trip to an anti-trafficking NGO


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January 3rd 2008
Published: January 3rd 2008
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My new strategy is dancing. This morning I turned up the itunes and danced by myself to Public Enemy and Shakira. It warmed me up, and it’s hard to feel depressed when dancing.

I am really having trouble snapping out of this. I am not a person prone to depression—I usually have a couple of bad days and snap out of it, but I can’t seem to dig myself out of this. Yesterday was the first day I actually started thinking about coming home early. I don’t even know what’s causing it anymore, because no matter what I do, it doesn’t go away for more than a few hours at a time. Like Ken said this morning, you can’t expect to throw yourself into a world of poverty and to have all the skills to deal with that. I guess I’m just not as equipped as I thought I was, at least during the winter holiday season.

Being with Mary really has helped, although I haven’t told her about my depression. We’re going to talk about it today. 2 days ago we went to the NGO we worked with during her Fulbright, a place that has been doing anti-trafficking work since 1996. Although I wasn’t feeling well, it was good that I went.

They have a transit home for girls who were rescued from sex trafficking, circus trafficking, or were abandoned. Occasionally there are women there who escaped abusive relationships and need a place to stay. Mary sponsors a little girl named Ranju who showed up on the steps of the NGO one day. No one knows how old she is (we guess around 11), where she came from, or what happened in her past.

We met with the president of the NGO first, and then Ranju came to visit, bringing us each a flower. Mary gave her a new dress, a copy of The Cat and the Hat, and a box of chocolate. Ranju’s face was beaming. It was wonderful to watch! The rest of the girls from the shelter came to join us for lunch, which I didn’t eat because of stomach cramps (again). They sang a few songs, some of them danced, and then they gathered around us to talk in English. Mary helped some of the younger ones read The Cat and the Hat, and I answered various random questions from some of the older girls in their teens. They asked me how they can do better in school, how many members are in my family, my favorites names for boys and girls, and which skin color I liked best (my white skin or their dark skin). These girls rarely see white people, so they were in awe of me, making comments to each other in Nepali (which I can now understand) about how nice my skin is and how beautiful my hands and dimples are. And they could not stop staring at me.

I started to play man in the middle with a couple of the girls. One of them couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8 years old, and she was adorable with her huge smile and her black hat (with a marijuana leaf on it). We were told that her mother was a survivor of sex trafficking, and that she too had been victimized—raped—at such a young age. Hearing stuff like that makes me sick to my stomach and reminds me that whatever I am feeling right now, while legitimate and understandable, pales in comparison to what this little girl has already seen in her short lifetime.

I longed to see her smile, so I goofed around with her and another girl, blocking her from trying to get the ball, tickling her to distract her, and trying to fake her out. It worked—she was laughing hysterically, and it made me forget how I was feeling for a little while. She became my buddy very quickly. She held my hand and showed me her room (which she shares with 4 other girls), and rattled away at me in Nepali. My family makes jokes that I’m going to return home with a child like that, but how can you not want to sweep her away from here? I want to find a child to sponsor before I leave, and I thought it would be a child from the orphanage, but I might have to find out more about this little girl and see where her mother is and what her circumstances are.

Just writing about this makes me feel better. I had a long talk with Ken this morning (and last night when I called him at work crying), who is so wonderful at times like this. Although he would love to see me come home early, he keeps reminding me of the reasons why I am here, and all that I will accomplish because of it—the research project, the possibility of a book, the people with whom I come into contact and educate just by doing so.

Mary, Sangita, Ranju, Kiran, and I are headed to Pokhara on Sunday morning. Pokhara is a beautiful lake town and the starting point for many treks. We’re going to spend all 4 nights at a hotel in Pokhara and just do day hikes. I’m really looking forward to getting out of the city and enjoying the beauty of Nepal. Maybe I’ll even go paragliding over the lake if I’m feeling brave. And I’m sure watching Sangita and Ranju will be a treat in itself. I also go back to the U.S. in less than 3 weeks, and in March I am now giving a talk at a conference on women and leadership in Dubai. So perhaps the hardest days are behind me. In a few weeks it will start to warm up again, and I will have passed the halfway mark on this trip. I can feel my optimism coming back. Let’s hope it stays for more than a few hours.


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