Charmed Lives

by Timmia Hearn Feldman
7/6/09

Addie came to the Godavari branch of the Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation (EBMF) child refuge about four months ago; he’s nine months old now. When he was born, his fourteen year- old mother was living at the EBMF site in Hetauda. She has since been sent back to live with her family. Again childless, she now has the opportunity to make a life for herself. In the mean time, her son is leading a rather charmed existence here. Few babies are as pampered as he is. Anju, the housemother, looks after him most of the time, and when she’s not there, there are dozens of other eager arms to hold and coo over him. The apple of everyone’s eye, he is chubby and almost always cheerful. He is not leading the tumultuous life one would imagine that a child with his background would be doomed to.



He’s not alone. The other 102 children here at EBMF in Godavari may not be pampered as they would be if they were children growing up under the protection of loving and moderately affluent parents, but they are being raised a far cry from the miserable child refuges of more stereotypical third world standards. Besides being clothed and fed, they are given the opportunity to indulge in the fun of youth. Today they spent the day running back and forth, teaching each other and learning Nepali dances, buying presents for their teachers, picking flowers, and playing games. Today there was no school and tomorrow is “Teacher's Day,” a time when students perform for their teachers and give them gifts as a class. For most children, it is only celebrated at school, but the children here will return from their school celebrations and perform for the staff and teachers and give out gifts. I got to watch them practicing their dances, and couldn’t stop smiling as I sat quietly at the back of the room, and let the noise of CDs, laughter, yelling and feet moving wash over me. These children, in general, work harder than the average child of a Western family might. Cleaning, cooking, and studying almost all day, they have only a precious few hours to relax or play games, except on Saturday, when they have almost the whole day to themselves. But they are getting to experience a childhood. They are growing up around their peers, but with adult love and supervision. They are experiencing how enjoyable life can be, and they are blessed with leisure time.

However wonderful my readers and I may think this is, there remains a problem. They are forgetting that these children are all abandoned. That their futures are uncertain, and that only through education and hard work are they ever going to be able to make comfortable lives for themselves. After they graduate from whatever level of education they are able to attain, EBMF will not continue supporting them. These children will need to be fully equipped to take care of themselves.

I had a talk with one of the staff here at the refuge yesterday. Many of the students in the equivalents of eighth and ninth grade are not working hard, and their marks are falling. The staff gave them a test in math the other day and only three out of the nine passed. In the other class, about half failed an exam another staff gave. When I teach classes there are a group of, mostly, boys who do not pay attention and joke around. Or, who are certainly beginning to think that they’re too good for school. In the West we’re more than used to children in their teens getting disobedient. Most of us look back on our middle and high school careers with fond smiles and head shakes. Reminiscing about the things we did then, the things we never told our parents, things we know our parents probably did before us, and our children will do after us.

But here, in Nepal, and particularly for these children at EBMF refuges, screwing up once can ruin a life. There is no safety net. One of the boys here is already suffering the consequences of having given into the temptations of being young. He was top of his class, and given the opportunity to do vocational training. There he fell in with a group of other boys who drank, smoked pot, and generally messed around. Bishnu turned a little wild, and has the clumsily done tattoos to prove it, forever etched into his skin. EBMF found out what he was doing, and brought him back here. He’s now nineteen or twenty, and half-way through ninth grade. Though he seems to have taken this set back quite well, it must be only too apparent to him that he is older than everyone else in his class, even though many of the other kids here are several years too old for their classes, having been deprived of education in their earliest years before coming to EBMF. But luckily for Bishnu, he’s a boy. Though he will graduate school and finally be ready for higher education well into his twenties, he still has the prospect of a good life. He’s smart, very good at math and science, and wants to be an engineer. He still has a chance at succeeding. The girls aren’t quite as lucky. For boys, even if they do poorly in school, they can always get vocational training, learn a craft, and make a living. The girls only have the prospect of any kind of post secondary school education if they do well in school. Otherwise, they will most likely have to marry and become housewives, virtually slaves of husbands.

