Barbara McAlister’s blog

      Last night I stopped asking God, "what am I going to do with my life?" I have always had, at very least, a growing desire to DO something for people, something other than decaying behind a desk for the purpose of building a comfortable life. I knew I loved academia, but that knowledge was meant to be more than learned and then proven by diplomas. It was meant to be applied practically and purposefully as needed in befitting 'places' and places. One summer in Africa and introductory anthropology course - two and half months later I now recognize that with knowledge comes responsibility. The phrase sounds sadly cliche, butin the depths of linguistics, far below the crust of catch-phrases and buzz words, the truth of it's meaning yet remains and that ancestry keeps it from becoming so. In fact, that statement is the second most powerful statement of my life, second only to the words I strung together asking God to forgive me from my sins and take me as His own.
     Sara Groves, a Christian song writer known for her word-stitching creativity, wrote this piece back in 2007. It best speaks what I want to explain to you.

I saw what I saw and I can't forget it
I heard what I heard and I can't go back
I know what I know and I can't deny it

Something on the road, cut me to the soul

Your pain has changed me
your dream inspires
your face a memory
your hope a fire
your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
(what I am made of)
and what I know of love

we've done what we've done and we can't erase it
we are what we are and it's more than enough
we have what we have but it's no substitution

Something on the road, touched my very soul

I say what I say with no hesitation
I have what I have and I'm giving it up
I do what I do with deep conviction

Something on the road, changed my world

To micro quote, I saw what I saw and I can't go back. Or can I? Anthropology, though I love it, is like opening up a can of worms. It's fascinating, it's puzzling, it's mind-bending, and the further I go the more often I hesitate and ask myself, Do I really want to go there? Digging in means I become responsible for what I learn and it's doubt I will be able to justify continuing on my way as before.
      So I find myself standing before a partially open door with a choice to make.
             Option 1: close the door and return to what I knew life to be before, forgetting as best I can what God showed me there in the deserts, make a  comfortable life, earn a comfortable living, never have to worry beyond paying a mortgage, completing my projects, and getting the kids to soccer practice on time.  Comfortable. Stressful? Yes. Rewarding? Sure. Did I do something with my particular talents that God gave to me - me as in Barbara Helene McAlister? TBD.
             Option 2: open that door wide and pass through to take up the responsibility that became mine when I opened it in the first place by saying, "Lord, I want what you want." You might think the decision was already made then, but that was only the preliminary step. The desire was still to be tested. When God asked me this September, "Will you commit to me? Do you?" I said, "Yes Lord" It was then that I pulled wide the door which I had cracked open bit by bit over the last 20 years. Then today He extended His hand across the threshold to me and asked, "Will you?" and I reached out my own hand to His and took it. "I do." I cried, "With all my heart." I don't even remember if I bothered to close the door of the room I left behind me.
      When God made me He wove me with a vision just for me to dream and do. It is up to me to ask Him to reveal it to me, to inspire me with it. It is up to me to pray for it and prepare for it as one would prepare themselves to be a spouse - to grow in honesty and love, to learn self-control, to be bearer of peace and joy, to listen, to obey, to stand up and speak; all of these things and more as God shows me. In the act of crossing through the door I continued, "Lord, give me the vision. Inspire me with the vision of what it is that you want because I've crossed over now. I do want what you want." 

      The price of stepping through the door is that I forfeit my rights to decide my own path. But I have realized that I on my own I cannot stand and be counted as righteous, that I cannot have hope or real joy, that I cannot be a change-agent, that I am empty and nothing unless i submit myself to God. And then it is not about me anymore. It is about Him. Life is about Him. All of the human effort in the world is not enough to change it. Change cannot come from us. It must come from God. He must be the reason - and He is - that I get out of bed in the morning, that pursue my studies, that I love others and give to others. I can have no other reason than Christ in me. He is the hope and glory.   

This is how I know that I am growing up.

