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Only the inimitable Theroux could have uttered the words "Travel is only glamorous in retrospect"; for all its terse veracity it is often quoted whenever people talk about their trips and holidays. This fact of deferred appeal was also what led me to resist compiling a "blow-by-blow" account of my trip, something that I, in all my ineffectual verbosity, could easily have accomplished, to no end, and the reading of which would be like the consumption of a large round of bland, stringy bread. Much as the progress of a slow fire renders the toughest cuts of beef (already, the absolute deficiency of meat during the trip is beginning to show up in the more unexpected fashions) into tender, juicy (and I could go on forever) chunks of delight, the passage of time smoothes the puckered surfaces and files down the barbs of annoyances during a trip while bathing the pleasures in an even more golden light. It is difficult then, after that trip, to look back upon it without some measure of wistfulness, and that is the radiance that I expect to have as I translate my thoughts.
I had, rather hastily in fact, signed up for the trip in a rush of altruism, to want to make a difference somewhere, for all the usual reasons that volunteers have. I am also glad that never once during the run-up to the trip did I waver in the belief that the trip was for a good cause and that all efforts during the period would have to be directed towards this aim, and not towards any other which, while it would not in the context of recreational travel, would be comparatively frivolous. In fact I might have been overcompensating a little by bringing only the minimal necessities and a token amount of money, in anticipation of the frugal existence I would be leading, and barring circumstances, I would be forcing myself to lead. It was the preparation of the ground such that the maximal of psychological and intellectual benefits could be reaped from such an arrangement – this was the ultimate goal. The situation of the village being a total backwater would also aid in this, that, in the course of helping others, one would have to put aside one's trivial needs and wants in order to achieve that altogether more gracious and dignified end.
But as I think back now, I do think that such an expectation was terribly selfish to have. It was true that our lives were stripped of almost all material comforts that we almost mandatorily afford ourselves, things like running water, flushing toilets, beds and the like – technically unnecessary for survival, but not for a cushy life to be led. Often the greatest inspiration arises from the poorest of conditions, like so for Pythagoras, or van Gogh or Edison. But that is also a consolation for those who are deprived of such luxury because it leads them to think that austerity is virtue. In stark contrast to the subject of the fifth commandment, I too, lacking these conveniences, thought in that way. Somehow, in this perceived zero-sum game, massive and enlightening revelations were awaiting me as I eked out a rather (but not the most) basic survival-existence.
As the days progressed then, I began to drop such a pretentious assumption, for, one day, whilst playing with tops with the village children, and staring in disbelief as my top flopped to the dusty ground as the children performed amazing spinning feats with theirs, that no, we are selfishly accepting such an ascetic lifestyle for terribly selfish reasons, that is, as above, in the hope that it would help us think and succeed in self-introspection, but also, less obviously, it was like buying back the childhood, or the past that one never got to experience and could only gaze upon through the medium of old books and stories of elders, in the Dickensian way that the matchbook girl gazed through the frosty windows of the rich. Or it was like how people who have made it big, in the dregs of their lives, trying to barter their wealth for the return of the youth that they never did get to enjoy because it was exhausted in constructing their prosperous and secure futures. So while through the work of our forebears we need not lead lives such as this, of having to draw water from a well or plucking fruit from a tree, we still look upon such a lifestyle with anticipation because it is such an attractive respite, an escapist fantasy to the polar antithetical equivalent of the largely similar lives that we lead currently. And because such a transaction could easily be completed by exchanging it for some money and perfunctory service it seems like such a narcissistic and mercenary thing to do.
This of course was a hit on the well of altruism that was slowly filling in the course of our service, because then it lost its innocent sheen of wanting to help others and took on the unfortunate connotation of being done for a reward, non-monetary, but still contrary to the spirit of volunteerism. Naturally, the harder one worked, though the more one would feel that it was worthwhile, but also the more that one would suspect that the exchange rate for the wonderful things that were happening to one was being augmented.
Such a feeling abated after a while, because then the lifestyle melded into the things that one would consider "normal" and any comparison to the "original" was then minimal. It was now not one of the ways, but the only way. Simplicity is something that is rather difficult to explain; there is just something about working like a dog under the broiling sun for the better part of a day, then bathing in cool well water and then to sleep at 8pm that tingles the mind, and leaves it ready for the repetition of this the next day.
TBC
