Another letter to a Yoga friend:

June 23, 2008

It’s just so easy to write to you of all this. Why? Other people would understand, of course, but they would worry about me too much. I feel like you understand that when I struggle with what I see, it’s the thing itself that troubles me, not its effect on me and my life. I, after all, have a departure date, however buried into the future it may seem at times. I have a place to go ‘back’ to, a culture, or at least a community within a culture, that shares my essential values and beliefs.

And so I write to you, to tap into that community, because I need to draw on that connection now.

Let me preface this by saying I remain in a relatively balanced state of mental health, at least as far as happiness goes. As far as remaining ethically sound, I’ll get to that in a moment…

I have not yet crawled back into the cave of depression and resentment that held me for several months, though the pessimist in me sleeps with one eye open, awaiting the fall. I keep reminding myself it need not come - people do break cycles eventually, isn’t that, after all, the whole point of Yoga? But I have been through so many false starts, new beginnings, thrilling highs always followed by the inevitable crash that my own naivete in believing ‘it will be different this time’ seems as much my greatest weakness as my greatest strength.

Listen to me…a little dramatic, huh? As if a heroin addict constantly on the verge of suicide…no, it’s always little old me and my little old mind - and the lows are never worse than some tears and maybe a chocolate bar too many to easy the pain - though those are harder to come by than you might imagine out here.

So what is different this time? For one, I currently have the most consistent and regular Yoga practice I’ve ever had outside the ashram - so that’s a big thing. I am still struggling to keep asanas in my life…but I have been able to build a daily practice of meditation, pranayama, kirtan, spiritual reading - and finally start to disentangle the world of karma yoga from the very confusing web of Responsibility, Charity, Duty, Sympathy, Dependency, and other such confusing concepts that comprise my ‘working’ life.

But anyway…I want to talk about rape.

I don’t know what is more disturbing - what I heard today or how I reacted. I don’t know if my cool detachment is a sign of spiritual progress or moral decay (I find myself wondering that a lot here).

A fellow male volunteer once told me, “There’s no real difference between rape and courtship here…” and it’s a line I’ve repeated often to others yet inwardly believed or at least hoped was a gross exaggeration. Just look at all the ‘good boys’ I know here.

So today, after almost a year on the island, a young cousin-brother who is the closest thing to a male friend I trust & respect here casually mentions raping several women…

My first instinct is to create immediate distance and display my disapproval, especially as he’s laughing about it with his friends (including a 22-year-old girl who is laughing with him at how dumb I am for not ‘getting it’). But it suddenly seemed so pointless. My disapproval means nothing to anyone here, nor should it really, beyond momentary embarrassment. They understand that I live by a different set of rules - in a crazy place where you’re not supposed to lie or steal or rape or beat children, but no one sees this as relevant, no more important than women wearing pants in my country or having long hair.

So then I tried to curb my reaction and focus on information-gathering, understanding. What exactly does force mean? Why force? Do you feel bad? What if she screams? Struggles? Cries? Methodically we discussed all the scenarios. Incidentally: “I never had one that cried, so I don’t know. I guess I would just let her go, cause if she cries that means she feels really bad, right? Plus, she’d probably report it…”

And so I listened, and learned how the ones that swear at him will definitely get it because it becomes a competition thing, that if they scream for help they’ll get let go since they’d tell anyway after, though most don’t scream, and they never try to fight him off - because, after all, most of them want it anyway and are just playing hard to get - and the young girl with us is laughing too and nodding, and suddenly I’m the only one too stupid to understand a basic game of cat-and-mouse where usually no one gets hurt.

And as I listen, scarily I begin to understand. What is a right here? There is no such concept of individual freedom in this culture. I listen how he would never rape someone from a different island (one hopes this automatically includes those from a different country, as well) but woman-Tongoa, they belong to him…

And of course, they do. Because in Vanuatu when you pay for a woman, she is yours. And when you father a daughter, she is yours until someone else buys her from you. Property - like a cow, a piece of land, a pencil. And if you grow up with that basic principle of ownership, then…what then?

And I look at him and my anger melts. He is family, after all, and I do love him like a real brother. He’s a good kid…he didn’t design the world he grew up in…what’s that part in the bible (which I never saw before Vanuatu) when Jesus says it’s not the healthy people that need a physician? I decide to continue loving him, and that I won’t walk away from this issue…but I will leave it for later, when we are alone and he can speak more honestly.

Will I think more carefully about being alone with him now? Nah, not really - he’s still the boy I feel safest with and this doesn’t change that. It’s all a game here, and even if I don’t get the rules, everyone else does and they do live by them.

I know he trusts me now, more than before, enough to share this stuff - and I do feel honoured, and I want to keep that trust.

I cannot help but think that Christianity does so well here because of the constant redemption - as long as you’re sorry on Sunday God forgives you. Judaism has far too many rules to follow, and Yoga would be far too much work.

There is that simplicity about Christianity I find compelling, and even wish I could believe in, but something just doesn’t sit right with me about it. I am struggling - a true Yogi would see God everywhere and rejoice in any house of worship, but I have so many inner blocks about it.

So anyway - is this afternoon indicative of a step towards true understanding and unconditional love? Or a sign that everything I’ve ever stood for is weakening, that I am giving into the madness around me, that I’ve walked into the rainforest and sold my soul?

What would Swami Vishnu do? I think he would use Love to build a bridge to knowledge. I think he would trust God that a person will come when he is ready. I think he would advise me to do the same.

I have a Christian friend, another volunteer, who is always talking about different things God has told her - casual conversations, big revelations, etc. I wish I had that confidence…that certainty that all I had to do was listen…