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Location: Dharamsala
Today was our last day in Dharamsala. As we didn’t have a class with our mutual learning partners, we slept in and had breakfast 30 minutes later. After breakfast, we all went shopping in town for one last time. It was a lot of fun to visit all the shops again with the owners we’ve become friends within the last two weeks. Everyone was sad that we have to leave tomorrow.
At 1 o’clock, we met with our learning partners at Common Ground Cafe for lunch. It was pretty crowded in the cafe because luckily everyone showed up. The food was great – as always at Wen’s Cafe! We had a lot of fun eating there and talking to our new friends for one last time. After we finished lunch, they all gave us those thin white scarfs which are a Tibetan symbol for being thankful. I was a really sweet gesture!
Before we had to leave for TCV, Ali, Alex, Sophie and I went back to the Chompa place to get our Tibetan dresses. On our way something really exciting happened: We saw an elephant!!!!! He had is trunk painted, and he was huge. Our dream to see an elephant in India became true.
Our last afternoon at TCV was overwhelming. When Sarah and I went to our house, the kids were excited to see us. We started the lesson with little drama plays which they loved. Everyone was involved, and they had a lot of fun performing it to Wen, Jampa, and Dan. Later the kids wanted to start a talent show. They all danced and sang for us! It was amazing to see how much their self-confidence grew in the past two weeks.
Sarah and I finished the lesson by letting them draw pictures. In the end, we had about eight different letters saying how much they’ll miss us, TCV. We will miss you too!
The last exciting event today was our dinner at TCV. We all spent our dinner at our houses. Before the dinner started every kid got a little orange book. We all sat on the floor but then one little boy stood up and started singing. Everyone joined him, and they sang for 20 minutes without a single break! Later Jampa told us that this was the daily prayer before dinner.
After the dinner, Sarah and I presented the Lifeworks donation and one of those scarfs to our home-mother. With Jampa as our translator, we were also able to tell her how great our time at her house was and how much we loved to teach her kids. She also gave us one of those scarfs and then we finally had to leave… Even though it was sad to leave Sarah and I feel like we helped the kids to improve their English and to be more self-confident.