Tomorrow morning we leave this holy city for the ten hour drive back to Delhi, this will be follwed by the flight to London, Heathrow the following morning.
I am so excited to see my family, 32 days has been a long time to be apart from them. It is not until you have been away for any lengh of time that you realise just how much you miss your family and love them dearly.
But I will miss India and I will come back, maybe not next year or the year after, but I will definatly come back. I want to take Doug to the Himalaya'a and Abbey to St Mary's School. I want Ellen to experience life and shopping lol. I want to return again with Janet and continue our work with the school and I would love to return with Anna. I want to see the smile on Siste rLily and Jancy's faces when I surprise them with a visit.
Evberyone I have met on my journey I would want to meet again, every hotel and room I have stayed in, I would stay in again. India is breathtaking, in many ways. The colour the people, the animals the dirt and filth all caputure you.
Everything is possible in India, I fell in love with the Tibetan and Hindu culture. And I feel privilaged to have met the Dalai Lama and many many more local people of great character and charm. The Tipi master in Pushkar, who managed to understand what I wanted him to make for Anna and the elephant who so graceful carried me up to the Amber Fort.
India is not for the faithearted, but there is something here for everyone. If you never make it to India in your lifetime you have never truly seen life at its hardest and most wonderful.
If our trip has inspired you, then I would ask you to visit www.mindthegaptravel.com the children and sisters at St marys would love to see you and India would make you very welcome.
Karen x
I am so excited to see my family, 32 days has been a long time to be apart from them. It is not until you have been away for any lengh of time that you realise just how much you miss your family and love them dearly.
But I will miss India and I will come back, maybe not next year or the year after, but I will definatly come back. I want to take Doug to the Himalaya'a and Abbey to St Mary's School. I want Ellen to experience life and shopping lol. I want to return again with Janet and continue our work with the school and I would love to return with Anna. I want to see the smile on Siste rLily and Jancy's faces when I surprise them with a visit.
Evberyone I have met on my journey I would want to meet again, every hotel and room I have stayed in, I would stay in again. India is breathtaking, in many ways. The colour the people, the animals the dirt and filth all caputure you.
Everything is possible in India, I fell in love with the Tibetan and Hindu culture. And I feel privilaged to have met the Dalai Lama and many many more local people of great character and charm. The Tipi master in Pushkar, who managed to understand what I wanted him to make for Anna and the elephant who so graceful carried me up to the Amber Fort.
India is not for the faithearted, but there is something here for everyone. If you never make it to India in your lifetime you have never truly seen life at its hardest and most wonderful.
If our trip has inspired you, then I would ask you to visit www.mindthegaptravel.com the children and sisters at St marys would love to see you and India would make you very welcome.
Karen x
I was following your jorney via Janet's pictures on facebook and am so pleased you enjoyed your time so much. A friend of mine returned from a month trip just as you headed out there. I hope I can go and see India and they Himalaya's one day too.
ReplyDeleteHello everyone and thanks Karen for such an entertaining time and blog.
ReplyDeleteI'll add my thoughts at long last, time now to reflect a little on what just happened and to enjoy all those fantastic memories.
For those of you who are wondering from Karen's comments just how I manage to survive day to day, it's easy to be like me when you're me and not nearly as crisis-laden as it sounds!
The crux of our happy times that shines out for me the most from our journey together is teamwork and how well we managed to help a wonderful project happen. Along with all your support and donations, we had the trust and support of Sister Jancy, Sister Lily and all the staff and pupils at St Mary's who welcomed us with open arms and gave us the freedom to introduce new ideas and style to their successful and orderly curriculum.
I have so many 'aha' memories that were perfect in the moment. Working with children who found difficulty in cutting, threading, painting, managing glue sticks and paintbrushes that they'd never encountered before and producing a piece of artwork that they were tremendously proud of is to me education at it's purist, and for me it doesn't get better than that. I lost count of the glue pots I refilled, the times I ran up and down stairs to clean brushes, replenish tissue paper, sequin pots, paint and sharpen pencils. Also the amount of noses I wiped and welcoming hands I shook each day.
Teacher training was a pivotal moment and one that I am glad that I encouraged Karen to run with despite her initial concerns. It's amazing what can be accomplished in an hour and it's a very different style to mainstream teaching. Leading my half of the session was a really enjoyable time, and the teachers gained an understanding of our project and our intentions and goals as educational professionals in a fuller and more meaningful light.
The day to day running of the project was fast paced and full of fun and laughter. We were immersed and we immersed ourselves fully in school life and life in a Tibetan hill station in the mountains of India. It was a unique and special time.
So, saying goodbye to the Sisters, staff and school children wasn't easy. Neither was it easy to say goodbye to Harry, our trusty driver who safely delivered us to school and back to our new found home each day. As for saying goodbye to India, it was au revoir for me.
Namaste India, I'll be wending my way back to the mountains and St Mary's before too long again, I am sure.
Janet
x