From Here to There- Christine's Reflections

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It was a ten and a half hour difference between here and there. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t sleep past 3 AM on my second day back home. I finally got out of bed try of bed and tried to get my life back to normal. Throughout this day however, I had some harsh realizations that if “normal” was the way I was before I left for India, this way of life would no longer an option.

On that early morning, I wandered into the kitchen. Although it seemed as if the rest of the world was sleeping, I knew that was not the case. At this very point in time for a myriad of people labored. Trying not to make too much noise, I decided to do the dishes that lay in the sink from the day before. I turned on the faucet and became entranced by the hot transparent water that flowed from it. For the first time in my life, doing the dishes didn’t seem like an arduous task, but rather a privilege. While I lathered the dish soap, images of people who were forced to bathe in the streets from broken water mains that sprayed brown water filled my mind. When I turned off the water, I realized how fortunate I was to have immediate access to clean drinking water, something that was not always readily available while I was away.

I had thought that my awe of such a simple thing such as obtaining water was due to jet lag and sleep deprivation. The rest of the day however, I began to face the paradox of my own life in which the simplicity in which I received my modern conveniences was actually entangled in a complex web that involved the rest of the world.

In an effort to wake up, I made a cup of coffee and I went outside. The sun was starting to rise. This is something that I had not taken the time to savor for years until journeying to India a few weeks before. The colors of the sky before me slowly changed and again I was transformed back to the streets of Calcutta where I had walked at dawn to walk to the house where Mother Teresa had founded her Order, The Missionaries of Charity. Dawn was my favorite time in India, due to the peacefulness of the streets. During this time, people were baking and getting their shops ready. There was a calm that did not seem to involve vehicles, noise, pollution, heat and overcrowded conditions. Selfishly I longed for an eternal sunrise while in India.

Wide awake and caffeinated, I decided to go on a run. I ran with a freedom I had missed while I away and filled my lungs with some much needed clean air which did not exist in the congested parts of the city. Running in the neighborhood where I had grown up in Richmond, I passed the houses of old friends, my school, the fire station and supermarket, realizing how fortunate I was to grow up in a safe environment where everything was accessible to me when I needed it. In many streets where I walked while on my journey, I encountered hundreds of people who had nothing more that a piece of tarp or tin to protect them against the reality of the world that engulfed them.


After my run, I came home and by this point my cat, Wilson, had awakened. He looked at me and I could sense that he wanted food. As I filled his bowl, I realized that my cat enjoyed a more humane lifestyle than many of those whose path I had crossed and this put me to shame. In many countries in the world, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are viewed among the unalienable rights that all people should be provided. However, without the opportunity to access to the same basic necessities, people are not able to live in dignity and are denied basic human rights.

Upon returning from my journey, I came to terms with how my actions and lack of them really do affect the lives of others. As a result of the truth that I encountered, I am no longer ignorant and have a responsibility to change. Now that my eyes have been opened, I realize how much my consumerism affects the way that others live- for better or for worse. As a consumer I have a responsibility to be knowledgeable about conditions of the people who produce the goods I consume. Also as a consumer, I have a responsibility not to waste and should not participate in disposable society that contributes to the continuation of widespread poverty.

While my experiences were in some extremely impoverished areas, within the same city, country, and world- there are also people who have never encountered this reality, people such as myself. Now that I have returned, the images that I take with me are not simply of rich colors, festivals, spices and great monuments, yet of the people that I encountered that taught me to embrace truth which is the realization that there are people in this world that are not able to live in dignity because they lack the basic necessities that I had always taken for granted.

Although I have just returned from a journey, already I must prepare to embark on another. I do not know how long it will take nor do I know where there will eventually be. While there are many unknowns, confronting the truths that I encounter will guide me from here to there.

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