All Good Things Must Come to An End

After 5 months, the time has come for me to say goodby to India, despite postponing my departure for over a week. The past week or two has been a mix of sadness and excitement; sadness at leaving the wonderful people and place that have been my home for the past 152 days and excitement at returning to my family and friends. If you had asked me 2 weeks ago how I felt about leaving India, I would have admitted that I was ready to return home with little reluctance, having finally had my fill of cockroaches, daily power outages, 95 degrees heat everyday, and waking up to find I had been a mosquito buffet while I slept. However, as I sit here in my hammock on the veranda one last time, mere hours from my departure, I can't help but wish that I had more time, afraid that I will awake in the morning somewhere over Europe feeling that this was all a dream.


I've spent my last weeks here volunteering at Odanadi, finishing up editing work for Kumudini and practicing hatha yoga, with which I have fallen in love. I have also been helping to prepare for an Odanadi awareness event being hosted by some friends and organized by friends who also volunteer at Odanadi. The event took place yesterday (Saturday) and consisted of art and photo displays and singing, traditional dance, karate, mime, yoga, and street play demonstrations, all absolutely amazing and all conducted by the girls. There were lots of people, lots of chai, and lots of smiles...overall, a wonderful way to end my time here and at Odanadi. I have lots of pictures from the event, but am unable to upload them at the moment. I will post them on snapfish as soon as I get a chance and will add some here as well, so keep your eyes open.

Okay, time to finish packing. Thank you all so much for your encouragement and for keeping up with my adventures here in India, I hope you have enjoyed reading about them as much as I have enjoyed experiencing them (which is a lot)!

All the best,
Britt