Gestures

Living around the world, navigating in and around dozens of cultures, I have learned to appreciate gestures - those moments when we allow ourselves to love openly and honestly, even if ever so briefly.  We offer these gifts to strangers with open hands and oblique eye contact, and to our friends and lovers with a casual disinterest belying the underlying endearment of the act. The universal condition of these fugitive intimations is that they are offered without language and received either mutely or with minimal response.  This fleeting and intimate intersection is as prolonged and manifest as our unconditional love for each other has evolved in a few million years. Nevertheless, distilled as these platonic trysts may be, they continue to have a powerful impact on me, and may be the one thing that reaffirms my notion that the world still cares about itself.
Letting someone in ahead of you in traffic, lingering at a door holding it for someone several yards away, helping a woman with a stroller down a set of stairs, stopping to let a pedestrian cross in front of your car, helping someone with a heavy load, picking up a check at a restaurant, etc., all are simple acknowledgements of each other's existence, each other's awkward path through a shared universe.
In Tanzania, I supervised Peace Corps volunteers working throughout the country teaching math and English. They came to the country in groups once a year, where we trained them for three months before we sent them off for a two year adventure in their villages.  We trained them in Arusha, a small town near Kilimanjaro in the north, far away from he hustle and bustle of the main office in the capital city of Dar es Salaam.  We had a small training complex there with seasonal staff who helped with the thirty volunteers who were stationed there doing their training sessions, practice teaching, and health care checks. We employed a few cooks and three custodians, as well as a dozen or so language and culture trainers.  Although the volunteers stayed with host families during the training stage, they spent a good deal of their day at the center. I didn't spend the entire three months there, but I came and went with some frequency. When I was at the center, I made it my habit to rise early and have breakfast with the Tanzanian staff - the men and women who cooked, cleaned, and looked after the site and volunteers.  At first they were a bit tentative, but after a requisite amount of teasing and jostling (by me), they welcomed me into the breakfast club where I had a lot of fun despite understanding only about 10% of the rapid fire Swahili flying by.  After my initiation, I returned to the capital for a few weeks to take care of other business. When I returned a fortnight later, I was not prepared for my reception - I climbed out of the Landrover as we entered the guarded gate and heard a shrill vibrating but friendly noise and saw two of the women rushing out to greet me.  I had heard this noise before at African weddings and celebrations, and I was nearly knocked down to my knees when I realized it was generated for me.  Both ladies curtsied and then did the unthinkable, they grabbed my bags. Now I am a German-American male, and it was everything I could do to tolerate this act, but I did and meekly trailed behind as they toted my belongings into the main room and respectfully laid them up on a table. I knew I needed to let them do this, but it was very, very hard.  A dozen years later, I am still humbled by the gesture, and I wouldn't trade it for a hundred awards, a thousand accolades from my peers.  I did have my revenge however, and I was absolutely delighted as I watched them squirm in their own tolerant juices as I stepped into the kitchen one day to take over dish washing duties when they were short handed.  This was an terrible breach of European-African hegemonic protocol, and I loved every moment of it.  Despite their horror, they got used to me washing dishes, as I invaded the sanctity of their kitchen every other day or so, and we laughed continuously - they didn't realize I could translate "how can a white guy get that much water on himself?" These small communions, graceful and dignified, defy the social constructions and manifestations assembled all around us protecting one from another.  I love to look into another open heart, even if it just a glimpse, fleeting and ephemeral - the warmth rivals the center of the sun.
There have been other small gestures that have stuck with me through the years, like the way Mr. Cowell, one of my literacy students in Jamaica always "comped" me a free skyjuice when I saw him out and and about selling the sugary-sweet mixture from his cart.  Or when little bits of chocolate magically appear on my desk after I not so subtly let those in my environment know of my proclivity for it, the only weakness I divulge. When American coworkers quietly scold their peers who bring food into the office space in deference to me during Ramandan, thinking it will provide some unendurable temptation for me.There have been thousands of these gifts over the years, and I am so blessed - I can remember watching helplessly in a malarial fever as a few students (even those I disciplined) reverently reached into my tent and deposited small packages of cookies, knowing I was unable to move.  After a nearly a week in that cot, I was finally be able to stand, devastated by the huge pile of these food gifts stacked in the middle of my tent. Sometimes it is just a "thank you" from a student exiting my class, or an email from someone in Jordan thanking me for coming to work with them, or hearing the word "usted" (teacher) softly and respectfully uttered as I walked through my village in Yemen.  There are a million kind and wonderful people in the world, and they have enriched my life with seconds long gestures nearly everyday of my life.
I was thinking about my childhood the other day, silently lamenting that I have no artifacts from those days - no photos, old toys, family heirlooms,  nothing.  The only physical possessions I have before the births of my daughters are the gifts I have received from students and coworkers.  I have them from all over the world, most would be deemed cheap trinkets by my more cultured associates, but all are inestimable treasures for me.  I do have these tokens and a thousand wonderful snapshots of beautiful gestures that have been given to me over five decades.  My new mission is to learn how to reciprocate, how to make sure I am bestowing similar moments, similar philanthropic presents to others - I live too much in my own head, and I am very good at thinking about issues in larger contexts and I often miss those instantaneous opportunities to express the side of me so few see.  I have been entirely selfish in this human exchange - I need to work on this.