Here they have not lived under the constant threat of pain, starvation or abuse. And when children have been given the ability to enjoy their youth, they become careless, innocent, self indulgent. It is the beauty of youth, of childhood, but it could be ultimately the biggest issue EBMF will have to face in measuring its efficacy. It is so easy to forget the world out there from their positions of relative comfort. So easy to fail to study and then to fail just one test – which soon turns into two, three, four and, eventually, the course. It is easy to stare, glassy-eyed out the window instead of bending ones head over one’s text book. They are children, and teenagers, after all. But however much I wish that they were truly living charmed lives, and that this safe haven would protect them forever, there is no safety net in this country, especially for these children. And if EBMF is going to succeed in helping them attain stable futures, it is going to have to find ways of reminding these happy, well- fed and well- clothed children that they are still living on the edge of dire poverty and suffering.

A Hard Truth to Learn

by Timmia Hearn Feldman

We people with a sense of “Western guilt” generally feel it is necessary to volunteer in the “developing” world, believing that such generosity will clear our consciences. So many before me have wanted to travel to parts of the world where they feel as though they can actually do some good. There is a self- sacrificial allure in abandoning all the hard won comforts of the West and roughing it in countries where poverty is normal and accepted, where we imagine starving children on the streets. We romanticize the idea of facing the horror and reality that we know exists in the developing world. Years of reading tales of poverty that we have never personally known weigh on our minds, and so we venture abroad.

When we step off planes in those fabled countries of poverty and natural beauty, we expect something to happen. We expect to find excitement. Perhaps children reaching out to us with scraggy arms, whose lives we can change with a smile, or a gift of clothing, or an English lesson. We hope to see parts of life we’ve never imagined. We think the poverty will shock us. We expect every moment of our stay to confirm our beliefs that the West has got life right. Children begging on the streets with bones sticking out of their skin, lost children needing love. But, perhaps, what ends up surprising us most, is how normal life seems, even within the context of such poverty.

Yes, some of the things we see strike horror into our hearts, but somehow it isn’t what we imagined. It’s not romantic. It’s just there.

I didn’t know what to expect when I came here to the Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation (EBMF) refuge for street children, children whose parents are in jail and children who have been trafficked. But it wasn’t 103 relatively well-fed happy children in quite nice clothes. It wasn’t children who decidedly don’t need me, who play football (soccer) and cricket on their afternoons off and get pocket money. Here, I have met girls who are vain about their appearance and boys who are cheeky and make jokes about me behind their hands and smiles. I won’t lie that I expected to be able to make a lasting impact. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that life is just never going to be that simple, and that, alone, I do not have the kind of power to reap change in my wake.

A few weeks ago I went to the house where two of the EBMF children lived before coming here: a shack on the side of the road; a shack made of wood and mud and tin. Nirmaya and Rajkumar were both terrified on their journey to see their families, though they said nothing. When we arrived a scattering of people stood and squatted around the hut. A number of skinny children with unkempt hair, an old couple, the man with only two teeth and legs that looked like gnarled trees, and the woman without a shirt, but with a torso so withered and wrinkled that is somehow didn’t look revealing. A few young women stood around the edge. At the very center of the group sat their older sister’s uncle. The only one who looked well fed looked up only momentarily as our party approached. Nirmaya burst into the tears when we got out and stood in front of what was once her home. Her family just stared at her and her little brother, the two of them dressed in clean western clothes. Their mother wasn’t there. Their older sister went to fetch her. She came, an old looking woman with a withered face, bare feet and a belly extended by age or malnutrition. She didn’t even look at her son, but stared at Nirmaya. Silence. Then Nirmaya started yelling at her. I don’t know what she said, it was in Nepali, but it was clearly an accusation. I know that one of their older sisters was trafficked once, then reunited with her family, and trafficked a second time. No one knows where she is now. I also know that their father had died since they had last been home.