Our transatlantic flight was delayed at least an hour, all passengers on board. The hurricane warning kept a queue of 15 or more planes grounded, our being the last. I didn't sleep much as we crossed the ocean, though I did try, but my excitement mingled with over-tiredness shocked my system to a near state of ADD. Thankfully my seatmate liked to talk a lot and so did the steward facing us from our seats in the bulkhead. Robert, Navneet and I talked the night away (classical music, Swedish mattresses, cross-country cycling trips) and then watched Slum Dog Millionaire, a film I've waited a long time to see. It was the perfect opening to a trip in to another world. The preemptive forewarning that later held me together as I witnessed similar circumstances throughout my trip. I could not image what it meant for a child to live in filth in a shanty of cardboard, foraging in the gutter for food, toys, and merchandise to resell.

Finally, finally, we landed in Brussels. I said goodbye to my new friends, and spent the next 20 minutes trying to refrain from dancing down the near kilometer-long hallway to immigration. It was hard. Along the way I stopped at a WC to wash up and take some water. When you see something for the first time, everything in your view is delightful. Well, that included the WC. Yes, I took pictures. The moment i stepped through the door, I burst out laughing for it was so different. They don't have stalls, but tiny, individual toilet rooms with heavy doors. The toilet paper is odd too, though quite sensible. It comes from a dispenser in sheets of two so that you don't accidentally over-draw and waste half a meter of paper. After brushing my teeth (of which I have a video, yes, yes) I moved back out to the hallway where I was soon distracted by a pair of statues looking opposite directions. Of course, I had to stand there and take a million photographs, posing with them.

There is something about those first few steps on foreign turf. You feel electricity shoot through your veins as you say those words: Bongo, I've a feeling we're not in the U.S. anymore. It is a crazy, crazy feeling. Just when you didn't think you could stand any taller, you're suddenly walking on the ceiling, and if the ceiling weren't there, you'd be walking on the clouds.

Following a 1am packing spree, 2 hours of sleep, 3 ½ hour drive, and 4 hugs goodbye at security, I am now through the gate. Alone at last. Since Friday morning I've been living for this moment, when I would finally turn the last corner of the blue-carpeted hallway to sit quietly by the terminal windows and watch the planes come and go. It means no cell phone, it means no internet, it means no planning; it means I can do nothing more, and that is the greatest relief. Someone told me that the hardest step is onto the plane because you can't turn around. Mid-flight, the pilot is not going to sympathize with your home-sickness, regrets, or misgivings. “Sure son, we can turn this plane around. You've changed your mind? We'll be home in just a minute.”

I think the hardest moment isn't a moment. It's the press leading up to the moment of relief, when you finally turn that last corner. It's running the last errands, settling final plans, packing and repacking, fixing the things that didn't go right the first time. Once you turn the corner, there is nothing more you can do. Not immediately at least. It's the kindest relief. It's the sweet, cool air stirring past your ear on a hot afternoon when the sun beats so oppressive and heavy you lose your breath. You just let go, sit back, and give in to the ride you have signed yourself away to. I'm relieved, alright?

I hadn't spent five minutes on the Other Side before noticing a stranger in loose-fitted cotton pants and a plaid shirt. His unresolved eyes fixed directly on my tumbled hair. His companion, a similar-looking traveler, seemed to find my Merrell treckers fascinating. He cocked his head to one side and studied them diligently, as if looking for for an answer. And how did I see all these things without staring rudely back? Through my new ninja cut, of course! I haven't had bangs since I was eight-years-old. Yesterday I went to the hair dresser, closed my eyes, and told her to have fun. Five inches and quite a few layers later, my family doesn't recognize me. It's a mildly wild cut with curl and flair. The shaggy bangs constantly fall in my eyes, making intimate conversation difficult, exactly my point. It gives me an air of mystery. And I can see everything through the unruly fringe. But you can't see me! Edgy,l I call it, and comfortably distancing. I think it adds to my battery of ninja powers, along with super clean kitchens, onion washing, an indelible desire to laugh, and dancing to my ipod in the street. In the meantime, we'll just have to wait out this tornado warning.

