Fascination

I was supposed to get ready for my trip to Langkawi. Instead, when I came from work, I could not stop drawing. I’ve made many sketches recently, but this one is my first finished drawing in at least 10 years. I call it ‘Fascination’…

Blinkin' it!

Today is one of these occasions when I can't help sharing something a little personal and something that makes me so happy.

After many months of experimenting, inventing, working hard, and, at times, waiting patiently, the company, which was founded by Vishen, Mike and me - our very own MindValley, has come up with a cool product. I'm proudly presenting to you the BlinkList! I've got totally hooked on it, and it has nothing to do with me being part of the team. It just makes life so much easier. And the best part is - we are still working on making it better and faster.

Here is a review about BlinkList, which I saw a few days ago. I have no words to describe how proud it makes me. I'm so grateful to and happy with our MindValley team - guys, you are amazing!

A picture is worth a thousand words

Following the saying, these pictures are worth 144,000 words. I've uploaded some of the pictures from the international AIDS congress in Japan. You can see them on my website. Enjoy!

Stories without pictures

My husband Vishen was asking me why I make all my postings about Japan without pictures. I’ve taken more than 1,000 pictures from my trip to Japan and the international AIDS conference, which I attended in Kobe in the beginning of this month. I have pictures of every single person I was writing about in my last few postings. Yet, I will not put these pics up.
I will not betray people who shared their stories with me. I am just a narrator, so I will be the only one exposed to my readers.

Well, I’m planning to upload the nicest photos from Japan on my web-site, as usually (some time soon). So, no worries – you’ll get to see everything, and then, you can make your guesses, if you wish.

A woman’s story

She has changed her name, her four kids have changed names and schools, they live in a different city – she was a victim of domestic violence, but unlike most women battered by their husbands or families, she managed to escape.

When I met Ayano, she had been separated from her husband for over three years. She looked quite happy with her life, although she had to keep up two jobs throughout the week with no days off and take care of four kids and the whole household with no one to help her. Ayano wanted to give a good education and a better future to her kids. She was so gentle and sweet – the true mother.

Later, I asked my Japanese friend from a support centre for migrants about Ayano’s story. She came to Japan many years ago from the Philippines to work as an entertainer and earn money for her family back home. Two years later, she married a Japanese man. Then, her life turned into hell. Her husband was despotic – he was suspicious, kept her locked at home and would get furious if she was delayed for a few minutes when he sent her out to bring him cigarettes. Ayano’s new family was abusive – her husband's cousins insulted her for being a foreigner and made her do their laundry. On top of all this, Ayano was beaten and humiliated by her own husband and his family.

Ayano is a strong woman – she found courage to change her life. She carefully planned her escape for nearly a year. Ayano had to be very cautious not to be discovered by her husband’s family, making secret phone calls to the support centre whenever she had a chance. Moreover, Ayano had to escape with all her four kids, leaving her husband no chance to manipulate her.

Now, Ayano lives a new life. She has not been home in the Philippines for over 15 years and has almost no family in Japan. But she has new friends to help her. Looking at this woman, I was thinking that she will definitely make it – she has determination, courage, self-respect, and great love to share with her children and friends.

Queer II

Gays are the nicest, friendliest and cutest people. And most of them are handsome, too.

After having been surrounded by hundreds of gay-men for 5 days at an AIDS conference in Japan, I came to a conclusion that if all homosexuals could step out of the closet right now – the world would have probably been a better place.

PS. I met boys from the “Blue Diamond Society” from Nepal – some of their friends had been prosecuted and jailed for being gay.

Queer I

Questions of sexuality are an inevitable part of a proper AIDS conference. Apart from making friends with sexual minorities and watching demonstrations of 48 various sexual positions at evening parties (which I missed, by the way), sexually-not-exposed people had a chance to just ask questions that had been bugging them since they started understanding the concept of genders - ca. 5 years of age.

Being no exception, i.e. not much exposed and having many unresolved questions, I decided to educate myself a little in the science of sexuality.



First things first, I and a few of my colleagues asked a lesbian friend to explain the terminology. Well, bad news – I forgot politically correct terms in two days. But I’ll try to share my knowledge to the best of my abilities with the rest of innocent and uneducated people.