That kind of scene, the one that tears at your heart and makes you want to pull these children into your arms is what we expect when we go to volunteer for abandoned children. But that was one painful moment among so many mundane ones. When I first met Nirmaya, I thought she was a bully, and, to be honest, she is. She has no qualms pushing and bossing around children many years her junior. She grows furious if she isn’t the best at sports (which, as she storms off, instead of practicing, is generally true). There is a hardness in her eyes which knows the meaning of hatred and revenge. And who can blame her? She is stunning, with hard features, and glittering eyes out of which real intelligence and knowledge shines. About thirteen or fourteen, she hasn’t been willing to take life lying down like most of the girls here. I admire her for her spunk, but at the same time, I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how to show her to trust, to love, to care. She has all the essentials in life: food, a warm safe bed, clothes and an education. What else can I give her? It is here, at the point where children are no longer holding out dirty skinny arms for food and clothing that the real work, the real ability to help a child do more than merely survival, exists. And it is here that there is no obvious solution.

In Nirmaya’s particular story, there has been a change since we visited her family. There is something subtly different in the way she smiles. She no longer plasters a hard smile on her face when she sees me, instead, actual happiness creases the corners of those eyes. Something changed back in front of her mother’s hut. Something changed in the moment she burst into tears and I, instead of trying to shush her like the other EBMF staff, pulled her close to me and held her, even as her shoulders remained stiff against me. Something changed as we rode back in the rickety car, as she stared out the window with hot tears in her eyes, and I reached over and squeezed her shoulder. Behind the fake, hard smile she flashed, there was something else. Gratefulness? I don’t know, but it was something. I don’t know how to gain more of Nirmaya’s trust, except to be especially kind to her and hug her as often as possible.

The thing about poverty, about terrible situations and past suffering, is that people have a streak of optimism that keeps them going. No matter how much the kids here at EBMF have suffered, they are, after all children, and children just want to laugh and have fun and be loved. Yes, we have children here who’ve been in jail, who’ve been sexually abused by fathers and strangers, and children who were found begging on streets, but one wouldn’t guess it by looking at them. A surprising number of them do have scars, but that is hardly noticeable. What shows more is their smiles, their laughter, their cheek, and their independence. Here, I am not needed. They already have a full staff, and do their own cleaning and help with cooking. I came to EBMF to help, to make an impact, to change lives. I arrived with a bravado common of Westerners in their power to right poverty and give to those less privileged. And now, every night I teach a lesson. I play with the younger children sometimes during the day. I try to give as much love as possible. Here, I’m learning the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn, and the most essential: that to help is never easy. That trying to fight for human rights is more than having good intentions. Far far far more. Time moves differently in the developing world. Things always happen late, even lessons in school begin slowly. Punctuality and accuracy are not common. For all the good will and desire of the children to not be lazy, and for the fact that they never complain when given extra classes, their motivation for swift learning is low. Their openness to new ideas is limited.

Of course it is. Any child would be like that. But because I came here to help, I feel like it should be different. Now that I have set aside my tarnished romantic images of poverty and aid work, I have to settle for making less of an impact than I’d hoped: for working according to the slow time here, not battling with it. Like any person who cares about human rights, I have to learn that I cannot save the world. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth trying my hardest to help the individual.

It's Something

by Timmia Hearn Feldman

“Marco.... Polo.... was ..... born....” Jaya begins giggling before she can finish reading the sentence. I’m helping her with her English homework, and like most of the girls here, she dissolves into embarrassed giggles at every inadequacy she finds in herself. Particularly when it comes to lessons. This is the first time I’ve worked privately with Jaya. She’s in class eight, one of the girls who is so shy and embarrassed to speak before the large class, that, were we in a western culture, I would grow most impatient with. However, here, where most women are married by their early twenties and never question the physical abuse of their husbands, I have nothing but worry and patience for this behavior. And though women’s rights are taken serious here at the Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation (EBMF), the directress and assistant directress both being virtual feminists, there is still Nepali culture at large, not to mention the girls pasts, to contend with.

