spent for its purpose are evident through every word of every made up language.   The culture of creativity is seen in every character.  And the book reminds me, above all, that even if I were to know all that would hinder me along the way, the journey is still worth every step, every tear and every crumb of Lembas. 

3.  Savage Beauty, The Life of Edna St. Vincent Milay, Nancy Milford

I’m sorry to say that I could not finish this book.  In fact, I could barely start it.  While Vincent ranks right up there with Zelda and Sylvia in tortured famous females, there are a lot of pages filled with very little depiction of the world outside of Vincent’s own mind.  The author herself writes in a such a straightforward manner that I believe it actually contrasts with the manic nature of Vincent too much.  As a result, I could not engage with either fully. 

* Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan, Sally Armstrong

This was a book for school, so it doesn’t actually count for my twenty-five, but it is worth making a note of.  Armstrong, a Canadian journalist, follows the story of RAWA through the refugee camps of Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.  Veiled Threat exemplifies the kind of writing I most want to do.  She gives a history of the women, the Taliban and the current war and provides the stories of the Women who have endured all of it and have continued to fight for their own futures.  This is one of the most captivating books I have read on the subjects of both Afghanistan and women’s right.  

4. The War of Art, Steven Pressfield 

What can I say?  The day I opened this book on the bus, I stayed on the bus for a few extra stops, planted myself in Stumptown and skipped class.  The next day I called a counselor.  Being an honest person, I will say that I am a drama ridden, justified hypochondriac. I hate this about myself and have often wondered where this comes from? The book has helped me explore some of the roots of these character flaws and see how the directly relate to my creative expression.  Pressfield doesn’t leave anything untouched.  He address the ways artists try to escape the pull of our art, he draws the picture of a professional and shows you just how much time you need to put in to make your work sustainable, never once sugarcoating his own long journey to success.  The Art of War is wise, contemplative and raw.  It’s kicks your ass. 

Working on Now

5. The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien

6. Snow, Orhan Pamuk

7. On Writing, Stephen King

8. A Poetry Handbook, Mary Oliver

The Spring Reading List

9. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

* On the Road, Jack Kerouac (for my Beat Generation Lit. class)

* Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs (for my Beat Generation Lit. class)

* The Pocket Beat Reader (for my Beat Generation Lit. class)

10.  Half the Sky, Nicholas D. Kristof

11. A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition, Ernest Hemingway  

Thoughts on the Summer Books           

12. Strength in What Remains, Tracy Kidder

13. The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien

14. The Outliners, Malcolm Gladwell

15. What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell

16. What is the What, Dave Eggers

15. Zeitoun, Dave Eggers

16. The Kite Runner, Khaled Housseini

17. The Bookseller of Kabul, Åsne Seierstad

18. The Evolution of God, Robert Wright

19. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

20. I really am not at a loss of books here…But I’m leaving room for suggestions.  Help!!

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

"I have worked as a doctor in many places and I have seen where to be poor is to be bereft of rights."

fivehundredwords: The 750th Time.

I am a woman.

I was born in affluence. 

I was born in a country where my voice not only matters, but is encouraged.  I was born in a place without restrictions.  I had the stunning realization a few years ago that with this freedom, I carry the burden of obligation to my gender. 

I am a living, breathing, beautiful, powerful woman who happens to have a pen in hand and a heart for women around the world whose lives are directly affected by lack of resources.  I can’t quite wrap my head around it all: women without access to clean water, medical attention, education, freedom?  Women around the world who die of things that most in my country wouldn’t think twice about like childbirth and TB?

You know how sometimes when you see the 700^th picture of a child in Africa, you become numb to the images?  I read the news for fun.  I read books about global issues like some read novels.  But I still waver.  I’m sad to say that sometimes I catch myself thinking, “yeah, I already know about that.”  But then something happens.  The next story I read, the next image I see sends me over the edge.  Suddenly I’m looking at a picture of a mother dying of AIDS holding her malnourished child who is about to be an orphan, and they are all that matter. 

Everything stops.

This woman is dying of a disease, that if she had access to very common treatments, she could live with.  Her child is dying from hunger…

I just    

there are not

how can  

no. 

tears.

But I must find my words again.  Not for me.  For them.  For us.  For women.  Elie Wiesel, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech talks about how we are all connected.  “That while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.”   I can go on with my life.  Listen to my ipod on the bus on my way to Urban Outfitters and grab a coffee on the way.  But these things don’t determine my quality of life. 

What determines my quality of life is the quality of life of women around the world.  Am I using my resources wisely?  Am I using my words powerfully?  Am I taking every opportunity handed me?  Am I keeping myself connected to the greater source of life and strength at the core of all women? 

I’m never going to fully understand the plight of these women.  But I’m going to try.  I’m going to try to acquire understanding, to build relationships and bring awareness.  I will tell you their stories 749 times so that when you hear it for the 750^th time, your heart will break and you will start to grasp the gravity of the situation.  It’s then that we will be connected, and our outrage and strength will overpower the factors at work against us.  

I’m going to use my words for the benefit of my gender, bringing to light our struggles and great triumphs.

What will you use?