Both trans-gender and homosexuality can be expressed to various degrees. Trans-genders are people who feel that their physical body does not reflect their actual emotional and mental state of being. Some trans-genders just cross-dress. Some trans-genders go further to correct the mistakes of nature and surgically change their gender.

It becomes weirder. Trans-genders may be both hetero- and homosexual. If a boy-by-birth becomes a female and has sex with men, such trans-gender is called hetero-sexual. If such woman still associates best (has sex) with women, such trans-gender would be homosexual.

There are trans-genders who retain both their original sexual organs and those of an opposite sex. Their psychology is beyond my understanding, although I had a chance to make friends with one of them.

Homosexuality is just as complicated phenomenon as trans-gender. By the way, to those especially unexposed – trans-genders and homosexuals are completely different breeds.

Apparently, not all people who have sex with people of the same gender are homosexuals. Homosexuality is a psychological state of mind, when people best associate with their own gender. MSM (men who have sex with men) and WSW (women who have sex with women) are the new terms for people who psychologically are not homosexuals – they have sex with their own gender due to social pressure – dogma and stigma attached to sex. Having sex with their own gender is their way out of restrictive environment.

Truly a rainbow of different ways to express oneself! This is just a tip of the iceberg – I’m just too ignorant to go deeper. But I am quite sure that straight are just as bizarre as queer – there must be million ways to express one’s heterosexual inclinations, too.

People

I’ve always been most impressed by people. It was true when I was in AIESEC, and it was certainly true when I was attending an AIDS conference in Japan.

The conference was huge in my understanding – a little less than 3000 delegates from all walks of life – starting with policy-makers from national governments and huge international institutions, such as UN and World Bank; to medical doctors, professors, clerics and academicians; and finally, to the most vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as drug addicts, sex workers, homosexuals, transsexuals, and migrants.

I have worked with politicians at other meetings, visited doctors in their clinics, and seen prostitutes on the streets - all this while, we have been on different sides. In Kobe, for the first time, I was able to see everyone who was surrounding me as equal individuals with no ranks or labels. High-flying politicians occasionally showed incompetence in HIV questions and most neglected sex workers turned out to be active NGO leaders.

My most memorable encounter of being among amazing people happened at the opening plenary. The event took place in a huge theatre hall with even the balconies packed with people, cameras clicking and news crews filming, with an awesome cultural show that sent shivers down my spine, and lengthy politically-incorrect speeches by VVIP guests. At the end of the opening ceremony I found myself on stage with a bunch of fellow colleagues from various NGOs. I ended up in the front row, and as I see it now, by a freaky accident. I had done nothing at all to find myself among such amazing people in the lime light for 15 minutes. To my total confusion, I found standing next to me Marina Mahathir – she is the most prominent AIDS campaigner in Malaysia, public figure and, on top of that, daughter of Malaysia’s beloved former prime minister.

The speech, which was given by a representative of our group, was probably the most beautiful at the whole opening ceremony. The girl revealed her HIV positive status and told of her every-day troubles. If it wasn’t for a huge screen showing every detail of the people in the front row, I would probably shed a tear or two. The speech was really good – simple and sincere. I just wanted to go and hug the girl.

The icing on this cake was an episode that happened a few days later. No need to say that after such an exposure, many people at the conference recognized me. One day, I met a group of people from Indonesia, and one of the guys asked me: “So how long have you been positive?” I was surprised as to why he thought I had HIV. Apparently, some people thought that every single individual on stage during that speech was HIV positive. Well, they must have missed the point – we were representing a coalition of regional NGO networks. Guess what - my news brought about a sigh of relief.

Lunch-break philosophy

It is amazing how fast the mystery and miracles fade away once we are back in our routine.

I'm still in my 'Japanese mode', finding somewhat surprising occasional rudeness, inefficiency and stupidity, which we inevitably have to encounter in every-day life. It takes an effort to say: "Oh, yes, it's normal - I'm back." As hard as it is to realize that the holiday is over - it is really over. Despite all the subconscious struggle and rejection of the fact, my physical substance has switched back to 'every-day Malaysian mode'.

