love is in the loving.

This is my final post. Leaving on Saturday, I still don't want to talk about it.

I’m not sure this post will make sense; I’ve been trying to process so many things.

From my perspective, it’s like the feeling when you are falling in love, but then, at the very-last-second you look up and realize: no one there to catch you yet. You’re vulnerable, you’ve jumped, you’re falling, it’s too late to put your guards up. [This is, unfortunately, a feeling with which I am all too familiar]. I want so badly to stay, it breaks my heart to think that when I go back to Cambridge, there are so many girls that have been lied to, tricked, trapped – I’ll be studying my brains out in the library, but my heart is here, anxious to fight for these young women full time, not just for ten summer weeks. It’s like I’ve found this place, this job, this fight that I just want to fight so badly – I’ve gotten so attached and I’m all in. And yet, here I am at the last minute. Looking up wide-eyed and realizing – I don’t get to stay, not yet. I have so much still to learn before I can be a truly effective advocate.

But I know now, absolutely, that law school is the right choice for me. I can hardly wait for the moment when I do graduate (fingers crossed), when I can advocate for the most vulnerable members of the human race with all of my heart. I’ve realized something else though – even if I wasn’t in law school, even though my time in this place that I love is coming to an end – in all honesty, it’s not about ‘me’ and ‘my.’ It’s not about me at all. Here comes the hippie bit: yall, it’s about love. It’s about loving, wherever you are. Loving the people you expect to love – family, friends – but even more-so, finding the people (and it requires intentional, deliberate effort to look) who aren’t loved. Who are sick, and no one is there to hold them in their pain. Who are hungry in this world of plenty. Who are abused, but have no one to confide in, no one to run to. Hold them! Feed them! Protect them! Speak up and fight for them! Being unloved is a curable problem. I rarely have much money to give to causes. But I have so much love to give. We all have so much more to give – and trust me, the gift is in the giving. Love is in the loving।

As much as it hurts, knowing that I’ve fallen in love at a time when I don’t get to stay here, I also have learned that you can’t stop reading in the middle of the book. I trust, and I have faith, and I know that the ending is Good. If there is still oppression – if girls are still trafficked, if individuals are still starving in poverty, if a child sleeps naked outside my office on a piece of cardboard (and choose your cause here – my heart is in Calcutta, but it’s just as applicable: if we are turning away refugees when we have such abundance to share, or if women are making 76 cents to a man’s dollar, or if a child depends on one free school lunch a day for his only mean…etc) – if such injustice still exists, then the story is not over. Injustice changes when individuals refuse to be satisfied with an unjust status quo. We are individuals, we know that the status quo is unacceptable, and so we fight. As long as we keep fighting, the story isn’t over. I have faith in who wins in the end – and it’s certainly not the traffickers, pimps, and brothel owners. The ending is so good.

This is my last post, and now yall know how real human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children – of individual children – is. And so I encourage you – keep reading, friends. Don’t let this fight fade from your thoughts. Keep reading, and keeping fighting, advocating, and loving, however you can. Because the ending is so good.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

i get by with a little help from my friends.

This is a very special shout out THANK YOU post. A few months on the other side of the world could have been isolating, I could have been homesick...but thanks to everyone who so generously sent care packages, or letters (somebody tell Grandma she got a thank you...from a website.), or emails. These little reminders of home have meant the world to me.

The Starbucks Via instant coffee definitely made me a better intern - thanks parents! Thanks Steeles!

The box that was overflowing with leggings (wardrobe staple), twizzlers, and (inexplicably) a donkey toy from a Happy Meal...welp it certainly made me Happy! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Remember when I posted about the veritable electronics graveyard that was my life, after all my things got monsooned? My heart overflowed with joy the day a brand new, bright pink iPod arrived in the mail! Matt, you've saved my life both at work...

...and during the auto-rickshaw commute!

Yall remember Leah, the little girl who lives on the sidewalk near the office? Every little girl should have a special (preferably pink, whale-shaped) stuffed animal. Thanks William - your thoughtfulness lit up Leah's face today. She looked so curious at first, when I handed her the toy. But then, as she turned it over and over in her tiny hands, she looked up at me and just grinned, the way I child should grin - without a care in the world.

A million thanks.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

winding down, but not slowing down.

10 days left here. Not ok with me. I don't want to talk about it.

Instead...Nepal! Yall, this weekend was unreal. Kathmandu is the most gorgeous place I’ve seen – it’s this beautiful green valley, completely surrounded by the Himalayan mountains.

To summarize: I hiked to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery that is tucked away in the Himalayan foothills (and returned via a terrifying motorcycle ride with a generous Nepalese man who refused to accept any payment...the good karma was all he wanted!).

I rode a bitty airplane that flies around Mount Everest (especially loved chilling with the pilot in the cockpit - I asked if I could give the controls a go. He laughed right in my face.). I went to this temple called Swayambunath where there are monkeys EVERYWHERE. The temple is on top of a tall foothill, and you climb a million stairs to get there, and the monkeys just slide down the stair railings, and climb all over the various statues of gods. The mini babies, clinging to their momma monkeys, were precious.

At the top, there are all these pilgrims spinning prayer wheels and hanging prayer flags…and the views are breathtaking.

I drank delicious Nepali tea with mountain honey and ate a million veg momos (dumplings). I bought a tiny yak wool winter coat (don't tell my 6 month old niece!), and met the Sherpa who makes the yak wool.

