Almost home, USA

This is the continued edition of what you'll find at restoredyouth.blogspot.com (since blogger seems to have done away with the handy hyperlink function).

I have learned so much. Here's the first thing I learned, which I had hoped to expound on earlier, but better now than never.

The day after my last post titled, "pokhara, nepal" I was out with friends in the popular tourist area known as Lakeside which is where street kids go to live because that's where the money is. From tourists. Fair enough, they're actually quite clever (there's no motivator like survival). My favorite is the football scam where an innocent looking kid comes up to you with a piece of notebook paper that has their plea personally handwritten. The letter says that they want to grow up and be a professional football (soccer) player, and they want to join their local team but can only show up for the team if they have their own football. They ask you to buy them a football, or at least donate to the cause and even have a section where you write your name, your country, and your amount of donation. Like Girl Scout Cookies. But here's the deal, if you give them money, they just pocket it and use it for food, drugs, or even a room at night. But, if you buy them a football, the shop owner will have sold it to you for probably 1200 Nepali rupees (about $20). They return the football to the shop, and the shop owner simply gives them what he made on the deal, probably minus a little (maybe like 1000 rupees since the cost of the football is 200 rupees). The shop owner is obviously in on selling an item and not having to buy a new one to replace it. You can have your cake and eat it too. So, the shop owner's happy, the kids are happy, even the tourist is happy because he just helped solved the world's problems one football-at-a-time. Clearly everyone involved has read the Win-Win Negotiator. The grown up version of this scam is the ever-popular gemstone scam. I even had the opportunity to be fully wine and dined by my local dealer before I decided to not show up for the signing deal with my credit cards and passport ready to give to this very nice looking fellow. Sketchy. Everyone wants a piece of the action.

But I digress.

Lakeside, right. Out with friends. As I was walking a couple of my friends back to their hotels I heard some kids yelling, "Jay Dai, Jay Dai!" (which translated means, "Brother J, brother J!" Since I was looking for the boys that had earlier run away I told my friends to keep going because I needed to see what was going on. As I approached the awning they were sitting under I saw three kids, about 12 years old, that I had never met in my life. I questioned them about how they knew my name, and they just said that they always see me around and know that I 'help kids like us out.'
'So you help us, and we help you. Okay?'
'You help me? How can you help me out?'
'We know where your friends are.'
'Really...(skeptically)? Where?'
'I show you, you help us out.'
'Fine.'

They took me to the hotel room that Gopal had obtained with what he claimed was hand-outs from tourists. Who knows. Bibek was completely passed out, not of exhaustion, so I just kidnapped him and told Gopal I would be back the next day to talk to him. As I was carrying Bibek like a sack of potatoes from the first taxi that was trying to rip me off due to my unfortunate state of affairs of lugging around a passed out 11-year-old around with me to another taxi, Santosh, my personal guide for the street scene of Lakeside says to me, "You really love them don't you?"
'Uhhh... Yeah. A lot... You have no idea."
"Maybe you come back and help us too. Maybe help us with education?"
"Uhhhh.. maybe. I'll come by tomorrow. We'll talk."

I never saw these kids again, even as I would look for them as I walked around Lakeside. However, I would be lying to you if I told you that this encounter didn't initiate a period of strife and contemplation involving me considering completely foregoing or at least significantly postponing my return to America. I mean, to invest in a place, get to know the people, the people apparently become aware of you despite you not knowing them, and to just uproot and leave. Derye garo (very difficult).

Bibek recovered the next day. Arjun, Dorje and I cleaned him up. When he tried to leave in a huff back to Lakeside and discovered that his sandals were missing he started to get pretty agitated. He concluded that I stole his sandals, preventing him from leaving, and threw an impressive temper tantrum. The emotions outweighed the logic of me simply telling him, "You no have sandals when I took you last night," and the rant continued. Right at the moment when I had given up on dealing with the situation was when the older brother of the family walked in. And in the most calm, caring, firm manner imaginable calmed Bibek down and convinced him to stay the night (with the hope of just getting him back in his old routine of school the next day). I was awed at the timing and perfection of one stepping in to handle a situation when a former is at the end of his rope of energy and expertise, and that's all I have to say about that.

Emma writes in her blog about friends who tried to convince her to give up on some of the boys because of their tough words about using Emma as just another scam. After I heard Bibek say that at dinner that night I became quite angry out of my allegiance to Emma. I confess. I am one of those friends that tried to get her to consider just giving up on Bibek. Believe me, my logic was sound. If it's the streets that he wants so badly, and that lifestyle, then it is the streets that he'll get. I will not deprive them. After I shared my thoughts with Emma it was what she does best that drew me to a deeper light of knowledge and then reaffirm her path.

She knows. She just knows. She knows that everyone needs love. It is not a question for her, and that is one of her fundamental beliefs that leads her in the directions that she has taken. Her different projects, activities, protests, writings, relationships, everything that I can't even keep up with and just put under the title of Pamela, Inc. are not attempts to try and express what she is trying to believe in. All of Pamela, Inc. is a natural expression of what she does believe. Like really, genuinely, with full conviction and zero question, believe.

She knows Bibek needs love. More than the streets. She doesn't care about the aesthetic desire for the streets. She knows love is deeper. She knows Bibek is just acting tough. I just didn't want her to be duped, like I felt for a little bit that she was. I feared that she had been simply duped for the last three years, and figured that it's better to cut your losses early. But, she's not duped. Because she knows. She knows Bibek needs love, and doesn't have someone giving that to him. I don't know how she knows, but she does. Everyone. Even tough street kids. You, the one reading this, can't dupe even yourself out of your need for love despite the streets that we all personally run to when most desperate for it. And she knows that.


I almost forgot.

I did forget.

But, it's funny how when you're at the end of your rope in energy and expertise that someone steps in takes over the situation. In an earlier entry I mentioned how the kids lives are compiled together like a bad piece of furniture in an attempt to fill the needs most naturally filled by their parents. I want to retract my harsh, over-critical words. The furniture is not bad. It might have a blind spot, and it might be strangely compiled. But it is not bad. I have seen the furniture in full working form, and despite its strange construction, it holds. The leg is not the arm, and the arm is not the head, but the right parts function at the right times, and that is what counts.

When the older brother stepped in and took over the situation when my resources had become exhausted, and when Emma revealed her thoughts and beliefs to me over the phone (also found in her blog) I can also confess that thoughts of not only inadequacy but also envy of their ability was quick upon me. But I may not be the foot, and I may not be the head, but I'm learning that I don't need to be. Thank goodness. That'd be hard.

Pamela stepped in to do what she does best, and she has the boys back into close to working order. Of course there's the daily issues that rise without fail. Of course they're in a different place than one month ago, and that brings adjustment, but she's there. With them. Because they need her.

And she knows that.