Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Sacrifice


 There was a time when I loved this bed.  I sat on it every day for more than a year and a half.  As a matter of fact, there were many times when the little girl peering over the edge was the one nestled in the makeshift hammock, and I would sit on the edge of the bed and gently rock her back and forth with my leg as I chatted with her family. It was an open room with three or four of these beds lined against the wall under open windows begging any semblance of a breeze against the still dead heat of the Tihama.  I stopped by this small shack each day on my way back from teaching ESL courses in the local village school. Two of the children were my students, and they would race back ahead of me on the mile long trip to prepare a glass of tea for me, it was our ritual. We practiced English, played games on the dirt floor, or just hung out.  I would usually be there for an hour or so, and my favorite distraction was figuring out where I would leave a few riyals each week so that they wouldn't see me do it directly, but so they could find it easily to pay for my tea and biscuits.  It was the nearest experience I ever had to a regular family dinner or Sunday drive.
The bed offered another occasional activity, my delicate dance acknowledging and avoiding Aisha, a young woman who lived next door with her mother and sister (see link below) who flirted with me each time I walked through the camp. The window behind this bed faced Aisha's shack which was only twenty feet away.  So even if I managed to get past her relatively quickly, she could access me through the window.  It was all harmless (or so I thought), and her gentle teasing and taunting was flattering and just added to the odd ambiance of that wretchedly hot, unsanitary, and wonderful place.  There was a time when I loved this bed that doubled for a couch where I held daily court with some lovely children and a beautiful teenager with an incomprehensible crush.....
The small child in the hammock died a few months after this photo was taken, one of a few we lost to heat, filth, and dehydration.  One of the few things that did make its way into the camp was formula - life and death in a pale yellowish-white powder. We had no running water or electricity, and the well water was very salty as we were only a thousand or so yards from the Red Sea.  And although we got formula and other less useful things (i.e., refrigerated truck), we got no fuel or money to buy it - fuel needed to boil the water to keep the bottles and nipples clean. The nourishment was life-saving - the bacteria and other by-products of having nothing near sterilization capabilities probably killed three or four babies in the two years I as there. They would get sick, develop diarrhea, then it was a Herculean task to keep them hydrated.  There is a particular kind of horror when you stick your finger into the belly of a baby, and her flesh and skin do not bounce back with your hand.
Eid al Adha is approaching, and I am contemplating sacrifice.  I think about the types of sacrifices we bargain for and accept, much like Abraham who was willing to give his son Ishmael to God.  Sacrifices we choose to make at terrible costs, for the benefit of others or the glory of God. Until recently, I thought I had made sacrifices in the past, and I was probably encouraged by others to think that way.  I contracted typhoid shortly after arriving in Yemen, malaria three times while in the refugee camp, and I even managed to pick up hepatitis b right before I left.  I lived with dirt, insects large enough to carry away my lunch, salty well water, intolerable heat, and the loneliness of the only native English speaker within a hundred miles. But in retrospect, none of these were sacrifices at all!  Watching others suffer, watching them sacrifice is no sacrifice at all - I have allowed my self this incredibly immature indulgence for too long.  It is theirs not mine!
God has blessed me indirectly with a strange malady - I like things others don't. No, I am not saying I like to have tropical diseases, but I do love to be in the places one is likely to catch one. The disease is just an occupational hazard, a week's long inconvenience that I didn't really remember afterwards anyway. I loved sitting in the dirt with some children, working with their mothers learning rehydration strategies, watching a few old men build a boat from virtually nothing, and most of all, teaching and laughing with these dignified people dressed in modest clothing living in desolate circumstances. I'd rather be teaching in barren brick building with the thatched roof in that camp than in any ivory tower here in the west.  I would gladly trade my cozy office for the space I had in Jamaica with peeling paint, a banged-up desk, and leaky windows. I can't tell you what I'd give to be back on that rope bed/couch swinging a little Eritrean child back and forth in his mum's wrap, spelling crazy words with his older brother and sister, watching them scratch the letters in the dirt floor.  No, I haven't sacrificed anything, but others have to subsidize my very selfish existence.
I have never done the right thing at any great expense to myself or my self interest!  I realize that now - I have done what I wanted to do, and through no merit of my own, these actions have sometimes intersected with the welfare of others (but not all others, as many of my loved ones can testify). I have this great strength, this great passion inside me, so when I work hard, when I put myself in difficult, challenging situations I am not suffering at all. I have lived in a refugee camp, I have toiled there, I have sweated and spent weeks in feverish states, but I have not sacrificed.  I knew I was leaving, I had a future, I wasn't trapped there, I didn't watch my little girl shrivel up and die.  As a matter of fact, I returned to the comforts of the States and I have leveraged my experiences and slight inconveniences quite nicely - very gentle souls have even given me awards.  I am an impostor, I know that now.
I think about Abraham, I think about the mother of the little child swaddled in cloth above, I think about my daughters, I think about others who have loved me. I have so selfishly lived in two worlds, dragging beautiful people back and forth, in the end giving none of them any substantial part of me. I don't know why I am built this way, I don't even know what I should have done differently - I just know that I have missed something, and I want to spend some time this holy week reflecting. Perhaps my sacrifice should have been to stay put, raise my family responsibly, putting their needs before mine. Most of all, I want to understand what it is I am to do from here. There is a certain kind of torment reserved for those of who feel love but cannot express it to the people we care about most, creating the horrible illusion that we don't, and actually are more concerned with strangers.  But strangers don't know who we are, what we have done, aren't privy to the the things we cant forgive ourselves for......... I cannot fix the harm I have done to others, and my passion is not waning, it is surging. I am lost.  I am not lost in a terrible, desolate way however. Just lost.
I will pray this week, ask Allah to give me guidance. I am not looking for some sort of authentic sacrifice to run to either, that would be absurd. There is more to my duty to God than praying, fasting, behaving, and it cannot be as simple as I have made it these past decades.  I need to find a way to quench this fire inside me in service to others without hurting those around me that don't need my help or assistance, only my love.  There is a stark notion steeping back in my brain - it maybe that I can have one and not the other, and it should be that which I do better.  If this is the case, my sacrifice must be to stop playing with the love and affection of others when I do not return it as they need. Most likely this will be my task this week, to decide if I can change my equation to accommodate both variables (forgive me, just finished teaching a math class), or if I need to give in and just go and feed this fire without dragging anyone along with the false promise of a substantial piece of my heart.
*Postscript - many of you have so kindly given me wonderful and caring feedback, and at times I am almost embarrassed as it was not my intention to beg your compliments and praise. Please, please, please understand that this post is not some sophomoric appeal for sympathy!  For once, I would not appreciate any feedback, just leaving a trail of where I have been and where I am going, an act of caring on my part.  I will emerge :)  Eid Mubarek


http://philosopherking-michael.blogspot.com/2010/09/aisha.html

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