As Molly and I walked onto her property, through the curtain that gives privacy from the rest of the shantytown that is her neighborhood, I was wondering what we would talk about this afternoon. She is a powerful women - made of sheer grit, and also grace that she may or may not have yet acknowledged. It's not always clear why we visit her. Only that if we want to do any type of service or English class in the slum, we'd better have her as our front woman. And also, there is the rhythm of life that I cling to here - if I'm not in the lives of the people I live among, I'll start to wilt.
So we go out, late mornings or afternoons, and visit those we know, and pray for grace to connect, to allow ourselves to be tied in some meaningful way to the neighborhood. I needed that connection, yesterday afternoon. When the conversation led somewhat naturally into her past, I asked for the story of it.
It would be overly sentimental to say her story was completely unique…I've now heard versions of it from many different mouths. Still it rarely fails to intrigue. It begins with the marriage to a stranger, arranged at a young age, and a young man and wife migrating to the big city in search of something to build up and leave for their children. They rented a room for a little while, and then when she was three months pregnant with their first daughter, they staked a claim in an undeveloped plot of jungle, built a little hut out of wood and brick and spent their nights sleeping on a mat on the floor. He hired himself out as a day laborer, while she cut down wood to sell to restaurants to use in their ovens.
His family was not pleased that the ambitious daughter-in-law had convinced their son to leave the village. A few months after her daughter was born - in the hut - they came, and took their son, and their granddaughter, and returned to the village, leaving the young wife and mother to come to her senses and eventually follow them back.
But she didn't. She stayed, with her mama's milk running down her stomach and legs, and her heart breaking. Her brothers came to check on her every now and then, help her out here and there, brought a nephew for her to nurse. When it was clear she was not leaving, her mother-in-law brought her husband and daughter back to her.
Every year or so a new baby came - always born in the hut - until there were five. They added to their house bit by bit, and slowly the land around them was settled by other village immigrants, becoming what it is today - a strange, stewing mix of languages and cultures, sometimes blending, sometimes exploding.
A few months before I moved to Delhi, the government came and bulldozed the slum in the middle of winter. The residents did what they could to collect their bricks and wood and curtains, and rebuild. As she told her story, I looked around at her newly reconstructed house, the tired bricks having been mortared together quickly while officials' heads were turned.
Several women drifted into the house. One needed to borrow a knife, two needed advice on how to settle a boundary dispute. Their conversation rose above my level of comprehension as they communicated in the mixture of at least 3 languages that they've developed over the years of living, talking, and fighting together.
In the end, Molly and I had to awkwardly stand up in the middle of their chatter, our presence having been forgotten. They looked at us and as they realized that we had been left behind, we all had a good laugh.
As we walked home, I looked down and saw some mud splattered on my trousers. I had to smile to myself. It's always good to hear stories like those we had just heard - helps me to remember that a little bit of mud is not such a big deal.
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