Today I woke up and realized with sadness that it is our last day here. The TCV, a quiet oasis in the chaos of India, has quickly become our home and our students have become our friends. Even though it’s a Sunday and we have to leave at 8 AM, the students still arrived to say final goodbyes. We were presented with hugs, more Katas and banana bread from Lhakpa’s parents.

Saying goodbye is harder than I imagined. The students wanted to know the time difference between India and Seattle so they would know when to check their email to find out that we made it home okay. They made us promise never to forget them. That’s a promise I know I will never break.

Before heading back to the airport, we detoured briefly to the Norbulingka Institute. This is a center dedicated to preserving Tibetan arts and culture. It gave us all a chance to wander through the tranquil grounds, temple Dorma Ling nunnery and watch the artisans at work, while we quietly reflected on our experiences over the past two weeks.

We discussed how meeting, bonding with these students and listening to their stories has been a life changing experience. Through their voices and stories we’ve learned so much about Tibet and its culture, and ultimately about ourselves too. I appreciate Getty Images for awarding me this opportunity and feel privileged to have met such amazing students and have witnessed the success of the Bridges to Understanding program. As the board president for another Seattle-based non-profit with a similar mission – Youth in Focus – this experience has energized me further in supporting and evangelizing important programs such as these.

Somewhat fittingly with our sad mood, it began to rain for the first time on our trip as we said our goodbyes to the other mentors and staff.

On the plane home, my husband Chris and I didn’t waste anytime and started to plan our return visit.

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Today is the 48th anniversary of TCV, and the Dalai Lama is the guest of honor. All of the Bridges to Understanding mentors and staff were invited to attend as VIPs.

Over 5,000 people attended the event and the campus was packed. Luckily we arrived early and settled into our front row seats in plenty of time. The crowds of monks, nuns and students in traditional costumes and school uniforms got louder and louder as his car drove into the arena.

The Dalai Lama nimbly ascended the staircase right in front of us. I was very overwhelmed but my husband Chris amiably said “hello” to him. The Dalai Lama grinned and returned the greeting!

The cultural program consisted of a parade, marching bands, dancers and (the highlight for us) the middle school performing a calisthenics display of which they have been practicing for hours and hours over the past few weeks.

We looked for our 12 Bridges to Understanding students as they created amazing formations, including spelling out Tibet Will Never Die, Inner Peace and World Peace:

The morning finished with a politically charged speech by the Dalai Lama in Tibetan. However, as my Tibetan is a little rusty (or actually non-existent since I don’t speak Tibetan) , Choeppel, one of the teachers, gave us a rough translation.

After lunch of traditional food and Tibetan butter tea (salty and undrinkable in my very British opinion) we were lucky enough to spot another VIP up close – The Karmapa.

We meet back up with our kids who are extremely excited to think we spotted them in their performance and I am reminded once again of their absent parents.

We decided as a group to ditch the three hour (fairly obscure) performance of the Tibetan opera and headed out for our last afternoon with the kids. They don’t get outside of their school walls more than once a month or so, so this was considered a huge treat.

They decided they wanted to go to Bhagsu so we started the long trek. We spotted many black faced langurs along the way and at one point ended up running from a bull near the church cemetery.

Some students and mentors went up to the waterfall we visited yesterday. Lhakpa, the constant guide, took us to a local Hindu temple. We had seen a few Hindu temples in Delhi but nothing like this. It was completely bonkers, starting with an entry through a lion’s mouth. Then you had to crawl on your knees through dark tunnels before reaching a shrine. This was all gleefully described by Lhakpa as the “Disneyland of religion.”

While we waited for the others near the temple pool, we finally discovered what a monk really wears under his robes:

I made a comment on the walk back into town that the kids must be getting tired after their performance and now a long hike. Menhla Tsomo replied back quietly, “Yes, it’s a long way. But not as long as our walk from Tibet.” I didn’t know what to say.

The mood picked up again when we reached the restaurant. We let the kids know we were treating and they ordered enough food for a small army! The evening was made even more special with the kids started making speeches to all of us, thanking us for the experience. Always fighting for the spotlight, Tenzin Seldon and Lekphel kept us entertained. At one point I thought Lekphel was going to thank the academy!

I looked around and the entire restaurant was watching us. I suddenly realized that the Bridges program had been a success and these kids had truly found their voices.

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This morning is our last working session. We have not been too worried as we only have a bit of finessing to do on our Bridges to Understanding digital story. However, after yet another poorly timed power outage, things start to get stressful! The ambient sound of dogs barking combined with the new transitions do something horribly wrong to our story. We had to spend several frustrating hours trying all variations of sounds until we finally tested it out on another computer. It is perfect now!  As the kids have been saying: “What do computers teach us? Patience.”  We happily turn in our files and take a much deserved break.

It turned out that Lhakpa forgot his uniform, which he needs for the evening’s film festival event. So we took the opportunity to hop on a tuk tuk down to McCloud Ganj so he could pick it up. He is one of the three students that actually has family nearby.

En route we stopped off at the oldest English church in India – St. John’s In The Wilderness. Lhakpa told us ghost stories as we gave ourselves a private tour, viewing the gravestones of residents that had died in a manner of explicit ways.

Further down the hill we met his parents who run a local restaurant. While we waited for Lhakpa to grab his uniform we watched the local wildlife run amok.

We still have several hours before the festival starts so Lhakpa offers to be our guide to a waterfall in Bhagsu, a town a few miles away. Lhakpa is now clad in uniform and totally unsuitable shoes for the long, uphill hike with loose stones on the path.

The hike was worth it. It’s extremely tranquil but freezing so I decline a dip. We returned by tuk tuk to the TCV where final preparations for the Dalai Lama’s visit tomorrow are in full swing.

