Travel Along With Me

Tilak left early morning to go to the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram and Hanuman Temple about a half hour away. The kids and I slept in then we walked into town together for breakfast. Texil bought a hackey sack ball to play with with the kids at the orphanage. We worked on some flash cards and journal entries when we got back to our room.

When Tilak returned from his trip we decided to take a rickshaw ride to a waterfall that was nearby called Neem Waterfall. The hike up to the waterfall was beautiful. The trail was green. The air was clean. It was amazingly quiet. There were a couple of places to cut off of the trail and take a peek at the waterfall before you get to the top. We did so and took some pictures. At the top there was a bridge that crossed over the waterfall and a pool of water from the waterfall that we let the kids play in. They stripped to their underwear and played in the water until they were too cold to continue. Tilak and I stood on the bridge and watched the kids play, looked at the scenery and were glad to be there together.

After we hiked back to the bottom we decided we would walk back to our hotel instead of taking a rickshaw. It was about a 40 minute walk back. The road overlooked the Ganges River. When we got back to the hotel we decided to have a quick meal at Dev Raj restaurant before heading to the orphanage to help with the children.

When we got to the orphanage I paired up with Lolita again. She told me that she had done well on her quiz today that I had helped her study for – I was proud of her. Kali’s friend, Ankita joined us today. They both were going to be quizzed tomorrow on the subject of photosynthesis. Kali sat with us while I quizzed the girls on the facts in their workbooks. It was a bit more chaotic than usual in the study sessions that day because Raju, one of the young boys (who I think has ADHD) kept disrupting everyone. He soon was sent out of class to see Prabha (the owner) about his behavior.

After studying, we went out to play with the kids on the playground. Tilak went to talk to Prabha about purchasing the children’s shoes for them. She said that we could go on Sunday with them to help the kids get their shoes. She said that she knew of a place in Rishikesh that would be appropriate for all of us to go.

Tilak then went to pick up our clothes from the dobi walla in town. We were pleasantly surprised at how the clothes looked. Most of the dirt stains had come out and they had pressed our clothes for us. Even the jeans and socks were pressed!

We walked across the bridge that night to a restaurant called Chotiwala. Tilak had eaten at this restaurant when he was in India before and said that it was good food. Outside the restaurant sits a man painted purple with his hair pointed up in a pony tail who greets the customers as they come in by ringing a bell. We got our picture with him. The food was good. They served spaghetti there and French fries so the kids were happy. Tilak and I got traditional Indian food (Masala Dosa, rice, Vegetable Korma, etc.). We left full and happy.

When we left the hotel we found a cyber café to e-mail our family. Then we found a shop where Tilak purchased a nice prayer Mala.

We sat by the Ganges River again for some quiet peaceful time.

We rode a rickshaw back to our hotel and went to bed.

We slept in until 8:00a.m. Tilak and I sorted our laundry to bring to a local dobi walla (a person who is paid to wash clothes for you). While the kids were working on some school stuff Tilak and I went down to the hotel office to use the computer for awhile to e-mail family and friends – let everyone know we were doing well.

We ate breakfast at Dev Raj restaurant. We all love their cinnamon rolls.

After breakfast we spent several hours walking around town. Kali and I bought a long sleeve shirt and we looked in lots of shops.

When we got back to the room Tilak took our laundry to the dobi walla. Kali and I read for awhile and Texil played some games. Then we all went out to the patio to admire the view. We watched people going about their day, watched the river and played games. We decided to walk to get some snacks from Dev Raj. When we were leaving I gave one of our cookies to a homeless beggar sitting outside of the restaurant. He was so grateful for the cookie. He smiled, held it in his hands, put it to his heart and then his forehead and said a prayer over it and ate it. It made me feel good!

When we got back we headed to the orphanage to help the kids with their studies. They have what’s called tuition time which is when they are out of their regular classrooms and all together doing individual studies. I paired up with a lovely 13yr old girl named Lolita. She was studying English. She wanted me to quiz her on the definitions of the words: starve, sprinkle, squirt and refreshing. She was very smart and eager to learn. She seemed to enjoy my help. I enjoyed being with her. After I worked with her for awhile I moved on to help a little boy learn to write his colors in English.

Texil paired up with some boys that were close to his age and he helped them to write in cursive and read some English. Kali brought some of her math homework and worked on it next to some girls her age. They were interested in her work to see how it compared to theirs.

After the studies we took the kids to the playground and spent some time playing. Texil and Kali seemed as though they had known the kids for a long time the way they played. I brought my camera and took lots of pictures! The children were fascinated by my camera and wanted to try taking some pictures. I gave them the camera and they took turns taking lots of pictures of each other. I enjoyed watching them have fun.