     I've had since that slate gray morning in November of ham and cheese omelets with Eleni to prepare for this trip. Slowly and slowly I have gathered information, taken down names, read books, made connections, read more books, talked to travelers. Now I have only two months before I leave (I haven't even purchased the tickets yet, don't tell!) and I'm feeling very anxious about this. Did I do it wrong? Am I doing it wrong now? there isn't one right way to travel I guess, but there sure are a lot of wrong ways. The most important thing for me is to pack light. I do not want to be hauling excessive amounts through either the Mediterranean or Africa. So how many pairs of shoes does that add up to? Should I take hiking boots, should I take flip-flops, do I need tennis shoes, what about a pair of dressy shoes? Do I need a nice outfit just in case? Cannot forget that toothbrush! Every question births a new question, or maybe two. And the scariest part is that I just won't know what I got right and what I got wrong until I'm there. If I can just lay the fear and the feelings of being overwhelmed, I know i can get this figured out.
     It makes me shake my head in wonderment when I think about how I begged for this trip because I wanted to expand my world - I wanted a bigger view. I haven't even left the continent yet and I'm already overwhelmed by the enormity of my growing world in these last six months. It's too scary and many times in a day I want to run and hide because it's all too big for me to sort out and control. But look on the bright side, it throws me back into the arms of God - I know this whole long life of mine is a trek I won't be able to walk alone. God is my constant travel companion, he never leaves me, he always knows the way, and he has endless resources and connections. So even if the world is too big for me to handle on my own, I have nothing to fear.

This is the beginning of my bucket list, but by no means the end...

Things to do:
     Skydiving
     write a book of poems
     write a children's book
     write songs and cut an album
     play basketball again
     become a certified personal trainer
     meet George W. Bush
     meet the president
     try surfing
     publish that book of poems
     take a sculpture class
     model gowns
     correspond with a soldier on active duty
     bike cross country, maybe the whole country
     reach a height of 6'2"
     kiss the most handsome man in the world
     fall in love with him, permanently
     dress up
     teach women in a foreign land
     run a half marathon
     complete a triathlon

Countries/Continents to see:
     India
     Italy
     Greece
     All of Europe
     All of Africa

Languages to learn:
    Italian
    Arabic
    Spanish
    French

Instruments to learn:
     Guitar
     Voice
     Bass
     Cello

Return to ballet, modern, ballroom, tango, tap

It's the day you say "I do," but do you realize what you are saying? You might be beaming from behind a gossamer veil; or you could be the handsome man with the ring in his pocket and his bride filling his eyes. Whoever you are, you are making the greatest commitment of your life.This promise is one that you are swearing to live by until death. Most people don't realize that anymore. 40-50% of marriages in the United States end in divorce. Oddly divorce rates among conservative Christians if significantly higher than that of other faith groups. Wondering why? It is because those marriages are more impacting on a community when they last. A couple that not only sticks it out, but that has taken seriously that "the two shall become one," and is able to minister as a living example, have the power to influence many, many more husbands and wives to hold fast to their commitment, thus preventing broken homes and broken children that would only go on to repeat the standards of their parents. You have no idea how many struggling couples are watching you now, or how many will watch you over the years. The home is the foundation, the safety, for a child. If they cannot see and feel love, respect, and acceptance demonstrated there, there is no model, no proper faucet for filling the child with these much needed verbs and nouns. 

If I had a Mantasaurus I think that I might call him Boris.
Or Loris. Or Horace. Or maybe even James, but definitely not Doris!
I would have him wash my clothes, the pots and pans, and wipe my nose.
He would be just as good as any man, but he’d be a Mantasaurus.

If I had a Wrenchasaurus he would do the plumbing for us.
His name is Gus; he clears the rust into his coffeepot, nonplussed.
He’d twist, and twist, and turn the pipes until the water came out just right.
Except that I’d still have to bathe. Never mind the Wrenchasaurus!

Now a Hydrasaurus! He could take my baths! I’d never see the tub again,
Until perhaps 2010 when I turn five and five, and ten.
And then…my mom will tell me, “Noris! Go take a shower.
You smell so awful, like Maquiladoras” I really want a Hydrasaurus.

How about an Oratorasaurus? The kind you find in Moroccan forests.
I’ve heard they like to sing in chorus,
So it’s best if you find two or three so they can sing in harmony
While singing in their chorus. Now that’d be cool! An, Oratorasaurus.

My mom would like a Tergasaurus, and so would dad I’m sure.
In fact, they said they might send in for one that’s really poor.
“Because,” mom says, “he’d be so grateful. He’d always do his chores,
and eat his limas, for he knows it builds the health of dinosaurs.

“And where’d I sleep? I’d like to know!”
“We’d send you back instead.” My mom is adamant a dinosaur could fit into my bed,
and all because he won’t complain and does his stink’ chores.
Ha! I’d like to see a Tergasaurus try vacuuming the floor!

But more than any other kind -saurus, I’d most prefer my own Thesaurus.
Dad says they’re great for saving time while writing paragraphs or stories.
And even poetry, I’ve heard, would go a whole lot faster
If I had my own Thesaurus to be their wordy master.

         Italy came to me for Christmas. She walked through the door wearing red cord and a black beret, her face still glowing from the Italian summer sun. I had forgotten what vivacity sails in the door just ahead of her. It filled the room and flooded the floor so that it was almost too slippery to walk on, or perhaps it was my enthusiasm that made it difficult to stand. I flapped to the door to greet her. She was real! She was here! My one and only Laura Marini has come once more to the states. Laughing and shouting between mouthfuls of fruit and waffle, the icy film of winter dissipates and the room begins to glow with light and warmth. Even my fingertips regain their color, tingling at the rush of blood flow.
         "What have you been doing, Laura?" Zac bellows above the gleeful tumult. "How, how on earth did you get here?"
         "I've been studying physics at ze university," she called back. "I came on ze airplane, through New York. I arrived on ze tventy-third and spent Christmas with the O.K. Langs." Amidst more shouting Laura communicated that she would be staying until the tenth of the new year. Oh the things we will do! I thought.
         Already we have dawdled about town as we used but two years ago, though under quite different circumstances. This time Laura and I have no Spanish script to write and film. Sweet relief that is! Now we can trundle around all we like, peer in shop windows, laugh at the tourists, throw slush balls, and go sledding in all the wrong places - only the best that Great Barrington has to offer ;p There is iceskating to come, swimming and the sauna, attempts of true Italian cooking, games of cranium and charades, even tango and salsa parties. We have museums to visit, pictures to take, stories to tell, and many, many incapacitating laughs to enjoy. We have already begun to revive the spring, even in the dead of winter.

