last day here

(delayed, originally written wednesday 7.9)

I'm writing this on a bittersweet note: today was our last day at the home. Tomorrow, we head to Bangalore for a night before flying north to Delhi on Friday. Though I would have liked to spend one more day teaching, today the nuns took us volunteers on a two hour drive to the village of Maradiyur to visit the site of an orphanage under construction. I use the phrase "under construction" leniently. Currently, there isn't much more to see than three nuns living in a small home on five acres of land, but their optimism is incredibly encouraging. Mike, Home of Hope's volunteer coordinator, mused to us on the jeep ride about devoting substantial time next year to the completion of the construction of the Maradiyur home and school. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It's even more remote than Josephnagar, the nearest city being Hassan, two hours away. Somehow, though, I doubt being off the beaten path will hinder these nuns from accomplishing their goals.

We had a chance to do some local sightseeing as well, which was refreshing. Our first stop of the day was Bylakuppe, a Tibetan Buddhist settlement between Hassan and Maradiyur. Bylakuppe, too, is isolated, but in a much different, much less physical sense than Maradiyur and Josephnagar. Bylakuppe is isolated in a cultural sense; its people and societal norms are incongruous to that of the rest of Karnataka. No real question as to why, though. For one, almost everyone there is a Tibetan émigré, and most of them have clung to the customs of their homes to the north. Buddhists are a slim minority in southern India, and it hardly surprises me that they've clung together, especially considering many of them were exiled from Tibet.

Aesthetically, Bylakuppe was spectacular. The Golden Temple - the monastery's most sacred, most ornate chamber - featured golden incarnations of three Buddhas, towering sixty feet tall above the marble floors. (see: http://travel.paintedstork.com/blog/image/golden_temple.jpg , though that photo hardly does it justice).

But enough about the tourism.

Saying goodbye is never fun, and as I bid my farewells to the seventy smiling girls tonight, I realized how incredible my time at the home has been. I arrived in the south of India thirteen days ago with little idea of what to anticipate; I leave it with a great appreciation for many things: the work of the Salesian Sisters in India, the efforts of my elementary school teachers (it's not as easy as one might expect), and, most importantly, how fortunate I really am. I realize that sounds trite, hackneyed, clichéd, whatever, but it's true.

So, tomorrow morning, I'll leave here for a six-hour drive on India's fantastically dystopian highway system, a drive that will bring me from strange, unadulterated simplicity to what many define as "reality." For the next week and a half, I'll be nothing more than an American tourist in India, my camera swinging around my neck as I buy t-shirts at the Taj Mahal. In a way, I'll feel guilty - because frankly, the transition from life in an orphanage to the opulence of tourist hotels in New Delhi is extreme.

But no worries - I'll be back.