Kali mainly played with a girl name Ankita. They were “wo peas in a pod” When we left to go back to our hotel room for awhile we brought Ankita with us. She played games with the kids that we had brought from home.

That evening we decided to venture off and find a new restaurant to eat at. Cara had recommended one called Ganga View Restaurant. We found that one but could not find anything on the menu that we thought that the kids would eat so we left. When we walked out of the restaurant and were talking about where we would go next to find a restaurant a young western gentleman (from Canada) recommended a restaurant that he had eaten at last night just up the road. He said it was clean and the staff was friendly though they still do not have everything in stock that was on the menu. The name of it was Moksha. We decided we would give it a shot.

The restaurant was appealing the way it was decorated. It had a beach feel to it. The décor was bamboo with wicker chairs, wood walls and a cyber café in the back of the restaurant. The gentleman was right. They did not have MOST of what was on the menu yet. We had to change our orders several times to find something they had in stock. Texil had ordered Pepsi to drink and Kali ordered apple juice. We found out later that they sent one of their staff down the street to a local markets to purchase a Pepsi and some apples to give Texil the drink he wanted and actually made home-made apple juice for Kali!!! I thought that that was incredibly kind of them.

On the way back to the hotel we had to find a store that sold toilet paper because my stash I had brought from home was running low. We also stopped and got dessert at Dev Raj. They now know us as “regulars” at that restaurant.

We woke up around 7:15a.m. We all took our bucket baths and packed our stuff to go and stay at a hotel next to the orphanage (Divine Ganga Cottage). We ate breakfast and took an auto rickshaw to the hotel. Cara and Gary invited us to go to the Ganga (Ganges River) with the kids and them to help them do their laundry. They said a few of the children would be going to a dance competition and that we could follow if we preferred to go there. We all chose to stay and help wash clothes.

It was beautiful at the Ganges River!! It was a short little hike down a hill full of large rocks right behind the orphanage. It almost looked like a rocky beach at that section of the river. There was sand, rocks and small plants everywhere. Across the river was a large stone ashram that looked like a castle.

Kali began to warm up to the kids and started to make friends today. I was relieved about this. After laundry we came back up to the orphanage and ate lunch at the café’ there. The food was excellent! There was a local Indian woman who was the “guest chef” that day and she made a variety of Indian dishes and put a sample of each on our plates. The kids had home-made waffles.

After lunch we took all the kids back down to the Ganges to take their baths and to play for the afternoon. Texil was playing a game with several boys where they would put clay rocks onto a boulder and then throw large stones at the clay rocks and see who could break the most clay rocks. It entertained them for hours! Kali and some of the girls were picking branches off a small tree nearby and planting the branches in the sand then fetching water from the Ganges River to water their baby plant. Tilak played Frisbee with the kids and I bounced from place to place. I sat on some of the boulders and enjoyed watching everyone, I helped water Kali and her friends’ baby plants, and spent a lot of time getting to know Cara and Gary (the volunteers that work at the orphanage).

Cara is an elementary school teacher from Canada who was fresh out of college. She decided to come to Ramana’s Garden looking for something that would make her feel as though she was contributing to the world in some way before she had to get into the working world. She was very kind-hearted, down to earth and easy to be friends with.

Gary was from Australia and was probably in his upper 30’s. This was his second or third time volunteering at Ramana’s Garden. He speaks good Hindi and the kids really seem to respect him and look to him for guidance. He appeared to be a kind of person who puts his whole self into what he is doing. He has been traveling to different countries most of his adult life. He has an adventurous spirit. He is the one that seems to keep the orphanage on a schedule and organized.

Tilak joined Gary, Cara and I for sometime as well. It was nice to have some western people to sit and talk with and share stories. We were all from different countries but were very comfortable in each others company and had at least one thing in common and that was that we all cared about the kids at Ramana’s Garden and were trying in our own ways to help them.

After we brought the kids back to the orphanage we decided to go to our hotel for some rest. After we all rested awhile we helped the kids do some of their schoolwork and we all wrote in our journals about the day.

We ate supper at Dev Raj restaurant. It was a restaurant overlooking the Ganges River with friendly staff and a variety of nationalities represented there with their customers. You sit there and hear several different languages being spoken. The restaurant was inviting to everyone because it had pastries and coffee readily available – great comfort food that is universal.

After supper we went back to the orphanage to be with the children for their nightly satsang (prayers and songs). The room that they gathered in was a large dome that looked like a round tent with metal poles that held it up. There were rugs on the ground to sit on and it was large enough to stand in and to hold 60 kids and several adults comfortably. We all sat in a circle. The kids sang several songs/prayers and sang us a welcome song. We were grateful to be there with them.

We came back to our hotel around 9:00 pm got ready for bed. I went to sleep excited about spending the next day with the wonderful children I had been blessed to meet.