    What in the world could possibly run through a Massachusetts country girl’s mind that would urge her to throw herself into the heart of the blazing African summer with only a backpack, a camera, and a notebook, where nothing, not even water and air, are anything like home? Everything spoke against it - my safe-seeking heritage, the language barrier, my status as an unaccompanied young female, the extreme foreignness of the several customs and cultures, my parents, everything. And still the hollow call of wild Africa drew me from my native shores. It was the power of curiosity, so irresistible, that drove Pandora to unfasten the forbidden box of unknowns. The gift from her lover Zeus was too tempting to let be.  In the same way, the earth lies before me, ominously staked out by politics and war. But it seems a sin to choose ignorance and hide in the comfort of my small New England existence, never to know what it is to be 4 in Namibia, 40 in Chad, rich in Ethiopia, poor in Ghana, educated in Egypt, illiterate in Burkina Faso – to be in someone else’s shoes, or sandals, or bare feet, or what have you. The true and selfish reason that I answered that call was because I wanted to know; I wanted to know what it was like to walk at least a mile in someone else’s shoes. To never advance beyond one’s region or country is to hear only half the story. It is equal to reading one chapter of a book somewhere in the middle with no concept of what came before or what follows after. It is only part of the song, a few frames from a film, a picture torn in two. Left incomplete nothing makes sense; the image is fuzzy, the melody, the poem, the plot all lack completion.
    I like to say I am all about the experience. I do not want to carry much baggage; I refuse to carry a cavernous purse; I thwart the desire to own every material thing I think I want in life, because what I truly want are experiences, more than clothes, more than shoes, more than money or multitudes of books even. I want the only thing I can wrap up tight and slip into my pocket, the only thing that counts in the span of a lifetime, that which will not evaporate as other things do. Experience internalizes everything you may have heard about a place, a situation, or a concept. Think of reading about racism versus experiencing first hand what it is to be rejected for who you are; imagine climbing the fierce peak of Everest instead of watching the documentary from a comfortable fireside chair; picture what it is to be welcomed, though a stranger, into the heart of the village as I was. Life is about experience!
    Before embarking on this journey my French consisted of two phrases learned from our social worker upon the occasion of my youngest brother’s adoption from Burkina Faso six years ago: “C’est le temps pour dormir” and  C’est le temps pour manger” which translate as “it is time to sleep” and “it is time to eat.” It is enough to get around a city I suppose, the countryside, however, is a whole other potbrood (South African pot bread). Armed with these phrases, an English-French dictionary, some knowledge of romantic language grammar, and much determination, I acquired enough vocabulary that summer to keep up with the conversations around me and even developed a decent accent to boot. I traveled from village to village, city to city, and even from country to country, taking in what it means to be a part of this arid continent. Every week was spent in a new location, staying with a family, working alongside them, documenting each step of the way how they carry out an ordinary life.
    I worked fields, ground grain, learned to bake bread, herded cattle, cleaned up trash from city gutters, hawked fruit in open-air markets, accompanied statesmen on business, dug wells, dug graves, built homes, and sang and pounded in the occasional drumming circles. But the most universal of these acts through out all the countries I walked through was the dance. Not every region of any culture shares the same dances, but the style of their continent is undeniably recognizable from a thousand kilometers away. No civilized westerner in his right mind ever dances like that. He would be laughed out of New York and all the way to Idaho with no afterthought as to how a human being could possibly perform such impossible feats of endurance and elasticity. The semester of West African dance that I had taken my first year at Mount Holyoke is what brought me initial acceptance in almost every village I went. Not that I was incredibly good at it mind you, but I did dance with heart, losing myself in the music, flailing just as vigorously as the rest of them.
    The dance provided a means of communication that compensated for my initial lack of French. A language barrier is an isolating handicap; it prevents the outsider from feeling completely welcomed in to a new environment no matter how hospitable the host may be purely by the fact that one cannot easily communicate even so much as a simply thought. When we danced, however, it did not matter that I was a little WASPY girl from blue Massachusetts who sounded like a speech-impaired frog attempting to croak out discombobulated French. What mattered was that dance was a language we shared in common and could throw ourselves into together, understanding fully and completely what emotion each movements came from. That was how close I came to touching the heart of Africa.
    I know it seems I speak of Africa as casually as though she is one larger country, but from her northernmost tip unto her far south tail, no one village is the same. I walked  across Africa because it is nothing like what I know. It was like living in another dimension: no ipod, no laptop, no cell phone, no billboards screaming hideous ads - just miles of desert, mountains, crushing poverty, shameless wealth. Continued tensions between many tribes, as well as the remnants of genocide in countries like Darfur and Rwanda haunt abandoned villages and thicken the air. It is not exactly the kind of place nice New Jersey families go to on holiday.
    I will always retain a lasting impression, several lasting impressions in fact, of moments I spent with my hands in the bread dough along side them, the peoples of the nations, kneading out the problems of that less comfortable life one vigorous thump at a time. I went desiring to know how other people lived in the everyday, hoping that I could better understand them and maybe even better understand myself; and, perhaps use that knowledge to relate to all people that I encounter, to let them know they are understood. Opening my Pandora’s box may mean finding some, if not much, pain and suffering as is to be expected of reality. But I also hope to find other more hopeful things as well to nurture the ties, not so much between nations, but between people. Because of this desire, I cannot leave it all to someone else - a newspaper, a reporter - to tell me what in the world is going on. I want to go and see for myself: experience it, live it, not just hear about it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this experience is worth at least a hundred thousand.

