August 13, 2007

A Return to India

My first trip to India in 1998 was part well-planned discovery and part throw-it-up-in-the-air and see what happens. To appreciate this story, it may help to have a bit of context. I have been drawn to India since I was a little girl, and despite my best efforts at identifying a source, I’ve not been able to. My earliest remembrance was at the age of nine saying that I wanted to help women in villages in India. There wasn’t a book, movie or picture, just a deep interest that seemed to bubble to the surface around this time in my life. This interest would resurface each time it was time to write a report or plan for the future. This return was especially poignant because of the mission of the Savita Society - empowering women and children.

I am aware of the differences in myself and these two trips … I am older by almost a decade. I’ve read more and talked to more people. I am more familiar with the issues of international development, though I am drawing on some of my old research in preparation for this trip. I am married. I have five years of professional fundraising experience behind me. I’ve been to the United Nations and spoken on the role of information and communication technologies in advancing the Millennium Declaration value of equality. I am not traveling alone. I will be accompanied this time by a delegation of diverse people with diverse goals. There will be a film crew with us documenting the trip.

I am aware of the similarities, too… I am still searching for the resolution of the connection that is so strong it is pulling me half way around the world again. It is in some ways a rights of passage to travel to India. When I returned from my first trip I felt a subtle and profound shift in my thinking. The kind of change many people feel after their first international experience, especially when that experience is in a developing country. For the past ten years I’ve lived with a subtle peace. I’ve always known I would return to India, and so it did not bother me as the years passed and took me on other paths. As long as my inner compass remained intact, I knew it would lead me back.