Somewhere In Between

Tetons: America the Beautiful

Traveling 9,000 miles in five weeks through over thirty States in America had its challenges. We needed stamina for the 12 hour days in the car, and wisdom for the weighty decisions whether it should be McDonald's or Burger King for lunch, and clairvoyance to know if we would make it to the campground with enough light to cook dinner and set up the tent. Wondering when we would reach the next rest stop with Morgan jumping around the back seat in agony was of frequent amusement to all of us (except to him).

We learned caffeinated sugared soft drinks really aren't ok on long trips. We learned Greg is happier with a State map from every single of the 30 states we drove through. And we learned its better when I am driving and he is navigating!

We travelled the US as tourists, and as tourists, delighted in its beauty and grandeur. Starting with Washington DC with its monuments, museums and gorgeous architecture to moving west following Lewis and Clark's trail and the Westward expansion arch in St. Louis to Yellowstone with its wild and smoking geo thermal landscape, to the crashing of Niagara Falls we partook of history and national identity. Whether our kids eventually choose America as their home or not, they have glimpsed its scope and Greg's and my own roots.

My dad, taking granddaughters to the theatre

We didn't really travel all that way to sight see. That was just a great byproduct of a much more compelling desire, to reconnect with family. My parents and brother Andy live in Georgia, Greg's parents and brother's family in Washington state (thus the meeting point in Yellowstone Park), Greg's sister in Tennessee, my brother Jona in Kentucky and I have cousins, aunts and uncles in the Pennsylvania, upstate New York area. All those places, separated by hundreds of miles, and terrain as vastly changing as new continents, and all those people beckoned us to a to a wider experience than our previous furloughs.

Kavi's 17th and Morgan's 12th birthdays celebrated in Georgia
with my brother Andy and his family.  Niece Maddie pictured here.

A Freedom Firm board meeting in Pittsburgh meant we had the privilege of staying with cousins I hadn't seen for the last 20 years. We all have kids, some are young adults, some just toddlers. The pleasure of catching up, sharing our stories and seeing our shared DNA in each other's faces was pure joy.
Showing our kids that they are related to a larger family gives greater security and sense of belonging. My children will need that for their futures. They need to know they can belong in another world.

My mother and Morgan zooming around on ATVs
at a friends house on Lookout Mountain

Visiting a few colleges started us on the process Kavi's eventual departure from India, as this is her senior year, or St. 13 as Hebron calls it. We looked at private Christan colleges, big state colleges and smaller liberal arts universities. Where will she feel comfortable, connected, challenged and supported, with us 10,000 miles away? As a third culture kid we know there is a dislocation and search for identity that will be part of the process for her. Good to start probing, good to be exploring together, good to evaluate, and analyse the positives and negatives of each institution. Already Greg and I taste the bittersweet of this upcoming stage of parenting. Also the excitement.

And all this splits my heart. That I have roots in two places, India and America. That I have a foot in each world. (They really are not countries, they are worlds apart). The image in Ben Stampers's movie Horse and Rider, where the Indian woman in a sari is caught in the median of a busy street with traffic to heavy to cross.  I identify. When I am in India I do not want to go to America, and when I am in America, I do not want to go back to India.

I am used to these emotions after 12 years of my fractured existence. At first I thought it would get easier. I thought the sense of dislocation would fade. I thought my reluctance to bridge distances and cultures would disappear over time. And yet it has not.

I wrestled all night, as Jacob did with the Lord, before I regained courage and got on the plane with my family bound for India a week ago. Its the same every transcontinental trip I make. Its a sort of Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde moment for me. Shedding one part of my identity and gaining another (though hopefully minus the good and evil metamorphosis of that good book). Moving away from sister, cousin, brother, father, mother, and friend into a degree of relational isolation, more demands and expectations, and the life of the work we have chosen.

A few of our "girls" at the Ooty Botanical Garden display of
 the World Map

We recognize now the emotional drain of working with severely traumatized women, the toll it takes on our inner selves, our marriage, and our friendships.  I've watched Greg mirror some of my own agony as he  managed and developed the Aftercare program after I stepped away.   Stepping on that plane, we willingly walk back to the full knowledge that our well will run dry (figuratively and literally, as India has an officially failed monsoon), as we witness the unpredictable (and often incredibly sad) choices the rescued girls make.

We've been three weeks today. One of our girls in the “indepentdant living reintegration stage” stole a lot of money from the warden of the YWCA. The warden was in tears yesterday saying she had trusted our girl (I won't divulge her name), and had given her keys and invested in her, mentoring her, only to be betrayed.

I know that tune. I have tasted that bitter fruit. Those who give always expect something in return. Love, gratitude... honesty. But I read somewhere that real love is giving unconditionally. Not expecting anything in return. Can she, can I, love with such an open hand? I want to tell her that this act of betrayal is not personal. It comes from  a life broken early and broken painfully.

Today, Greg is in the early stages of deciding on consequences and the repercussions of our girl. He covered her debt so the warden doesn't lose her job. Our girl will no doubt lose her place at the Y and have to live in another hostel. She will have to pay back the money, although, most likely at this stage, she will run. It has happened before, it will happen again. Often there is no obvious benefit of pouring ourselves into the girls God sends us. But I believe the “good” is in the act of giving. Full stop. There is no pay back from these girls. Simply gifts given with no return. And that's ok, if we take ourselves out of the equation.

So, when I stepped on the plane bound for India, I knew what we were heading back to.  I struggled in dread of our calling for a moment. I fought inwardly to gain the perspective I needed to in order to love with an open hand. I steeled myself for the future.

We landed in Bangalore India, and my kids started giggling in a way I hadn't heard for two months since leaving. They breathed deep and swore they liked what they smelled. Morgan wanted to pull over immediately for onion dosa and idly (South Indian breakfast). As we drove the eight hours up to Ooty, we left the heat, dust and noise.  The beautiful Nilgiri mountains came into view. We caught glimpses of  elephants ranging in the National park as we drove through.  The scent of jasmine, tea and eucalyptus filled the car and we were home again.

California Poppies welcoming us home in my Ooty garden

We walked through the woods to our house in the rainy dark with no flashlight, singing at the top of our voices to scare the panthers and wild bison. Our seven month old labs went insane from excitement and we hear the horses whinnying through the darkness, a welcome. Suddenly America fades in my mind and I am  here, embracing all of it and I realize I've done it again. I've crossed the great divide of my heart to be fully present in this land, and I have been given grace to live this life, and have grace to pass on.

Enough Water

I recently turned forty-two.  Most of my birthdays are marked by yearly traditions: amazing breakfasts in bed, dinner or a motorcycle ride with Greg, and maybe a meal shared with friends.  This birthday, however, few traditions applied since our annual Avalanche Camp was in full swing.

Instead of breakfast in bed, I awoke cramped and sore and crawled over the slumbering bodies of my tent mates and out into the early dawn of a new day.  Avalanche camp, nestled next to a resevoir an hour and half from Ooty, was quiet and serene.  Over thirty-five rescued girls and another 20 staff were scattered in various tents on the hill side.  A few early risers started their hot water bucket baths and sounds of splashing and quiet whispers punctuated the silence. 

I wandered away from camp, down to the cracked dry earth and the shrunken stream of water, all that was left of the lake after 3 months of the seasonal drought.  Its a regular cycle; the lakes fill in January from the 6 months of monsoon rains, and then slowly are depleated by thirsty Ooty, and fill again in June when the rains return. 

Enough water remains for kyaking, enough water to splash in after repelling down the cliff into the pool below, enough water for washing feet.

Here I was, at Avalanche, for the 6th year running, staying with girls, many of whom Freedom Firm had rescued, most whom I would never see again.  A moment in time, a brief window into their world.  A pause in their stories. A place to be a child again.  To forget the horrors of the past.

Avalanche.  The beauty of the mountains surrounding us speak of a good God.  Gut wrenching stories spoken around campfires end in applause as we cheer each other through pain.  And the ultimate culmination of the camp?   A couple of servant men, good men, washing their feet in a ceremony echoing Christ washing the disciples' feet.

That's the image branded in my mind. Girls, stripping off their shoes and socks in a hurry and slipping and sliding on rocks to be the next in line. Waiting as they lifted their feet in expectation.   The urgency of their movement.  Tears streaming down faces, unashamed.   God's Spirit, palapable and near, moving over the pool of water, touching, healing, cleansing.

But I can't stay in that place of intense emotion, where my heart feel split in too.  I can't hold on, don't want to hold on to the one story I will remember.  A girl approached me before the foot washing.
"Didi (sister), I get so angry when we sing and pray to God."

 "Why," I asked.
 I thought I had heard every story under the sun and was immune to shock.  I was wrong.

Her mother was very religious, and when her daughter was eight years old , they travelled to Hindu shrines to worship and pray.  As part of the rituals, priests violated her at every temple.  "The gods have hurt me, didi, the priests hurt me.  Why should I want to worship again?"

Christian pastors wound and maim too.  How do I tell her there is a loving God?  A God who does not take, only gives?  The one God who does not force our worship.  The God of free choice.

Sunayana, our camp leader, and I spoke long and earnestly to the girl.  Her face cleared as we walked toward the pool.  She rushed forward with the others for her feet to be washed by men who represented the sacrificial God.  Something pure and undefiled was given that day.  For once. One moment in time.  By men.  Mere falible humans. Did she catch a glimps of the loving God? Will she be betrayed again?
But who can carry these questions for long?  I cannot stay here.

 Avalanche ended, and I woke up the next morning to an omelett, strawberrys and cream, my own soft bed, Greg and my sweet innocent ones surrounding me, comforting me, lavishing me with thier cards and little gifts and words of love.  My heart wrenches back into place.  Another life comes into focus again, the seesaw balances.  The girl and her story receed.  The moment at the pool of water fades.  I can breath again.

Greg and I headed off that weekend to Bangalore to celebrate my birthday.  I told Greg I wanted a gift that committs me to write.  A desk.  Now its the desk's job to pin me down.  I will have to name her, since I have already personified her.  A little desk, please, to fit into the bay window of the bedroom, where I can look out on the garden, the mountains and write.  A place to remember.  A place to will the mind to look again.

So once in Bangalore, Commercial Market, we started asking for old furniture shops.  I knew the nice shops were expensive, and I am lover of garage sales and deals, so we wound our way through crowded streets into the Muslim section of the market.  A completely different world.  Mosques on every corner, goats the size of Shetland ponies tied to shop corners, sizzling mutton shiskababs on skewers, and the best yogurt lassies (a drink) I have ever tasted.  Rats scuttled everywhere in the bright sunshine, unafraid. 

 a new born Rajasthani kid, not a dog

Junk shops emerged.  Shop after shop of broken plywood furniture, rusty skeletons of beds and metal tables, old filing cupboards and chairs all tossed in high mountains.  I was in heaven.  Somewhere, I was sure, in all of this, was my desk.  I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Greg was engaged, a good sign.  Both in high humor, streaming with sweat and dust, we started pushing our way through tiny passages in the junk. 

Right in the middle of the first shop, like a jewel among rubble, we spotted a teak wood old-fashioned cupboard, (not a desk).   And the price.  It was cheap.  Like they didn't know its worth.  Back in Ooty it would have cost a bomb.

By the end of the afternoon we were proud owners of a host of "finds." The jewel- like cupboard, an old table, a chair, a mechanical art/drafting table (for Kavi) a teak wood bed (for Abbi ) But no desk.  The ones we found were either too broken, too masculine, or, horrors of horrors had a laminate top. 

Independent of each other, we spied an old sewing machine table.  The ones here in India have a cast iron wheel and pedal, as even today most tailors don't use electric machines.  Coaxing a shop owner to remove the sewing machine, we bought the table.  We will put on a desk top later (when Greg gets back from the latest rescue in Nagpur).

That night we dined on buffalo wings and french fries. For dessert we went to the Hard Rock Cafe which rents space from the Bible Society of India.  We couldn't hear each other at all, the music pulsed through our skin, our stomachs.  Even the waiters had to use sign language.  We grinned like idiots and ate our cheese cake and in my heart I tried to reconcile my life of hunting for second hand furniture in the underbelly of Bangalore, and the luxury of good food and music, and the world of pain glimpsed at Avalanche.  Did all this happen just a day apart?  Really?  Can one person contain it all?

The next day Greg flew to Nagpur and I drove back the eight hours to Ooty, my minivan piled high with furniture, and somehow it reminded me of Grapes of Wrath and the jalopy full of old furniture, and I had high adventures getting home, but that must be saved for another blog.

My own personal gift to myself this year was made possible by two people.  My mother bought the harness, and Laura, our Leg Up volunteer left Ooty at 10 am and returned at 2am with a white and apple green cart.  It is a way to use the ponies in a different capacity, it adds options to our horse therapy, and very small ponies like Herc will be used much more often.  Hercules (the pony) seems to like it as much as I do.


 To see more photos of the horses visit http://www.facebook.com/legupindia


So last but not least on the list of profound and mundane things of my birthday, after two years of searching in the archives of Calcutta for proof of my birth in Calcutta, multiple paper swaps with the Indian government, enormous frustration for my tenacious husband (he is balder now), hiring a lawyer, and finally the invaluable help of Indian friends, I am now a proud OCI.  That stands for "Oversees Citizen of India." 

It means I have a life-time right to be here.  No more visas for me.  It means my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren can choose to live here.  It means the property we bought is safe, since I cannot be denied access to this country.  In a way, it means I belong. 

