Trying to help a brother out

Ok, so I'm going to India.  For a pretty good while.  My Mom is terrified.  My Dad is like "that's cool." And I'm pretty stoked.

In a way, this story starts when I was about 6 years old.  I remember going to India, and the first thing I saw when I walked outside the airport was the most appalling thing I have seen to date.  A billion people.  But then I saw something else...poverty like nothing I had seen before in my relatively sheltered upbringing.  My first thought was "Wow, why aren't people doing something about this?  Why aren't we doing something about this?".  It seemed too obvious that we should.

Fast forward to May 2007.  My good friend Kate was getting ready to leave for Cambodia on a sort of mission trip.  I was intrigued that someone I knew was packing up and leaving for 2+ years.  When I went to a sendoff party, this guy was giving a spiel about how what Kate was doing was courageous, but that we could all do this.  He said how we all want to help people, but there's always a million excuses in the way.  "Forget all the excuses," he said, "and just do it!"  That's when I decided I was going to do it.  I wasn't sure when (or what!), but I knew I was definitely going to do it!

That brings us to now.  It took me about two years from that moment to decide it was the right time, and I leave in a few days to go to this land I know very little about.  My plan is to make a difference, however small, that might afford children in India the same opportunities I have been fortunate enough to have in my life (who doesn't want a Wii?).  My volunteer work will involve trying to develop a low cost distillation technology for essential oils which can be operated by a village based entrepreneur (don't worry, I wasn't sure what that meant when I first heard it!).  This will help empower the villagers by providing them a sustainable living, thus increasing the quality of life for them and their children.  The children can then have better opportunities by going to school and college, but most of all, by giving them hope that they can have a better future.

On a side note, this blog is called "Becoming Indian".  I tried (probably unsuccessfully) to go for something humorous yet significant.  My sister and friends have always called me the most un-Indian Indian they know.  I have very few Indian friends, and when I was little, I actually just didn't get along with other Indian boys.  While I'm older now, I still don't gravitate towards the Indian crowd. Heck, I don't even eat spicy food.  Before a few months ago when I performed for the first time at a Diwali show, the only thing Indian about me was when I dressed up as an American Indian in first grade.  I figure spending three months in India (I come back on February 24th) might just change that.  If nothing else, I'll be forced to be Indian for an extended period of time.  And who knows, I might even come back and get along with Indians and eat spicy food!