The experiences of just a few days ago now seem like they happened to someone else. I look at my photos and see people on them as strangers. Yet, it all happened to me. It is too bad that I had no time while in Japan to write down everything what I was thinking of. Just as it seemed then that the whole world had changed, it feels now that everything is exactly as it was before.
I think that experiences do not really change people. Only the routine can change us.

Speaking in more practical terms, while in Japan, I did not expect to come back to the same frustrations, the same problems and the same perception of the world. There, it seemed like everything earthly was washed off from my head for good. Here, it seems that my excitement over completely new issues was just a short break. Well, here I am back to 'normal'.

There are still so many things I wanted to share about my experiences in Japan. Tonight, I have an exceptionally free-of-plans evening at home, so, I'll try to get back into my most intensive 'Japanese mode' and put them all on paper before routine kills the last traces of memories.

Translation

Some people were puzzled by my last blog. I suppose I owe my readers an explanation.

First of all, I do not believe in hell. And ‘the sins’ I was talking about are normal things like anyone does every once in a while. The exaggeration in my last posting was meant to emphasize one simple fact. We often get so engrossed in our personal matters and dramatize our own experiences to the extent when we don’t notice that the world is already very complicated and interesting – there is no need to invent anything new.

Hope this next encounter will make my point clear. Just a few days ago, I was talking to a trans-gender sex-worker. She was telling me that she was not always a girl. Depending on her moods, at times, she was a girl, at times – a boy. I don’t remember the exact words, but she said that her “body has both the boys and the girls parts”.

A few moments later, I was trying to explain my origin – born in Belarus, lived in 5 countries, consider myself Estonian, etc., etc. I guess it was due to the language barrier, but my friend could not really understand me, so I just concluded: “Well, I am a little complicated.” Then, in a moment, recalling that I was talking to a creature who could not decide on her own gender, I found my complications with the origin really funny and added: “I guess not as complicated as you, though.” We had a good laugh on that and proceeded to a party.

The world out there...

We all have small and big sins. Just last night, tortured by an unexpected jetlag, I was lying sleepless in bed and thinking of all the bad things I had done to other people. It is important to be able to forgive yourself. I learned it a few years ago when I decided to give myself an indulgence and let my past mistakes go. I have no idea what brought back those thoughts last night, but I fell asleep with a firm conclusion, that if there was hell, I would end up burning in it.

The next day was really pleasant, though. I had my first proper Japanese meal (quite an achievement for a person who never sets foot in a Japanese restaurant), met up with my good friend from Nepal, and spent a very pleasant evening in the company of nice people.

We were having tea and coffee in our hotel room with three colleagues. That was the first time to Japan for all of us and we were having lots of fun sharing the experience when, suddenly, Juharto, a conference delegate from an Indonesian NGO, knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to buy pearl jewelry made by HIV positive people.

It is amazing how in one hour the whole world may turn upside down. We had the most exciting conversation, and the most unexpected, too. Juharto is an HIV positive homosexual in his 40s. We talked about living with HIV, breaking stigma, admitting homosexuality, sexual dogma and hypocrisy, sex with transvestites, drug addiction – we could not put a stop to this conversation. It was so open, so direct, so shocking and provoking. How often do you get a chance to ask someone in his face: “so how has HIV affected you sexual life?”

When Juharto left, I realized how little we see the world outside our own little bubble. I was bothered with my long-ago-forgotten mistakes and tolerating Japanese food a day before the most exciting conference I have ever had chance to attend. How many more HIV positive am I to meet here and talk to? How many homosexuals, sex workers, drug addicts, philanthropists and altruists am I going to be able to ask straight in their face about very personal issues?

Sexuality is another never-ending philosophical debate I’ve had with myself since I started working for CARAM. There are so many questions that are burning my mind – what is right, what is wrong and who has the right to judge.

I know that when the event is over, I will have more questions than answers. But does it matter? The most important is to open your eyes and look out into the world around you – see the people, feel their pain, think their thoughts, smile with their joy. We are all the same - so similar, yet so alien.

I feel almost ashamed to have bothered with silly trifle matters. But I forgive myself and let it go. I’m so happy to be here, it is amazing. I feel like I have finally opened my eyes.