Hi everyone! So I’m
writing this email from my hotel in Lucknow India! The past 48 hours have been a whirlwind of emotions,
with Highs, lows, Happiness, Sadness, and a fair share of frustration. On Thursday night, I had a wonderful going
away dinner with Top, United, Mr. Doyne, and all of the fellows. It’s become a bit of a tradition amongst the
fellows, that we go to dinner two nights before someone’s departure, followed
by a last night with the kids. We had a
blast at dinner, and I was fortunate to sit next to Top who has become one of
my favorite people in the world during these six months.
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| Goodbye Dinner! |
On Friday, I woke up early for my last full day at Kopila
and enjoyed a pot of coffee with some of the other volunteers. During the day there were lots of tears,
especially from Amrika Auntie who is potentially the nicest person I’ve ever
met in my entire life. She is my “sister”
for life, and I love her so much.
Despite the fact that the language barrier is quite steep, we’ve managed
to build a wonderful relationship out of smiles and laughs. Seeing her well up throughout the day was
extremely tough, and we had a wonderful bonding moment when she delivered a
going away scarf she knit for me.
Speaking of scarfs, Kasum auntie also sewed me the mother of all scarfs
as a going away present. Over the next
month, I’ll be sure to send out some pictures while rocking the scarf. In addition to the aunties, Friday afternoon
also meant saying goodbye to some of my favorite children at the school. I gave
all of my favorites a picture, and a treat to say so long.
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| One of my favorite people ever and my sister for life...Amrikia |
After school I got ready for my final coaching assignment
against the Army school. The army school
is the toughest soccer program in the area, and hasn’t lost in a very long
time. That said, are boys put up one
heck of a fight. We were locked up in a
0-0 tie at the end of the first half. Unfortunately,
the first half was 35 minutes, and for some reason they made the second half 45
minutes. As a result of the
miscommunication they scored 3 goals in the last “ten minutes” of the game when
we were playing extremely aggressively thinking the game was over. Despite the final score, I was incredibly
proud of our boys, and it was a really nice goodbye to the soccer team.
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| Boys Soccer with Army School |
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| One of my favorites...Laxmi Sunar |
Friday night we had our farewell satsung and movie night,
followed by a very early wakeup Saturday morning. It was a wonderful goodbye, and nearly all of
the aunties, uncles, volunteers, and many of the kids came to say goodbye to
Bobby and I. The transition was made a
bit easier by the team that drove us down to the border. Seven of us drove down, including the
principal, Top, Kasum, Gogan, and United.
We had one final nice breakfast at Kitchen Hut in Nepal Gunj, and then
got to the border. The army of helpers
was wonderful, and they really helped Bobby and I get through a very stressful
process. Upon saying goodbye, I think the
gravity of everything hit me and for the first time during my last two days I
got a bit worked up. Not to sound too
sappy, but something in Gogan Uncles eyes as he said goodbye really got to me, and
I just about lost it. I will miss
everyone immensely, and I look on the past six months as some of the happiest
in my life.
After our departure, we got in our cab for the five hour drive
down to Lucknow. Unfortunately, we
missed our train due to a big accident, and were forced to stay here rather
than making it to Agra yesterday evening.
After some very stressful moments at the train station we managed to get
a train for today and will be reaching Agra last night. The silver lining came when we stumbled upon
a Dominoes and McDonalds last night.
Never in my life have chicken nuggets, fries, breadsticks, a pepperoni
pizza, and a Mcflurry tasted so good!
I think that’s all for now…Apologies for the scatterbrained
blog post. I’ll be sure to post a better
reflection on my time at Kopila soon.
Just a bit frazzled from this entire Indian experience thus far, which
does not lend itself to quality writing.
I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated on our travels!
John
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