I'm aware of that. Yeah.
It's been a bit disingenuous of me, I suppose, to flail at you all for so long about this trip and then upon my return go entirely schtum. But trust me, it wasn't for lack of wanting to talk about it.
It's been a bit disingenuous of me, I suppose, to flail at you all for so long about this trip and then upon my return go entirely schtum. But trust me, it wasn't for lack of wanting to talk about it.
Truthfully I've felt a lot of things since I got back from India. I suppose I've been doing what everyone likes to call 'processing' (aka, clearing out the fluff in my brain to make room for uncomfortable facts). But a whole lot of that has been me just ploughing on with normal life because it's right in front of me and it requires my attention. The people I met, the situations we saw, the stories we heard in India are all so much bigger and more difficult that, truthfully, it has been easier to get on with normal life than to carve out the time and energy to ask myself the bigger questions.
I've been a little ashamed of that, actually. My trip to India was, in my head, a first step into a life full of activism and campaigning and standing up for the people enslaved in this horrific, violent, dehumanising industry. But upon my return I suppose I've felt more...numb... than anything. And embarrassed by that. So many of my team-mates are all fired up and running campaigns and doing radio shows and all these other things and I... Just... Don't really know where I am or how to move forward.
The problem is so huge. Extravagantly, hideously massive, and wrapped up in that even bigger, vicious all-consuming thing called 'poverty', which I look at as a privileged white Westerner and feel a shame so deep and horrifying it all but forces my eyes to look in another direction.
So, anyway. As my own life starts to settle down a little, I'm feeling the numbness start to thaw. Three weeks ago I watched the kids at Acting Up hanging out at tuck-time colouring in and remembered with a sickening jolt the hundreds of kids who inundated us one bone-meltingly hot day on the India/Bhutan border, who I passed out pencils and colouring books to and taught the magic of stickers and pencil-sharpeners. And I realised that this trip is buried in my heart, and I can do something with this feeling, and these stories.
So I want to uncover it, a little bit at a time, and I'd love if you could come alongside me. I kept a diary while I was out there, and I want to write down for you the things that I saw, and the people that I met. I want to tell you how I feel now, and a lot of that will be very indistinct. I hope-- I hope-- that one day soon God will make the path clear that He wants me to walk down regarding all this, because at the moment I feel so overwhelmed. But still: this issue-- these people held in captivity all over the world-- are in my heart and I want to act, not just know the facts. This blog will be a little step towards that. I hope some of you will join me as I work through all that happened in India. I want to at least tell you the stories, because they concern so many people who are as beautiful and vibrant and alive and hopeful as you and me... and they have no-one to listen to them.
x
I've been a little ashamed of that, actually. My trip to India was, in my head, a first step into a life full of activism and campaigning and standing up for the people enslaved in this horrific, violent, dehumanising industry. But upon my return I suppose I've felt more...numb... than anything. And embarrassed by that. So many of my team-mates are all fired up and running campaigns and doing radio shows and all these other things and I... Just... Don't really know where I am or how to move forward.
The problem is so huge. Extravagantly, hideously massive, and wrapped up in that even bigger, vicious all-consuming thing called 'poverty', which I look at as a privileged white Westerner and feel a shame so deep and horrifying it all but forces my eyes to look in another direction.
So, anyway. As my own life starts to settle down a little, I'm feeling the numbness start to thaw. Three weeks ago I watched the kids at Acting Up hanging out at tuck-time colouring in and remembered with a sickening jolt the hundreds of kids who inundated us one bone-meltingly hot day on the India/Bhutan border, who I passed out pencils and colouring books to and taught the magic of stickers and pencil-sharpeners. And I realised that this trip is buried in my heart, and I can do something with this feeling, and these stories.
So I want to uncover it, a little bit at a time, and I'd love if you could come alongside me. I kept a diary while I was out there, and I want to write down for you the things that I saw, and the people that I met. I want to tell you how I feel now, and a lot of that will be very indistinct. I hope-- I hope-- that one day soon God will make the path clear that He wants me to walk down regarding all this, because at the moment I feel so overwhelmed. But still: this issue-- these people held in captivity all over the world-- are in my heart and I want to act, not just know the facts. This blog will be a little step towards that. I hope some of you will join me as I work through all that happened in India. I want to at least tell you the stories, because they concern so many people who are as beautiful and vibrant and alive and hopeful as you and me... and they have no-one to listen to them.
x