Spa for the Oppressed

Several years ago I was sitting in my living room with several close friends. We went around the room answering the question, "If you had limitless financial resources, what would you do with it?"

"I would set up a nice spa in a third world country for oppressed women," I said, even though I know virtually nothing about the spa business. I was sort of kidding. But only sort of. I was picturing the DRC, Rwanda, Sudan, Afghanistan. Women emerging from the Janjaweed or Taliban's harsh rule and entering spiritual revival to the tune of massage and exfoliation in cozy white robes. Then after personal renewal (and if time allowed), I wanted to teach illiterate women to read and write. Okay. Confession: teaching illiterate women in third world countries was actually my dream, but if I have limitless finances, why not throw a spa into the picture as well?

Almost one week ago I sat in a remote village in northern India. Before I knew it I was living out my dream. Sort of. I was volunteering on a team of five women my age. We partnered with some local contacts in India who requested that we come and serve women in villages located on the outskirts of Lucknow, which is located in Uttar Pradesh (India's most populated state). In six days we visited nine villages, and our last village was the most remote. In fact, we were told that in this last village many of the people there had not been around white people before.

We set up two facing cots under a large tree next to two mud huts. On one side our team sat and offered free manicures and hand massages to the Indian women seated opposite us. One by one the women trickled over to our little makeshift salon. We washed their dirt-stained hands, filed their shredded fingernails, and used lotion to massage hands that felt like leather. From young to old their hands were strong and rough from long hours of work. As I made eye contact, language barriers prevented me from asking endless questions about their world, and in them I saw a great deal of mutual curiosity. One lady talked up a storm to me while I painted her fingernails. "I'm sorry, I don't speak Hindi," I'd say smiling. Didn't matter. She kept on telling her rather animated story anyway.

Women in the villages perceived our team as high and themselves as low. They looked at us and saw: American. White. Wealthy. Educated. They saw themselves as: Indian. Poor. Uneducated. Low caste. As a result (and especially in this last village) many of them could not understand why we wanted to serve them. Why did we want to even touch them? Wash and massage their hands? Paint their fingernails? Both hands?! (In India the left hand is considered unholy. Taboo).

Now. I know that these women understand fingernail polish and pampering because we almost ran out of polish remover. Nail polish is a universal language among most women and often needs no translation. And these women are the type that despite their poverty they still get decked out in bangles, earrings, saris, etc. just to work in the fields, make bricks, or prepare cow manure to burn for fuel.

I began to wash the hands of the Indian woman who refused to sit on the cot facing me. She sat on the ground instead. She believed that she should always be lower when around one of higher social standing. Call me American, but I wanted us to be equal. I was tempted to sit on the ground next to her but was advised beforehand not to do so as village outrage would not be worth the gesture. As I hunched forward to file her nails, I stared at her face and wondered what she was thinking. I don't think she ever stopped smiling once during the whole manicure. I prayed that she would know something of God through me.

If she has trouble seeing me sit on her level and identify with her, what will she do when she discovers a God who is willing to sit on her level, identify with her, and touch her every inner wound? This is who God has been to me, and this is who he leads me to be for others -- even if that means sitting in a remote village and painting the fingernails of a woman who feels unworthy to be touched by someone like me. Little did she know, as I served her, I felt God coming out of me. I recalled a conversation years ago, a dream about a spa for oppressed women, and then I smiled as I painted a second coat of red on her fingernails. Ok. Maybe I didn't envision cots under a tree or flies in my chai or a bush next to the sugar cane field for a restroom. But somehow -- oddly, strangely -- this was better. This was real.