The main school auditorium was the site for our film festival which was attended by over 500 students including the entire middle school. Needless to say, our students were very nervous! Each student introduced a digital story shyly but with great pride. Every story was greeted by a huge round of applause and some even received laughter. The “world premiere” was deemed a huge success by students, staff and mentors alike! What do you think of our video?

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Today we are completing the final edit of our project. I have spent most of my morning working in the Peace Center on the computer with the girls Dadon and Phunima. I have been helping them edit the narrative and we started the photo editing process. They picked up the editing program really quickly and we flew through it. Meanwhile, Chris was working with the boys to finalize the last few photos and create image credits.

After lunch, Lhapka and Chundak took turns editing the second half of the images while the girls got artistic and created title slides.

We were interrupted by a group of Norwegians who donated funds to build the Peace Center we were working in. The students suddenly became very shy around these new strangers and I realized then how far we have all come since the day we met (was that only 6 days ago?!). We are all now more than volunteers and students – we are friends.

By the end of the day, we only needed to create some transitions and layer in some ambient sounds. We are very tired from all of our hard work but also in a very good place to be ready for tomorrow night’s film festival!

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The calm of Sunday morning dissipated quickly as the students arrived. They listened attentively through a quick but comprehensive photography lesson from Josh and then they got busy with a photo ordering exercise to teach them how to visually tell a digital story. This kept us all busy until lunch. Before we could leave for lunch Tenzin Lhakpa stopped me.

“Before you got here, and I heard a group from America was coming, I thought you would be wearing a suit and tie and be really serious.”

I deadpanned, “But I AM really serious.”

He looked at me, flashed a huge grin and said, “No, you are not. And I’m really glad.” Let the bonding begin!

We were lucky to have a well respected Tibetan Monk staying at the guest house. It had been arranged for him to meet the mentors at lunch to answer our questions on Buddhism. He introduced himself as “Kunkhen – that’s Cancun in reverse.”

In the space of 30 minutes he explained why he became a monk “my parents made me.” Some fundamentals of Buddhist philosophy, “we are the center of the universe, it’s up to us to make waves out.” As well as how he remembers everything he knows, “I was beaten a lot as a young monk until I learned to stuff my robes with bark to pad it out.”

In the afternoon, as a group, we discussed the three story ideas that the kids had chosen. They were stories about the religious butter lamp, a nun-teacher at TCV that had been a political prisoner for 7 years and an old nun who showed compassion by rescuing the town’s stray dogs. Serious stuff! Once we dove deeper into these ideas we found the personal connections the kids had to each one. We formed three groups and started developing the narrative and ideas for the photo shoots.

Chris and I are mentoring the same group. Our students are Tenzin Lhakpa, Tenzin Dadon, Phumina and Chungdak. Our topic is about putting compassion into action – the story of the nun and her dogs (which is ironic as both Chris and I are very wary of the rather scary looking stray dogs here. It was quickly determined that Lhakpa would be our narrator as his large personality was always shining when he would explain his own story of why he is afriad of dogs (he was once bitten by “the deadly jaws.”) He has also decided that he thinks the nun in the story is a “crack.”

We finished our work on the project for the day and all headed down the 4KM hill for our first visit to Mcloud Ganj. We found a rooftop restaurant overlooking the temple:

Over pizza (apparently the international favorite for kids everywhere) Lhakpa informed us that he wants to become a monk because “he wants to get enlightened.” He and Lungsang then proceeded to try to teach us the complex, but entertaining, art of debating monk style, which made our heads hurt. After many comedy moments we gave up trying to understand and conceded to defeat, giving us a chance to escape to admire the sunset.

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Today we woke up early to watch the last presidential debate live. The Indian coverage of the election has been extensive here, both in the papers and on TV. I have been keeping an eye out in the Hindustan Times for Getty Images‘ photos and have spotted a few. Because of our jet lag, we have also enjoyed watching a lot of late night TV, including public service announcements (did you know that October 15 is global handwashing day?). The Salt and Pepper Show is another one of our favorites, it’s an entertainment news show where the host slips effortlessly, mid-sentence between English and Hindu – Hindlish if you will. We also watch a lot of snippets of Bollywood films. Just wait until you see the new adaptation of Macbeth that is due out soon – Maqbool (no, I am not making this up!).

On our to Delhi from Agra we stopped at our sixth Indian world heritage site – Fatipur Sikri. It is a huge abandoned city with intricately detailed sandstone architecture.

Then, the fabulous Kewel drove us (at top speed) back to the congested streets of Carol Bahr. He left us with his last unforgettable quote, “In India I drive 100 miles an hour, but in the USA I would drive at 120 miles an hour because there are no cow in road.”

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Up before dawn to view the Taj Mahal at sunrise; it was incredibly beautiful but very crowded (up to 20,000 people a day ). Guru, our guide, told us that there are two kinds of people: “those that have seen the Taj Mahal, and those that want to.” After a couple of hours, we headed over the Yamuna river to the “Baby Taj,” Itmad-ud-daulah tomb. This was equally stunning and detailed, but this time we were its sole visitors and we watched as workers restored it by hand.

Afterward, and after much persuasion, Kewel drove us to Sadar Bazaar. (He was extremely reluctant to make this drive due to recent bombings of other bazaars in Delhi.) He warned us we would be the only non-locals there, which actually appealed to us. It was the night before a big Hindi festival and the women (and transvestites!) were out in force buying their saris, bangles and bindi and having their hands painted with henna by the Mendhi-wallas.

After safely purchasing many shiny things…

…we headed back to our high security hotel, (2 armed guards check under each car with a mirror) for a quick swim at sunset, dive-bombed by bats and tropical birds.

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