Days 1-3: Arrival and Everything Immediately After
As my head lulled along to train 86’s slow, lumbering tilts and groans this morning, I had no concept of the pure magic that was waiting for me in a hotel basement in the middle of Queens. I was excited for our program launch, but if I’d had any inkling of the electrifying feminine magic that was going to seize my heart and mind as my fellow students began trickling in that afternoon, I would have been singing and dancing in the train aisle.
Face after beautiful face began to appear and pass through the basement doors, and as more amazing young women showed up I started to realize just how powerful it is to feel joy in numbers. It’s something that takes over your whole body- something that is irrefutable and unstoppable and absolutely wonderful. You float on the beaming faces of those around you, and the word “stranger” loses all meaning. All of us had worked so hard to get here- to flash toothy smiles at each other in a hotel basement- and I could tell that we all felt ready. Ready to grow, ready to laugh, ready to run around the world and learn about what’s messed up and how to understand and fix it. There were no tears, no shaky voices, no solemn silences as we thought about the goodbyes we’d just squeezed through all of our lips. We had arrived! And it was time.
It also struck me that every single female body that walked into that room has the power of knowledge, empirical evidence, and education on our side. America is, without a shadow of a doubt, an unequal society. But as the evening pressed on I found myself basking in the beauty of being in the presence of so many passionate, smart, driven women my age- Black, white, Jewish, Middle-Eastern, etc. It’s beautiful that we all ended up in the same basement with such different, valuable life experiences.
After orientation, we walked 2 blocks to a Mexican-American fusion restaurant and talked and ate and laughed until our heads hurt. There is hard work ahead of us, and we will see and experience incredibly uncomfortable things in the coming months. But I am empowered by the fact that we will do it together, for the sake of becoming better people
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Yeshi Sherpa stood beaming, a twinkle in her eyes, as she asked us to make our way down the sloped basement ramp and then take off our shoes before we entered the classroom space. As soon as I poked my head inside, I felt like I had been swallowed by an orange. Citrus colored paint blazed across the four walls of the tiny room, accentuating the bright red, blue, green, and yellow tapestries that hung from the walls. A row of portraits- distinguished *sherpa??* monks associated with the learning space- observed us carefully from the far side of the room. Dr. Azim welcomed us, and we all found a seat at the fold-out tables that had been thoughtfully set up, eager to start the day but even more eager to bust into the free donuts and coffee that had been provided for us.
The morning was a blur of incoming information- rules, expectations, policies, the history of the program, and a go-around-and-share-your-fears appraisal. It was during this discussion about anxieties and nerves that our program director- a well-traveled and well-respected man who grew up in India- explained to us that fears about cultural appropriation are largely an American phenomena. This was a very surprising insight for me. A few of the other gals and I had already spoken amongst each other about our confusion towards whether or not it would be respectful for us to wear head coverings in Jordan. I was adamant that if an American tourist is not practicing Islam, it would not be seen as respectful to wear a headscarf day-to-day. Dr. Azim, however, explained to us that our host families and the locals we will interact with while abroad will likely be overjoyed to see us embracing their traditions and customs, and to them, our participation will come as a sign of mutual cultural acceptance.
After our information session, we walked around the Jackson Ward neighborhood of NYC, where we were led into a Tibetan meditation space by Yeshe. The building appeared out of nowhere on the crowded New York block where it stood, and it was stunning- vibrant patterns, carvings, tapestries, and paintings lined the mouth of the large double doors and covered every inch of the interior walls and ceiling; and strong, robust pillars stood guard over the meditation floor. Yeshe explained that this space was new- it had only been transformed into a meditation space in the past decade- and that it’s renovation was thanks to the huge, recent influx of Tibetan, Nepali, and Himalayan immigrants that have moved into the neighborhood. After we departed, my new friends and I sat down for a delicious Tibetan feast (4 orders of Momos) at a Jackson Ward Restaurant, and basked in the beauty of our collective excitement and intrigue.
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The following day’s highlights were as follows: A 3 mile walk with my new friend Peace to our classroom space (for the sake of movement, geographical orientation, and also just for fun), a fascinating intercultural competence session with my classmates (in which we analyzed our identities, positionalities, stereotypes, and understandings of how we, ourselves, and others are received differently in different cultural contexts), another delicious lunch in Jackson Ward (I had Thali for the first time and had to google how it eat it lol), followed by a brief plunge into the subway to hurtle towards the UN building for a 3:30 tour. We all had lots of intense thoughts and feelings as we walked through the building that was supposed to model and ensure global peace and human rights, because in our hearts we felt the weight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian, Sudanese, and Ukrainian lives so recently lost. We debriefed in the UN courtyard, speaking about all the complexities, inefficiencies, and goals of the UN, and then a few friends and I went for ramen.
The most striking discussion that we had that day was about power. Dr. Azim asked all of us, “Dig deep and ask yourselves, why do I need power? Why do I need to be perceived as powerful to create change, when- as we have seen at the UN, in local and global politics, etc.- power creates so many harmful imbalances? So many violations of human rights?”. I was dumbstruck when I heard this. Why does some part of me need to be perceived as a powerful, American woman to feel as though I have a place in the world? Why am I discontented with just being an American woman- with my voice in total and equal standing with all other women all over the globe? It’s an ugly underbelly of activism- the human need to stand out, to be different, to be seen and heard as one voice championing many- and it’s something I plan to interrogate within myself with as much integrity as I can over the coming weeks.
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August 31, 2024