This is the time to be more than a name or a face in the crowd....

Last night the man at the place I always buy water decided that I needed to try banana chips, milk sweets, and jack fruit chips. That's always a fun part of India. Anyway,

Today was our last day at Shanti, so we had to decide how to allocate the $1200 that we had to donate. We chose to give it to a temple cleanup and a scholarship fund for rural children. It was a difficult decision but we also decided that when we get back we're going to try to fund a food project that the government and Shanti Ashram self help women run. We chose the temple because we felt that it would be a difficult project to get funded and that it will benifit quite a few people, who may begin to learn about how important it is to keep the environment clean. We chose the scholarship program because it will allows to send 7 students to college for one year.

Earlier in the day we learned about there Bala Shanti program which a pre-preschool program for rural children that teaches them all sorts of things. We went and visited the school, the children there were so excited and wanted to know everyone's names and majors and home places. I hate feeling like a celebrity. Its what happens whenever we are around children or uneducated people. I just want to tell them that there is nothing more special about me than there is about them. We asked them who wanted to go to university and all of them raised their hands, then we asked who wanted to travel and again almost all of them raised their hands. It was so nice to see. And then of course at the end they wanted pictures. We talked to the teachers which was fun, hearing what they had experienced and how they had changed by being part of this program.

We also had our last session today with Dr. Veno (who I may have mentioned earlier) She is pretty much the most inspirational person I have ever met. I probably said that before, but I feel like I can reinforce that.

Frustration for the day: Dr. Veno tried to arrange a side trip for some of us to get dropped off at a place where a woman makes jewelry (anklets, earrings etc... its where she shops) but Dan decided that we didn't want to buy real jewelery and that we should buy the cheap stuff in Udaipur. If I'm going to buy jewelery I don't mind spending 20 USD on it. I think the stuff we could have gotten here would have been much more valuable and exciting. So, that was really frustrating.

I have learned so much about development in the last week. Shanti Ashram reinforced everything that I thought and taught me much more then I ever could have guessed it could. I want to pick up the organization and put it in every country around the world "developed" or not, we could all use a Shanti Ashram. (Which by the way, Ashram means meeting place, and Shanti means peace).

Its been very refreshing to hear people say that it is important to celebrate different religions and people and to provide for those with little or nothing without any political backing. It seems to be just how it is here. (not for everyone I'm sure).

The internet cafe is about to close, so I'll save most of the quotes for a later post.

I would really like to do an internship with Shanti Ashram...

"I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills."
M.K. Gandhi