20240130 - 11:37
Travel reveals the transience permeating all things. Today we leave. Today we arrive. Like the stagnant water we are rejuvenated by the walls crumbling, the dam breaking; again, we move. We awaken further with every mile passed, every tree that flies by outside the window. The contrast is evident. A stationary month has provided ample opportunity for attachments to form. Last night I was laying in bed, hopelessly aware of the alarm set for 5 hours later, looking around the room that had served as an occasion for life to play out for some time. I felt my attachment sharply, expressed in the fear I had towards our move. An ever more common, and always fruitful, practice; I reflected on death. What it would be like to lose, not only the apartment, the things I had in them, my relationship, my home, but the basis for all of it and so much more. It felt okay. In a second, the duration of an out-breath, I gave it all up. And I was still okay. The worries had now dissipated - letting go of the attachments left them without anything to cling to. I kissed my girlfriend goodnight and slept a calm 5 hours.
Never before has the privilege been so pronounced. Riding on a bus through the rural mountains of Nepal, reminiscing on moments long since passed. Looking at the power structures so distinctly outlined in the hue of my skin. Jokingly I tell my girlfriend when someone asks for some change: “What, just because I’m white it means I have money to spare?” Yet the truth stares me in the face every time I leave our apartment, every time I walk these streets. Every time I save a dollar or two bargaining I have to ask myself: where is this money going? Where did it come from? We see children playing on the street, or doing homework in their parents corner store. Here, school is the way forward, to a ‘better’ life, of hopes and dreams. I think back to my own time in school, nothing had ever been taking as much for granted as knowledge. Now I see the position it puts me in.
It’s all that they could wish for. With fascinating reccurence we see ads through the bus window promising a brighter future in the words of the exotic: “Study overseas!” Arriving in Lumbini, we meet a fellow traveler and talk about our experience of Nepal over dinner. He echoes a notion that has been ruminating in my mind for a while now with bolder words: “All they want is to get out.” To them, even a chance at a western life is enough to drive them, working ever harder. Certainly I’ve heard it from all corners of the country, my Yoga teachers talking about the competitiveness of Indian school, of the extreme demand and the shadow side in the pressure such an environment implies. In the rural parts we see the opposite side, poor children never getting the opportunity to learn, working in the fields or begging at the side of the street. In the crooked backs of their parents we witness the end of their current course.
Yet all the while, the poor-but-not-begging children, which is the majority, are happy. Genuinely. Hanna notices them more than anyone else; smiling, laughing and playing with them wherever possible. They are radiating freedom, happiness. Older children too, curious eyes follow us wherever foreigners aren’t common (and sometimes where they are as well.) The bolder of them approach us to talk, or to look and laugh when the language barrier is too much. There’s something in their eyes that I’ve missed, a certain innocence fading from those who I’ve known, those who walk the streets where I too lost my innocence. Perhaps knowledge comes with a price. Perhaps the grass is always greener. Perhaps I haven’t seen their unique struggles. And yet. Yet I can’t help but feel that the privilege I exude come from a cost too great to pay.