I WEAR MY HEART ON MY SLEEVE

“Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.” 
― Noam Chomsky

WARNING: grammatical errors and stream of consciousness ahead; this is not a cohesive essay (sorry).

The past couple of weeks I’ve hit the stage where the amount of privilege I have in my position starts to make me extremely emotional…tears come on a day to day basis now with overwhelming thoughts coming to mind about leaving, saying goodbye to the children and people we are working with day in day out.

There have been many an article, editorial, and academic paper written on the effects of western people coming into and working in developing areas of many different countries and I am always acutely aware that while my world view is changing, so too is the people’s I’m working with.  My colleague and I had a conversation about this the other day on our car ride home and much like the hour-long car rides to and from school as a child and teenager these car rides are our time to digest and discuss life and what’s happened on site and in the village that day.  We get to use each other as a sounding board and barometer while we digest the intense emotions and situations we’ve experienced on a day to day basis.

One of the things we try to ensure that we are NOT doing, is being evangelical in our approach to how we integrate socially and as architects – ensuring that we are NEVER saying our culture or methodology is better for ANY reason, because it most certainly is NOT.  Ensuring that when people say things like, “white people look better in sarees,” we are quick to disagree diplomatically with them and ensure that they understand that we do not believe this or feel this way.  Other times there are things said, “black is bad and white is good.” It is overwhelming to hear this and when people say these things with the little English they speak it can bring up emotions of guilt, anger, and the need to disagree as these are the few words that they know and can say with comprehension. We have had to wrap our heads around this on a daily basis and it can be extremely overwhelming to have people tell you they think you are better than them because of your skin colour. It is so entrenched in their socio-political beliefs. It means that whatever we say or do can be interpreted as better. This is confronting, overwhelming and plays itself out in someway through most of our daily interactions.  It is to be placed on a pedestal and with that comes overwhelming responsibility and thus we have had and still have to be acutely aware of our how our behaviour and actions might be interpreted while still remaining focused on the job at hand.

On top of the above, there is also a belief and cultural saying here that says, “a guest is to be treated the same as God,” and this is something I will take back with me because it’s a lovely tradition and a great way of ensuring hospitality is expressed through actions.  These two systemic beliefs when combined with the caste system here create a very hierarchical dynamic that my colleague and have broken down in places that it's acceptable and possible to do over the course of this project.  We have done so by showing equal respect through our actions such as working as equals on site, getting workers cups of water as they would never stop to take a water break, listening and learning their local language, and following etiquette when and where we know about it like saying thank you to everyone on site before leaving to show we 'see' each one of them and the hard work they are doing, etc.  Genuine eye contact and a handshake are universal. There are many more ways that we attempt to show that we view them as equals while also treading a fine line of cultural appropriateness that must be maintained.  It’s a fine balance that has the scales shifting daily and sometime hourly.  We have to work to bring them back into relative balance and these are the considerations that take up much of our emotional and professional space.

The reason these final weeks have come to an emotional head is not just because we are placed on this pedestal but actually because we’ve broken a few barriers and thus moved back down from this position, because we have made deep and meaningful friendships that we have to leave and I know that the same strong feelings of leaving these amazing people, and particular the women that we’ve bonded with will be felt by these women we are leaving.  And each of our respective lives will go back to ‘normal’so-to-speak and this will require some grieving on all our parts.  

I have felt this before in doing this type of work and I have warned many a Bower Studio student or fellow first-time volunteer about the grieving and adjustment period that happens when we return to our country of origin.  And it doesn’t mean I can circumvent those feelings myself; they are coming and I already know that these feelings will be much more intense than ever before because this time I’ve worked with these amazing clients, engineers, drivers, and end users every day for a full 6 months. I have become a part of their lives and they a part of mine. Mine will become a chapter of memories of a distant land where I have become a part of their day to day lives and will soon erase myself from.  But for them, our leaving will be like an old polaroid picture that will have me clearly in it until I fade away as if this photo were left in the sun soon to become blurry and vague. Sadly and initially our spirits will still be felt there and like any loss there will be times where we both wake up hoping the others are there or that they will show up and we won’t and the young children who get excited and run to see us after school is over will come to an empty and quiet verandah.  A verandah that saw our teacher’s wedding, a verandah that saw so many of our conversations, our ups and downs, and all the stories we’ve experienced over the past six months.  The sweat and love and tears and challenges are all there and have created a bond that will not subside…

The saying, “If I could have been a fly on that wall,” comes to mind.  And I am so thankful to have been an Australian architect ‘fly’ for this project.   This is a project I will return to visit because I want to see these people again and I don’t want to leave them even though I know I have to return to what I’ve known as reality prior to leaving the shores of Australia.

As you will see in the images below, this sense of responsibility and privilege that Noam Chomsky speaks of in the starter quotation was intrinsic to my world view at the age of 17 and still is an incredibly strong motivator for all my decisions in this life and in particular my career.   

And so I return in thought to one of my original posts, I am reminded that while I want to and have brought on metamorphosis and person growth here I am also maintaining my core beliefs which make me who I am and why I care about others so much.