It is five in the morning in Lakeville, Connecticut. Black as blind outside and cold as the wind off a frozen moon. I see the lights of Hotchkiss school, though, there to the side in the distance. Today I will speak to the entire student body at one point or another, especially the first year kids. This is their International Studies week. I’ve been given some short memoirs written by some of the sophomores. I had asked them to recall a moment in their life when they felt no longer a tourist, but in fact had become a witness. One of them submitted the following narrative:
Along the Dusty Path by Jee Youn Woo
Holding our mother’s hand and walking along the dusty, unpaved roads of Cambodia, Peter stared at the desolation surrounding him and heard the sobbing from beggars who were beseeching us to ease their pain.
I can’t quite put my finger on how I felt that day. It’s simply a memory tucked away, already marred by the fragmented and dim vision of a young child. I can only imagine the outstretched hands, browned and cracked by the sun, beckoning for mercy. All dignity cast away, the one thought of survival branded on their minds, they were begging. But perhaps I remember wrong. Perhaps they had been sitting on the ground instead, emaciated and drawn. All hope dissipated by the merciless sun and numbness seared into their limbs, perhaps they had simply sat. The only clear image I have of that day, of that moment, is my mother’s tear-streaked face as she took off my brother’s yellow shirt and handed it to a naked Cambodian boy.
I was only four then, but the one emotion I remember is wonder. I cannot even bring back the heat of the sun on my skin or the dry scent of the dust and dirt. I don’t even remember the little boy’s face, or how he reacted to their small act of compassion. All I can feel distantly, as if in a dream, is a slight pang: why was my mother taking away Peter’s shirt? Why was she taking it away from him? Peter was her son: why was she giving his shirt to somebody else – a stranger?
Today, I still wonder what Peter had felt at that moment. Was he aware of the Cambodians’ suffering? What could a six-year-old know about sacrifice, about compassion? Nothing? Everything? Something in between?
Powerless and stripped of his shirt, Peter had walked away holding his mother’s hand. I like to imagine that he looked back one last time, deciding then and there to come back someday. But such dramatic moments only happen in movies, doesn’t it? About ten years after his encounter with the Cambodian boy, however, Peter became the president of the Chamber Music Club in his high school. Finally, some power was in his hands.
I remember when he told me of his big plans: we will accomplish A, then we will accomplish B, and then the big C – a preschool in Cambodia. And so he did. Well, not exactly; he had plenty of obstacles to keep him on his toes. It hadn’t been an easy task to administrate student-held benefit concerts and to raise awareness in the busy community. By the end of his junior year, though, he and his club had raised thousands of dollars for the cause, although the numbers weren’t as high as he expected or planned for.
Either way, with his project and the little Cambodian boy in mind, Peter went back to Cambodia last summer. He only described the experience as humbling – I don’t really know why. It would have been wonderful if a young man around the age of eighteen suddenly jumped out from behind a tree and exclaimed, “Hey! It’s me,” with a yellow shirt in hand.
That didn’t happen. Instead, he tread once again the dusty roads of Cambodia and saw with his own eyes what his club’s project, “Music for Cambodia” had done. Although not enough money was raised to build another preschool, their funds had built a “bridge” between two buildings, allowing twice as many children to go to the preschool. Sometimes I wonder: had Peter ever felt disappointed, or that he had failed the little boy? Does he ever feel like he could’ve done more?
Despite this, what Peter had accomplished was tangible. He had been a witness to Cambodia’s pain. He had given them what they needed: education! Hope! Something big! Well, if not something big, at least he’d tried: all of his countless meetings with uncooperative school administrators, walks across town in the sweltering heat searching for businesses who would sponsor him, and late nights making sure all the chamber groups were prepared for the performance had displayed his passion for the cause. It had been proof that indeed, Peter had felt the little boy’s pain on that day so long ago, that the boy’s eyes had branded his heart.
On that afternoon ten, twelve years ago on the border of Cambodia, what had Peter been feeling? I don’t know, and I never will. He was merely a passerby; a tourist in every sense. He wasn’t a beggar. He wasn’t desolate. He was just walking by, visiting, just tagging along behind all the adults who were going to make all the difference. What did a little boy know about compassion?
Perhaps nothing. I’d played those precious thirty seconds from a decade ago again and again in my mind, looking for something yet knowing there wasn’t much to miss. But there’s a catch: Peter had raised his hands up high. I remember his outstretched arms, pointing towards the sky, silently and motionlessly beckoning to take away what was his. Hadn’t that been proof enough?
The question Peter asks himself every day, I know, is what the little Cambodian boy’s name is. That too, is living proof for me.
Grammatical errors notwithstanding the piece reflects exactly what I was hoping the students would explore. I particularly like the image at the end of hands raised high. I’ve discussed this subject before but I woke up early thinking it through.
It appears to me there are three kinds of people in the world. The first two we all know well: the tourist and the native. The former puts us through slide shows and by the tenth picture of a mountain or a statue or a skyscraper or a sunset the native viewer begins to nod off, run to the kitchen to check on the bread rising in its bowl. The latter puts us through photo albums of remember whens, first steps, Christmas of ’88, Christmas of ’89, the house before it was remodeled, the house after, and the tourist, eyes glossed over, looks at the clock and apologizes for having to leave so soon. Not all tourists will ever be a native, nor will every native ever be a tourist, but one thing both can count on is at least once in life becoming a witness.
It is a state of grace, this business of the witness. We are placed there when a loved one dies or a child is born, or during ceremonies like weddings and graduations. Sometimes we are violently struck by it, as in an emergency or when perceiving a grave injustice, and sometimes we are gently placed into it by a rainbow, a stream, an eagle. No matter the cause, it passes. There are those who wish to be in that space and never return, the perpetual witness-state where life can always be felt pulsing in our hearts. These are the thrill seekers. All, in a way, are junkies. I know, I was one. Then there are those who lose sight of the part about being a witness, either because of trauma or self-delusion; the journalist who rushes to report from every war zone, the soldier who cannot wait to be re-deployed, the born-again zealot who has discovered the “truth” or the victim of catastrophe such as an earthquake. In all these cases the state of grace is lost. All have become either calcified or intensified versions of tourists and natives.
I have never met anybody who is not at any given moment in one of those three states of being. I speak of these things because when it comes to making decisions it is good to know which state we are in. I, for example, have decided to return to Afghanistan in March. There is the thrill, certainly, but I know now there will be the drudgery as well, and the lengthy nights, and the shola. One aspect of being a volunteer is that by definition it blurs the divisions between tourist, native and witness. In short order they blend, and if engaged long enough they become one. Why do I go back? Because I know I otherwise have not the discipline to steer my way through experience in a manner becoming of a witness.