Though the above events have not actually taken place (since I have never been outside the continental United States), they are a representation, a glimpse, of what I hope to experience.

Well, I'm back. Not in full force, not quite yet. I'm still getting classes, work, sports, and other commitments figured out in such a way that I can settle into the elements of a day. Watch, I'll just be getting the hang of things and then the semester will end and then they'll go and change things on me again! But that is because college isn't strictly about book learnin' any more. If that is what you think it is then enroll in an online institution and go live in a library carrel in the back stacks somewhere. You'll make lots of old, dead friends that way, but that won't help you relate very much to the living. Of course, if you're a lab-e then you might find yourself feeling pretty smug about now with that "hands-on" approach best known as straining-one's-eyes-under-a-microscope-to-look-at-cells-preserved-in-formaldehyde. That won't make you too many friends either. Not the real live kind.

More and more I care about people, and less and less about theories that don't work, or even one's that work but don't take the whole person into account. If I were on the pre-med track, you would not catch me - not in a thousand-million years, not if you paid me a thousand-million dollars - running the losing race of the bio/biochem major. It just wouldn't happen. The plan to study lots of tiny cells in a lab so that I can study lots more tiny cells in the  bigger and better labs of med school, so that one day I receive a stamped piece of paper that brings ill and broken people to my office day after day...whoa! who said anything about people here?! I thought I was dealing with capped scenarios and testtube experiments, problems that had answers, not emotions.

But that is not the kind of doctor I would want to be.

Sadly today, most angsty pre-med students I've experienced have become or are becoming that doctor. They get all their A's in school, but can't handle it when a real person walks in the door with perhaps multiple issues, all in need of address, including support from other human beings. They can't face another person's crisis with understanding compassion, only with astere lab data because that is what they know - the science, the cognitive, the reasonable, the rational, the tidy little bundle of facts that leads to a conclusions. They have not got the background to help the whole person, which is what really needs help, not just fragments, the whole person.

Since when has medicine involved looking out for the patience whole well-being? Since someone got smart and realized you can't cut off a limb and treat it. Every part is linked to another part which is linked to another part which in turn touches the source. People are not robots. They are not segmented creatures capable of compartmentalizing themelves completely. They need a new kind of doctor, one who looks at the being as a whole unit and takes every aspect into consideration; one who understands the link between body, soul, and spirit. The new doctor needs a broader education. More than a link to people, he needs an avenue, a bridge the size of the Golden Gate, to allow him to connect his medicine to the outside world in a way that will truly be effective. He needs to understand other cultures, know history and economics, develop a critical eye as well as mind, participate in a team experience, know good writing, produce good writing, attempt to understand the creative arts. He needs to dive in and take a swim in something other than formaldehyde if he wishes to be trully effective in his practice. He needs to see where someone else is coming from and he needs to know how to cross discipline bounds and find where they interweave, because they do. No discipline stands alone.

A person who can disperse the idea of these imaginary barriers and find a way to understand the world (their patient) as a big picture made up of lots of small puzzle pieces, will be the new doctor. The person who lives beyond the realm of Latin terms and ideal test tube scenarios can be that doctor. The person who is focused on the patient rather than on lab procedures is that doctor. They can mend body, soul, and spirit.