Heart like a well
I AM PARTICIPATING in a Habitat for Humanity build in southern India, 3 hours’ drive from Mumbai, in a village called Nagewadi, near a river in a lush jungle. No electricity here, no running water, no paved roads.
All day long, ladies wearing colorful saris carry water from the river in shiny silver pots balanced on their heads. One, two, three pots. Little girls emulate their mothers, carrying one small pot. Fetching water is women’s work, I learn. A man would never, ever carry water. It is an incredible waste of time and talent. The women could be so much more productive if they were freed from the burden of fetching water.
Joining our team of 50 airline employees is an investment banker, Chris, and his teenaged son. Chris himself has funded 9 Habitat builds in various parts of the world. His son has given up a school vacation, time with his friends, a break from studying, to come to India, to build houses in the hot sun out of burnt mud bricks made of water, straw and cow dung, that universal building material- plentiful, renewable, free. Chris and his son are admirable. They are wealthy, privileged, entitled, yet possessing of a social conscience, a humanitarian heart.
When we finish the build, we drive back to Mumbai, 3 long hours in several vans. We stop at McDonald’s for lunch, the organizers having called ahead to place a takeaway order for 50. McDonald’s is vegetarian in India, no Big Macs here! We pick up our lunch bags, names written in black marker on the outside. Chris comes over to me, smiling. He holds up his bag. ‘Christ’ it says. “Chris,” I say, laughing. “You got a promotion!”
One morning several months later, Chris boards my flight. He lives in New York, I live in Florida, yet here we are on the same flight, Los Angeles to Atlanta. Delighted at this unexpected reunion, we hug each other. He looks so corporate in his suit and tie, white shirt immaculately pressed, cufflinks at each wrist. I am the flight attendant in charge, and I will be serving him in the first class cabin. After the lunch service, Chris comes into my galley.
We talk about India, the seven houses we worked on, the three we completed, a minuscule drop in a bottomless bucket. You could build houses for 250 years in India and there would still be people living in squalor. Yes, those houses meant everything to those seven families but you know what that village really needs?
“A WELL!” Chris and I say in unison.