Mountain Retreat

Time is moving so quickly!

            We just got back from a wonderful retreat in the mountains. We stayed at a “luxury camping” site in Rishikesh, up in the foothills of the Himalayas. We got to go white water rafting, hiking, rock climbing, swimming, and to visit some of the other cities close by.

 White water rafting was by far my favorite activity – we were out for about 3 hours. We went over some pretty big rapids and got to jump off and go swimming in between rapids. It was so different than anything else I have done in India but we were reminded of where we were when we stopped at a waterfall in the middle to have chai.

I loved it so much up there. The place we stayed was really quiet and beautiful and going into the cities was nice too. They seemed much wealthier than any other cities we have visited and the people were much calmer and less pushy than in many other parts of the country. On the day that we visited Musoorie and Dehradun we stopped and climbed up the mountainside to a temple where there was a wonderful view of the Himalayas.

I feel so lucky that I got to do all of that! While rafting I was thinking that for the first time I really believe in K college’s “More in four” motto! I felt like we were in a movie the whole time. It really was an opportunity of a lifetime!

The weekend before our trip was the annual fair at Nirman. It is one of the biggest events of the year for the kids. The kids and teachers choreograph dances, practice songs, and make up skits to be performed at two big evening functions for the parents, one here at the city campus and one at the village campus. My favorite performances were a Chinese dragon dance and a skit on deforestation. There were also some pretty hilarious dances about native Americans that were so not PC that they would have made headlines if they were performed at a school in the US. But it’s the effort at diversity that counts right?