Failure To Operate

This morning one of my fears concerning the metro, which we travel by almost daily, occurred.

The metro stopped and all of a sudden the loud speakers came on and were announcing something which I assume to be pretty important, but because I do not speak the language I had no idea what was happening. Then in the same second everyone, I mean everyone, starts running out the doors. Me and Natalie follow behind, because it's rather obvious there is something wrong.

Again, my fear:  on an underground metro, in a foreign country, loud speakers announcing a message in a foreign language (that sends everyone running for the doors), and hundreds of people flooding the one of two exit choices we have. Bad situation.

I didn't know what was going on. Fire? Accident? What else?

But I do know that if you don't fight your way through the crowds of this city, you won't get where you are trying to go. Because of the language issue, we were a bit delayed on getting the message to exit the metro, therefore we were one of the last ones off. We stood in the door of it for a while, because the line up the stairs and out of the station are so long. I step off and turn around to see the door closing on Natalie. I freak out. I don't think, which is good and bad, but go straight to fighting to keep the door open to help get her off and whoever else is on...because I have no idea the severity of the situation and why we are being rushed out of the train and up the stairs. I do what I can to get the doors open (like superwoman, seriously I wish someone would have taken my picture at that moment...haha) and eventually it's open enough for Natalie to get off. As soon as she's off, I grab one side of the door and she grabs the other and we pry that thing all the way open - using our entire bodies to hold it so other people can rush off. I'm struggling. She's struggling. And men stand around just watching. Seriously...no one helped. They stared, that's for sure, but no man took action. Can I add this to the list of my annoyances with most of the men in this country (not all - the Lord has blessed me with the ability to meet some amazingly Godly men in the city and show me hope in all the ugly)? Them being men who are useless in every context of the word. The moment everyone was off and we were in the massive blob of people flowing up the stairs, my only concern (minus the situation at hand, obviously) was preventing myself from being touched, because at that point I was vulnerable - their was a man on every side of me. Talk about a crap situation. I just had to laugh at all of that. I didn't know how else to react. Wow.

Anyways, from there we rush out of the metro and do our best to make it to Sari Bari after being forced off the metro in a location we are absolutely unfamiliar with and having to figure out what to do next. Nevermind the fact we are white and stand out like sore thumbs, but also being in a situation like this where you don't speak the language you feel just that more helpless. Thanks to Natalie and her amazing observation skills and something of an internal compass, we made it to Sari Bari. Only 30 minutes late, too. Not that bad. But seriously. The men today...no words. Complete picture, complete picture.

I'm ready for the women to take their voice here in India. All of them.


In addition to all this, I want to tell a small story from our Mama T's visit yesterday. Mita, who is one of my favorite kids at Shishu Bahvan, is blind. Because of that (in combination with mental disabilities) she has been slow to stand, slow to walk, and speak. But yesterday as we sat down with the kids to sing the morning songs, Mita scooted herself over to Natalie and sat in her lap. After a little time, she used Natalie's arms to stand and lean against her. Then Mita started falling forward and backward. Of course, as she fell forward, Natalie would have her arms stretched out to catch her, but Mita didn't know that. Mita trusted that. She cannot see...literally, but had faith that she wouldn't fall when she was in the arms of someone she knows loves her. So many lessons to be learned from these kids. It's beautiful. Since when am I that trusting? I'm blind of the path that the Lord has laid before me, but I still tend to do what I can to mold and shape it, because I fail to have the faith his arms are there to catch me. Lessons.