And so, God surprises me once again.  A sense of rootedness washes over me this 42nd birthday, and I stand in awe of sovereignty, timing and eternity.  I also know I am not bound by fate, but have the gift of free choice and I chose to be here.

 In the midst of all that is my life, the stories of the girls run like a stream, a stream of gravity, sadness and great loss that continue to haunt my dreams, even as I experience the privilege of sharing life with a  few of the girls we rescue.

I am deeply grateful for the punctuations, the pauses, the surprises:  a camp in the woods, just for fun, the pony and cart, hunting desks with my husband (who humors me), Hard rock cafe and my children's hand-made cards of abiding affection,OCI, which all weave together, inseperable, as gifts from a good God as I walk down the center of the stream. As the spring rains have suddenly burst forth filling our parched mountains with lush growth,  I am grateful for enough water.

Mystery at Malstead's Stumpfields

("Stumpfields" is the illustrious name Greg has given our house and land)"

Even if the winds are high today, bending the Wattle trees double and sending chilly fingers through the cracks around the window frames and smoke down the chimney, it is idyllic weather for early February.   Nights and mornings snap cold, but who can complain about the 70 degree afternoons and cloudless blue skies? With flowers blooming in my rock walls and the veggie garden giving us zucchini, lettuce, carrots and the occasional strawberry, I know, compared to my Western friends, living in Western worlds, that this is not winter.

In fact its easy to think at times I am in paradise. The teeming throngs, the heat, the pollution and chaotic noise of Indian city life is just a few hours away down the mountain, but it may as well be a million. There is a certain isolation in these hills. And while not luxurious, the apparent peace certainly can lull me into a sense that everything really is good, ordered and beautiful. The mountains rising before me are pristine. The air here is clear. My mind wants to forget the uglier realities.

Baking Christmas cookies with my children and sister in law and her kids playing Settlers in the living room, joyous shouts ringing with good natured teasing, it felt picture perfect. (see my blog “Christmas is coming,”)Our morning was full of gift-giving and gasps of surprise. Our Christmas dinner (roast pork with stuffing, baked vegetable pie, sweet potatoes and multitudes of other dishes) was sublime. All that good will and good tidings were palatable, tangible. We were warm, well fed, and truly enjoying each other.

Nothing could have prepared us for what awaited us outside our front door. Nothing perhaps except the vaguest sense that perhaps things were too good to be true.

As we all piled out the front door to feed the horses, dogs and cats their Christmas dinner, Rachael screamed first. There, head down on the stone stairs with his body above him was Oscar, our dog of 5 years. The white foam on his lips was the unmistakable sign of poison. Cyanide to be exact. We tore our shocked children (and niece and nephew) inside away from his body.

Greg and I were puzzled. Our house is 300 meters from the road. How could he have found poison this far into the woods? We banished thoughts of a deliberate poisoning from our minds. We weren't ready (especially on Christmas day!) to think that someone could be vindictive, could have done this to us on purpose. Besides, we have no enemies here. (OK if at this point you are thinking how idealist, naive and stupid I am, you are right!)

To say the children were grief-stricken would be an understatement. The howling, mourning and shock that set in on Christmas night took my breath away, and left me no time or thought to grieve at all. The children needed comfort. The wonder and well-being of Christmas was gone, and in its place was a black emptiness. A sinister darkness moved over the sunshine that poured though our windows. It settled in our hearts.

We buried Oscar the next day: a mound of field stones gathered from our land and a rough wooden cross. Ranger, our German Shepherd moved around slowly, forlorn. Christmas presents lay around untouched; food was ignored. At dinner time I let Ranger out to lick a bit of milk out of his bowl. Three minutes later I called him back inside. I heard him bark, run down the steps and as he reached me, I could see he was convulsing, foaming at the lips. He was dying from poison.  Half an hour later he lay still. 

Greg had watched his agony, tried to bring comfort.  I had stayed in the kitchen.  The children knew.  I had to keep them inside, and keep the images from implanting in their minds to come back unbidden in future dreams.

My mind whirled. His bark could have only meant someone was up at the water tower. Someone had thrown him poison over our fence. Someone had thrown poison to Oscar. It was not an accident. Someone had done this, not once, but twice, and on Christmas day and the day after.... . So, now, it seemed, we did have enemies.

But who?

We filed a criminal case, had an autopsy done on Ranger and entertained the police two days after Christmas. They seemed more interested in telling us that we needed to have government permission before owning dogs, so basically it was our fault for owning them in the first place. It was gratifying to see Greg get a little riled up on that point. He did a fair job convincing them that they were here to investigate the deliberate poisoning of two dogs. I doubt they realized that he's had 12 years of professional experience convincing policemen to do their job.

