Sikkim Photos

The beginning of our trek in Sikkim...saddling up the yaks!

Oh yeah! Snow storm on the second day!
Sunrise at the Dzongri camp

On our rest/acclimatization day it dumped in camp! Sunrise on Kanchenjunga (3rd highest in the world!)

The More

Trying to describe the more is like trying to describe "The Nothing" in The Never Ending Story. It is amorphous, indescribable, ineffable, uncontrollable, unpredictable. Unlike "The Nothing," the more is a positive "thing," not a force to fear. Once you have experienced the more you cannot imagine life without it. One is speechless, dumbfounded and a myriad other cliches because there are no words, at least that I know of, to tell others about the more.

The problem with not being able to describe the more is that those of us who have it, want it, can't live without it, end up sounding like stuttering school children when asked, "Why are you going there (insert country name of choice here) to volunteer?" Why not go to Ghana to enjoy the splendid beaches; it's much cooler there than in a concrete box with a tin roof. Why not check out the gorillas in northern Uganda instead of shifting bricks for two days in the sweltering heat outside of Entebbe? No safari in Kenya? And what about Goa; you went all the way to India to spend time in one of the most polluted places in the universe! The pious have words for it: God, gods, enlightenment, sacrifice, humility, etc. However, those are not the words I would use to describe the more.

The more is the man on Park Street: no legs, hated me for a couple of weeks because I gave him a smile instead of money, yet every morning and every evening greeted him with an exuberant "Hello" until I learned "Namaskar, Ke mon acho?" and now the zeal with which he notices my legs among all the others coming and going, and looks up excitedly as we greet each other in the same instant; he knows I treat him like a human, not a crippled beggar. His presence in my life is the more.

The more is complimenting the family on AJC Bose Rd on their spring cleaning: they live on the sidewalk; a man, his wife, and their little son, on a 4ft X 6ft square space covered by a tarp. They got a new tarp and it's green. Being here every day, a part of a neighborhood, a street community, an auto-rickshaw route, dodging the heroine needles as I walk down our sidewalk just like everyone else that lives there, allows me to make this observation. Noticing the change in a tarp color is the more.

The more is Ganesh, named after the elephant man-god, a Punjabi who turns on the little fan as I talk on the phone in his hot-as-Hades telephone booth. The more is working with a group of women, a school, a project, for an extended amount of time; a trip can't do it. Four weeks rarely does it. Two months teases you with what the more could be. And even though I continue to seek out the more I am continually surprised at how I receive it. As I said, it is not predictable; the only predictable thing about it is how not to find it.

Butterflies in your stomach, not quite. Chills, goosebumps? Nope. There are physical expressions of the more, but even these are not easy to pinpoint. So, what's the point in writing (or trying to) a blog about it? I've come to realize a lot of people think I volunteer and continue to go on trips like this because it makes me feel good. In no way is this right. In every way this is wrong. It doesn't make me feel good to sweat profusely twenty-four hours a day. If you could see my hands and feet right now you would believe me; they are swollen and soft the way you get from being in the bath too long, covered in heat bumps, red, itchy, painful, hideous. I don't enjoy watching my feet instead of smiling at others as I walk, for fear I might step on one of those needles. I didn't enjoy living in a room with no electricity, therefore no fan, in 40+ degrees Celsius, no running water to cool off with, always at risk of typhoid and malaria. Not fun. I never liked the food in West Africa. And if you think I'm not getting to the point, it doesn't make feel good at all to volunteer and come home. Maybe some can build themselves up and feel good about what they "did," but not me. I, on the other hand, have near panic attacks on my first trip back into the grocery store. I remember the time I stood, completely overwhelmed, in the cereal isle in Fred Meyer guilty with choice. Volunteering, coming on trips like this, makes me feel worse when I go home. I have to leave movies before they finish for fear of discussing the content and being misunderstood; I clam up, I hide out, I try and run off that guilt feeling. I feel worse going home each trip, not better. The reason I travel to volunteer, not climb mountains, not lay on a beach (although I love all of those things and try to do them as much as possible), but make volunteering the point of the trip, is because of the more.

The More is why I am here.