From Brahma to Buddha, Spring 2007

This brings us back to our march. My bag felt especially light as I walked to meet my family. I wanted it to be heavier. I wanted it to be filled with lead bricks and hissing cobras, too heavy and dangerous to move. I would announce to the group, faking disappointment, “I’m sorry, but I can’t go to my home stay. I need my bag with me, it has my toothbrush, but right now it is too heavy and dangerous to move. As soon as I figure out how to get these lead bricks out (each one would weigh about 600 pounds) and find some mongooses, I guess I will just have to stay in this easy and safe hotel room.”

I thought about this as I walked, staring blankly at the busy street around me. It started to rain again. I was the first one in my group to get dropped off.

“Namaste.” I put my hands together and bowed slightly. The little girl looked at me for a second and responded,
“Namaste.”

She ran upstairs. I looked at the mother; she was smiling and motioning for me to come inside. I followed her gestures, put my bag down and went upstairs, the whole time engaged in a conversation of thank yous and welcomes. I met them all, each time putting my hands together for another namaste, and getting a more practiced greeting in response.

That night, the 11 year old, who told me her casual name is “doll” and the 7 year old, whom everyone calls “Lovely,” and who most of the time wears a small elegant white frizzley dress, unpacked my heavy bag. Together, they took everything out, one by one, explored it and organized it on the shelves beside my bed. They told me that they would be my sisters, and that I would be their brother. They found, to my immediate embarrassment, a picture of me and Lesley on the beach and paraded it around shrieking and asking me questions like, “where are her clothes” and “when are you getting married.” They combed my hair, pointing at it first and saying “no good, no good.” They made fun of my nails. I dreamt of them that first night and it was a good dream.

Last night, the forth night I had been living with my family, the 11 year old came in to my room looking sad. She sat down on a chair next to me and we smiled at each other.

“What’s wrong” I asked her.
“I’m sad,” she said, crossing her arms and looking up at me.
“Why?” I rubbed her head and she smiled.

She said quickly, “you America go.” I looked at her. She repeated, “You America go.”

“I will be back soon,” I lied. “Plus if we are sad now, we can’t have fun,”

“You are not sad?” she looked at me with wide eyes.

“No, of course I am sad.”

“You America go,” she said again. She paused for a minute. “Write letters? Letters? Understand?” She asked me. I gave her my journal and she wrote down her address in big careful English letters. I promised I would write and we shook on it. I started to joke with her. She hit me on my shoulder, smiled at me and went upstairs to go to sleep.

I put away my raincoat. It was completely dry when I rolled it up. I put it on the middle shelf in order, along with all my other clothes. I had not had occasion to use my coat yet, so I didn’t really expect it to be dripping. This time, I didn’t need it to cover me as I bathed in a genuine emotion, washing my hair and arms in sweet warm rain.