So who done it???

Our own rescued girls in the Aftercare program provided a clue. While out riding the horses during their therapy time, a local village man had told them that he was going to poison our dogs. He claimed that Oscar had killed one of his chickens. The rescued girls thought nothing of it, just an old man complaining and threatening. When the police confronted the man, his grown daughter broke down crying and said her father didn't own any chickens.

Wasn't it Shakespeare that said, "Me thinks thou dost protest too much," ?

Our big guard dogs are gone, and with them, our sense of protection. Greg is building good sturdy gates now and fences to give a semblance of boundaries and the intimation that boundaries should not be trespassed. We are laying an underground fence, so our dogs won't threaten others unduly, and that there will be no excuse to even think of poison.  But who thinks of poison, anyway?

It all shatters the illusion of perfection, bliss, peace. And I am jolted back into the ever present reality that this world is dangerous, and full of people who are cruel, vindictive and who purposely wish evil on us.  It might be easy to become paranoid.

We bought a lovely chubby little chocolate lab the other day. Ada. Then, Kavi's friends brought a “surprise puppy” to us, a little street dog Greg has named Bartholomew (Bart). Ada is a sumo-wrestler and Bart the scrappy little underweight.  We had promised Morgan a lab too... so somehow we have ended up with three!   Evenings in front of the living room fire are full of laughter at their antics. Its almost picture perfect...

They lighten our hearts and draw our minds away from the poison of hate and anger. The only remedy for pain is love. And it is easy to love these three darlings.

Why do it again?  How can we risk it again? How can we stop someone from throwing poison wrapped in chicken over our fence? Why have dogs if they are going to die.  Is God trying to tell us something?  Do the animals we own distract us too much from our ministry?  Our purpose in being in India?  All I have are questions.

But an answer does rise to the forefront as I ponder, a perspective after much loss in the last seven years.  There truly is more beauty than ugliness in this world.  It is everywhere around us, if only we have eyes to see. To give in to fear and sadness is to lose the battle.  Ranger's and Oscar's death is an opportunity to have faith, and to teach our children to keep on trying.  To never give up. 

The idyllic state, nirvana, paradise or heaven on earth is not reality, but neither is darkness and death. It is some mixture of the two, goodness and evil living so closely entwined that sometimes it is hard to separate. But we can choose where we fix our gaze. There is an interesting book I am reading, A Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp.  Gifts in the midst of loss. That's life.

Ada  (left) and Bart

Christmas is coming!

Christmas Greetings from a windy and wintery Ooty!
( I wrote this blog a few days before Christmas, but just now posted it. Better late than never?)

The spattering of rain just drove the kids inside and I can hear them wildly bargaining over Settlers on the livingroom rug. Morgan and Charlie (Chana's brother), are wrestling in between strategic moves of building roads and houses.

The noise levels are deafening, raucous and delighted. Heidi (my sister in-law) presides over everything, with her calm diplomatic British voice, soothing the torrents of competition. In the end, she won victory over all her opponents, and celebrated with a victory war dance.

Rachael and her cousin Chana  are busily experimenting with gingerbread cookies, and “Mom, can you use oil in place of shortening?” And in the midst of all the flurry (who needs a blizzard?) I am writing, with my laptop in the center of everything, absorbing the delicious smells of the baking gingerbread and pumpkin soup bubbling on the stove.

The house is decked out, thanks to the Freedom Firm Christmas party that threw us all into a tailspin of activity, cutting Cypress boughs and trimming the spiral staircase and the fireplace hearth. Games, and presents and a lovely mix of Indian and Western specialties put us all in the mood. Today, after lunch, we will venture forth and look for all those little gifts that are “just right” for each person. Its coming fast, Christmas. And this year, as usual its about family, and the extended family, togetherness, a sense of belonging and yes, tradition.

I was contemplating this morning on the many religions surrounding us here in these hills of Ooty, South India. Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, Buddism. All the faiths infused with a multitude of festivals, celebrations and special holy days. Christ's way was one of love, not judgement. Mercy, not fear. Giving, not taking. Healing, not wounding. Refocusing on the meaning of Christmas allows it to be a fresh, beautiful holiday, not about what we can get, but celebrating the Greatest Giver and Lover of all time.

A merry merry Christmas to all of you. As always we are deeply grateful for the part you play in encouraging our work, our family and our faith.

Blessings,

Mala and Greg Malstead