V. The active and passive process of deepening one’s sense of self, connecting to land in search of nutrients, and building community with others
V. How an infant searches for a nipple, making piglet sounds, following olfactory wisdom to survive
As I was finishing up a program in late 2018, one of my coworkers and mentors, Abid Ji, told us a story I will never forget. I was leading a group of young adults, ages 18-22, on their semester abroad program. We were studying public health, specifically maternal and reproductive health, in India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States. This story came appropriately at the end of our time in India, when we were all questioning what to do with the knowledge and experiences we’d been gifted:
We’d walked through public hospitals where six women laid on beds in the same room, giving birth. We’d talked with a room of a dozen new mothers, watching Abid comfort one mother who was grieving that she did not have a son. He picked up her daughter, hugged her, and shared with us that in India, the life of a girl is still not easy. It can begin unwanted. He talked to the mother, gesturing to our group of majority femmes, and explained how we women were traveling the world, learning about health. He told her, in Hindi, how many options we had, and how he wished the same for her daughter. We spent time in a rural school where I was challenged to think about when and how I shared my religion, or lack thereof, with young people during a time, like all times, really, when Islam, Christianity and Hinduism are deeply in conflict.
At the end of our six weeks, Abid Ji asked us what we wanted to do when we returned home. Students shared that they wanted to go into public health, become doctors, dive into international development. At this point, Abid Ji began his story. He had once worked for a large international NGO that was partnering with smaller Indian towns to provide services and utilities. As an Indian man, and as someone who spoke Hindi, he traveled to towns in other parts of India and worked with the folks to get them what they needed. A small community asked for a well, as the women had to walk kilometers for water each day. The large NGO got them a well, showed the women how to use it, and left.
After time had passed, Abid Ji returned to see how it was going. The women shared that the water situation was much improved. However, there were other problems arising. Courageously, they told Abid how the levels of domestic violence had increased in their community. Puzzled, Abid Ji asked more, wondering how and why this was happening. He began to piece together the story. Before, the women of the homes had all walked to one singular gathering place, the watering hole, to gather water. They were away from home for many hours, and had time with one another to connect, laugh, grieve, share. The men stayed at home, working primarily in agriculture. Now, with the well in the center of town, the women didn’t leave their homes for much time. They were around the men more often, and as such, the day to day rhythms changed. One of the unintended outcomes was increased violence. The fragile balance of time, roles, and chores had been altered. The gift of a well had brought water, but it had rattled the flow of daily living.
You see, Abid Ji explained, I was not of the community. Even being Indian, even speaking the language, this was not my home community. Even working with community members, not giving them something as charity but working together to solve a problem– the lack of water access– did not guarantee ease. Can the outcome ever be predicted? Who are the ones to decide what is needed to fix a problem?
Go home, young ones, was his message. The greatest work you can do is not here in India. Nor is it in South Africa or Brazil. Nor is it in DC, unless you live there. Go back to your community that is home. Talk with your neighbors. Find the problems that are most connected to your experience, to your home, to your soul. America, he reflected, has great power, and it is also greatly broken. It abuses its power in many ways. Be part of the change in your community to contribute to the changes in your country.
The world needs this.
I am grateful for my many years traveling and learning with and among cultures not my own. I know I will continue to wander. And yet, since 2020, this message has deepened its roots in me. Home is a complicated question. Belonging, even more so. Questions arise.
Where is home for a white-bodied person in America?
Is this land home to anyone other than the indigenous caretakers, past and present, who are here?
How much time constitutes a place becoming home?
What, if not time, makes home? Is it contribution, work, love, care?
What does it mean to be part of biological family, as well as to create my kin family of friends, pets and plants?
How does one root collectively, becoming part of the societal mycelial network?
What does the desert teach us about community?
How do we truly embody empathy, rather than speaking empty words?
How do we interrupt trauma cycles in European American ancestry in order to heal ourselves, and heal the white body culture collectively?
Whose role is it to “help”? What does that even mean?
What can I learn about home-coming through the laboring and birthing process?
What do newborns teach us about rooting, about trusting our natural instincts? And when do we question intuition as sociologically learned, rather than natural?
Part of my returning to Tucson was to sit with these questions I had unconsciously been running from, and to create more questions. It’s been three years. I’m working in the community, deepening my care and passion for human development. I love working with ages of transition: pregnancy and birth and postpartum; puberty; the shift to adulthood; the becoming of matrescence, and so the cycle continues. As I return to writing in The Wandering Roots, I will focus on the questions above, even and especially when I don’t have the answers.