All those things were extraordinary in Nepal, but my favorite part: I was able to visit 15 girls that IJM rescued 2 years ago and repatriated to Nepal in June. (Media coverage here) These girls had been kidnapped, trafficked to India, and forced into prostitution. They were raped, over and over, night after night, for months before they were rescued. Then they were in Indian aftercare for almost 2 years before they were finally able to return to their home country – I visited while they were at school – the girls are COMPLETELY transformed – the principal says she has a hard time getting the girls to go to their doctor appointments because they don't want to stop studying! And they were laughing and smiling and we hugged and hugged – I brought them some Bollywood movies and notes from IJM staffers, and they beamed with excitement about the gifts, and about their studies, and their restored lives in Nepal. There are still tough battles in their lives, for sure – psychological and emotional scarring, some battle disease and other physical consequences of being serially raped, and many long for their families (they live in a wonderful aftercare facility – often, in this culture, the family will not accept a girl back who has been a prostitute, even if it was so obviously against her will) – but even despite all that, the girls are THRIVING. They told me about a million times that they pray every day for other girls who are still trapped, and they pray for IJM. One of the girls gave me a bracelet off her wrist - she told me she made it and said "for you, auntie. thank you for coming to love us." Another wrote a note in Hindi for me to take back when I left Nepal. When the note was translated, part of it said, "This is Sushila. I hope that you all are doing well. Your love is always with me and I am also happy. We had never met Laura Aunty before and didn’t recognize her but aunty came to meet us, that’s why we are very happy."

I don't know if I've mentioned, maybe once or twice, how much I love this work, how transformative the fight against injustice is - for the rescued victims, certainly. But also for the people who commit to the fight. Remember when it was ok that women couldn't vote? Remember when the status quo in America was segregation? Remember how individuals across generations have confronted injustice head on and fought? The status quo doesn't change in a day, but it can certainly change. When you see fundamental unfairness, don't accept it as "the way the world works." Make the world work better.

Nepal-amalu?

It's going to be very difficult to post about my long weekend in Nepal. Sitting in the cockpit during a mountain flight with stunning views of Mount Everest, watching monkeys swing from Buddhist prayer flags, meeting several of the trafficking victim girls that have been repatriated, visiting with Tibetan refugees... gracious, I'm going to need some time to organize my thoughts. But until then, the photo you've all been waiting for, overlooking Kathmandu, with the Himalayans in the distance....

HERE WE GO STEELERS HERE WE GO!

xoxoxoxoxo

no bugs allowed.

Today, as I was preparing a presentation on child trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation that one of the advocates will be giving to a large group of non-profit workers, a cockroach scurried into the legal department. The monster was huge, a good 2 incher, and I reacted in what I consider to be a perfectly rational manner. I screamed “don’t-let-it-get-on-me-put-a-cup-on-it-trap-it-fast,” leapt up and sprinted to the far end of the office, and jumped onto the nearest office chair (my boss’s chair, to be exact. Which, luckily, she wasn’t sitting in at the time). Heart racing, I looked around and noticed that everyone – everyone – in the department was sitting calmly, while one of the other interns sprayed the cockroach, picked it up in a napkin, and threw it out.

After the situation had been contained (and everyone had stopped laughing at me) I made a sign, just to warn any future cockroaches that they are not welcome. Then one coworker altered the sign. Then another. Now, this hangs on the legal department door:

Some people just don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.

Other news: I’m going to Nepal this weekend! Long weekend in Kathmandu, a sightseeing flight for views of Everest, hiking and biking in the Himalayans – and a visit to an aftercare home where some of the rescued and repatriated victim girls live. Very excited for a mini-vacay.

xoxoxoxoxox

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!!

From the other side of the world, happy birthday, I love you x 50000000, and I can't believe yall are going to the beach without me. LOVE YOU MISS YOU HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

xoxoxoxoxooxox

my thing.

All of the interns have a thing. The thing that keeps us sane, allows us to feel comfortable, a touch of home. The admin intern must have yogurt. The investigations intern gets ice cream at least twice a day. An aftercare intern does yoga on the roof. Another goes to bookstores to sit and journal. Me? I run.

Since I moved into my new flat, I no longer have access to the little treadmill room I used to enjoy. I tried to adjust by working out with tae-bo tapes and P90X, but it's just not the same mind-clearing nirvana when Billy Blanks is yelling at you to "turbo charge it." So I made the decision, for my last month, to join Gold's Gym. That's right, there is a Gold's Gym.

And it is a little piece of heaven, an auto-rickshaw ride away.

I doorman opens the doors for me (I know I've turned at the correct building once I pass the goats tied to the tree and the man selling potatoes off a tarp. Have a mentioned the contrasts?). In the locker room, an attendant says, "chilled lemon water, laurakatedenny?" She gives me a hand towel. She fills my water bottle. I love her. I head to the cardio studio. Another doorman opens the door for me. Head to a treadmill (with a screen!) and a ripped trainer sets it on 10 minutes at a leisurely stroll (which I immediately change to 45 or 50 minutes at a pretty hard pace). I watch Bollywood music videos, and techno versions of all my favorite songs blast through the speakers. Today, a techno remix of country roads / you are my sunshine was playing. It was brilliant. When I head back to the locker room, I get another offer for "chilled lemon water laurakatedenny?" and a big warm towel and a hot, water pressure-y shower. Aaaaah.

And then I walk back outside. Horns are BLARING, goats are making goat noises, rickshaw drivers are yelling their destinations, men are doing electric work and sparks are flying, sometimes it's monsooning. That's why I need my thing.

In other news, always more excitement at the office: 2 girls rescued last week, the court denied custody to a dummy parent (a person paid by the brothel owner or pimp to try to get the girls back), we are doing some exciting work with the Department of State's TIPS report, and another new intern came this week. Love love love love it.

And finally, if you read this far: This sign is on the building next door to my apartment. I think it speaks for itself.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo