She Who Learns Must Suffer

She (He Who Learns Must Suffer).

Change is perhaps the only constant in life. I look back over the decades and like a film my life plays out in little snap shots. My first memory is as a four year old playing on the trampoline with my dad standing with his arms outstretched. ‘Catch me Daddy,’ I would shout out in giddy delight.

Like most little girls I was the apple of my father’s eye. He put me in a Catholic Convent in Lahore Pakistan when I turned four years old. I would come home to my residence in a college campus where my father was the college principal. Off with the crisp white starched uniform, red leather shoes, and on my way to play with the kids of the cleaning staff. Kids with no shoes, kids who did not go to school, kids who did not eat regularly.

From the oasis of the Convent to the dirt roads where my friend lived, the cultural code changed for me every day. In the day time I was learning from the curriculum of the University of Cambridge, where us colonized lasses were prepared for an O ‘Levels degree. By afternoon I was climbing trees with my Punjabi brothers and sisters. I had to resolve many a conflict in my four year old child’s brain. Why did my evening friends differ so much from my morning class mates. Why did I go to school in a nice car, in brand new clothes, while my friends back home roamed the dirt roads in search of food.

By the age of five I was already participating in educating my ‘have-nots’ comrades. My father set up a black board and an evening class room. I would teach my friends everything I had learned the morning prior, from the alphabet to reading fairy tales. I would ask them to read along with me.

When you grow up in the third world, the questions only multiply, without reasonable answers. So many children I played with died by the time they were teens. A girl I played with died giving birth at age thirteen. My mind could not fathom it all, but it took every detail in. I began working as a young social worker for international nonprofits such as the United States Agency for International Development and the US State Department. When I came to America I found myself applying for social work jobs centered in project areas with at risk children.

The quest for childhood answers led me to a thirty year career as a social worker.  When you have done something for multiple decades it becomes a calling. I often wonder if I would have turned out different had I not grown up amongst the ‘wretched of the earth.’ To me it was a privilege. Poverty, whether experienced directly or vicariously, is a good teacher. It teaches one to be sensitive to those without privilege. It teaches one to be grateful for what one has. It teaches one to focus on giving rather than the lust for receiving. It teaches one that power and money do not lead to inner success and happiness, that in giving lies true receiving.

As an older woman I carry many lessons from my history. I realize that to have is not to be, in that money cannot buy happiness.  Too often we become obsessed with being one up on the other as a measure of our professional or personal prowess. We sometimes tend to take delight in bringing others down. It is a sad way to live and work. 

I like to tell the story of a man who tended to our house and yard back home in Pakistan. He had an old bicycle which he rode to his morning job of janitor. He would ride for an hour and a half daily each way to clean an office building. At noon he would get a few minutes break. Lunch consisted of one tortilla and a cup of tea. Onl rarely could be afford curry. He would then make it to our house where he was fed and given clothes, money, books for his children. I learned a lot from him. I learned that he was like Sisyphus. He had accepted his poverty and it did not deter him from whistling as he rode miles daily to the drudgery of his existence. He never complained. He learned to whistle while he carried his burden, and thereby defeated his fate.

The story of the haves versus the have nots can be witnessed in every country, even in a rich country like ours. There are pockets of society who cannot afford creature comforts. There are children who are deprived of health care and education. The poverty in America may not be as wretched as other parts of the world, but it’s still there, and growing. I always tell my kids education is the single most important weapon against the weapon of poverty. My father was a poor man in terms of mercenary wealth, but he gave me the fortune of higher learning and thought. It is a gift I try to pass on, not just to my own children, but all children.

I recently accepted a job offer out of town to continue working in community and mental health services for those without care.As I prepare to depart Tracy, I look back  on my years here as yet another chapter of higher learning.  I firmly believe we are sent on earth to improve the condition of our soul via different places, people and experiences, some good, some bad. It does not matter which country or city you live in. It matters that you are tenacious enough to keep on doing what you believe is right, regardless of where you are, or who you are surrounded by. Sartre said, hell is other people, but without touching the lives of others, there can be no heaven either. While I will miss  many of the people, (and not some others),  who touched my life and whose lives I participated in the past six years in Tracy, I know that my journey must propel on. 

Life is not a destination. There are so many more people to meet, and much  more work to do. I always keep the following quotation by Aeshylus in my purse. “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”