(This post is late due to unreliable wifi!)
Maggie Duwelius:
Today marks our final hours in McLeod Ganj and it is safe to say I am not the only one experiencing bittersweet emotions on departing. We began this day with a morning mediation, guided by a calming Australian accent of Kieran, ending with sunrise yoga practice taught by our spunky yogi guru, sweating within a triangle shaped room hidden some three hundred steep stair steps away.
We have been genuinely welcomed with open arms, greeted warmly with each interaction we face in this city. Street vendors attempt to yell mispronounced names and smile at our recognizable faces. Waving back in excitement to have landed a spot in their memory due to my impossible ability in resisting each piece of carefully crafted, delicate handmade jewelry.
We do not shop to add on to our material junk collections, but instead, to gather beautiful memories and moments, supporting and listening to the heartbreakingly raw and informative stories of the Tibetan or Indian shop owners highly counting on tourism income. We wall away, with adopted treasures or empty handed, building connections and learning with each spark of foreign communication, often made possible with helpful gestures and laughter thanks to the always frustrating language barrier.
Feelings of true contentment rush through me as I catch the last of the sun, slowly strolling down the narrow broken roads leading to my beautiful host mother, Bema. This space is full of life, from the animals coexisting, to the tight community living unable to depict the difference between neighbor and family. It is hard not to smile remembering that such a place exists. Simple living. Something I always appreciate, while adapting to so well in the moment, and yet never fully or permanently maintain the mindset. Living here opens and challenges my mind to previous clouded thoughts on what is needed to obtain happiness. Turns out, it can really be just as simple as an old craigslist acoustic guitar and good people on all sides.
There is something powerful that happens to relationships formed within these special conditions that would not otherwise be available given a normal context. Each open judgment free conversation surrounding the topics of service, social justice, religion, politics, history, culture, oppression, gender, sex, or environment offer realizations and different viewpoints expanding our knowledge and perspective, ultimately bonding us together on a deeper level faster than an average group dynamic. The group composed of strangers who flew here weeks ago, has morphed into a community of humans never to be forgotten and always to be associated with University of Portland’s pilot India service and cultural immersion, what we now comically refer to after adjusting to the country’s unique lifestyle as TII, (This Is India).
These crucial conversations shed light on endless critical global issues needing much more aid and yet I walk away with hope because we are the future, passionate in all areas with potential to change. We understand the goals we wish to accomplish will not be conquered in our time but we will not settle to witness without action.