Jaya might be as intelligent as she is sweet, but I have no way of telling as I help her pronounce words and understand what the sentences mean. Although I have a shrewd suspicion that she could understand if only she would stop dissolving into embarrassed giggles, we make incredibly slow progress. Like most of the students here, she wants me to tell her exactly what to say, and doesn’t really understand the concept of writing a sentence of her own creation. All the students have that problem, but it is exacerbated in the girls by their tendency to doubt themselves. Teaching Jaya at this point feels like banging my head against a wall. Nevertheless, convinced that we’ll get somewhere eventually, I read the little excerpt with her for what must be the fourth time, trying, still trying, to show her how she can find the answers to the study guide questions within the text. In congruence with the mission of EBMF, I am determined to help Jaya and the other girls here gain confidence in themselves, and fully understand that submitting to abuse and second class treatment is never right.

Still, despite the decidedly modernist and progressive stand taken here on the rights of women, a full 45 out of the 65 girls here (and hence almost all the girls above the age of ten) were rescued from circuses. Now, to say that they were trafficked into circuses and were rescued sounds something like a joke. In fact, before coming here, when I explained to friends where many of the children were rescued from, they thought it was funny, and tended to assume it was some bleeding heart nonsense about rescuing kids from “bad” situations. However, in the circuses which these girls were trafficked into they were literally slaves. Woken at the crack of dawn, they would work cleaning the circus and trained for hours before being fed a small amount of food. Performing in generally three shows a day, with virtually no safety measures, the girls were never even skilled at their acts, and frequently suffered injury and illness, with no treatment. Their young bodies were displayed more as sexual objects than anything else, sometimes performing at the dead of night for an all male audience of drunken businessmen. Additionally, an unstated number were sexually abused by the circus managers. I say unstated here because their files give nothing away. Those who have been abused have only ever said it in secret. Having been sexually abused is a mark of shame in a society where a girl's purity and modesty are prized so highly. A society where marriage is a girl's purpose in life and the shame of sexual abuse would jeopardize her forever. Many of those girls came from backgrounds of sexual abuse by their own fathers and uncles. Again, stories that will never be told. It is no wonder these girls laugh behind their hands. No wonder they are always embarrassed to speak up in front of teachers. No wonder they tell me they are fine even when obviously crying.

Jaya was once a circus girl. I don’t know how many years ago she was rescued, but I don’t need to look at her file to know that the memories still affect her. Once girls come to an EBMF refuge site (there are three different sites) they are provided with safety, and at least some degree of encouragement. But they are still dealing with teachers who call them stupid in front of their peers, with memories buried deep and painful, and with the constant pressure to always act politely and pretend to be happy. I went to Jaya’s school a few weeks ago, to see the quality of English education, and though what I found didn’t surprise me, it saddened me.

Their teachers hardly know more English than the students. They teach from text books which ramble on about the average weight of camels and the various steps to reviving a person by mouth to mouth resuscitation, but scarcely bother to teach new vocabulary or to mention grammar. To make matters worse, though the students are far better behaved in class than average American students, they are so thoroughly disrespected by their teachers that my first impulse was to shove the teacher out of the room and take over myself. In the second lesson we sat in on, the teacher spent several prolonged minutes asking us how it was possible that we were teaching English to the EBMF students when they were so, “hopeless and stupid.” I responded coldly that they were certainly far from hopeless, and made sure to tell my two students in her class that she didn’t know what she was talking about and that they were both quite good at English, which, as a mater of fact, was true. But one cannot expect a student to perform well in the face of such discouragement. Now, as I work with Jaya, she keeps apologizing to me, between giggles, for being so poor at English. I tell her, rather sternly, that she should stop doubting herself and simply concentrate on her studies.

It isn’t just in the realm of the classroom that these girls find room for feeling inferior. Though it is true that they are friends with the boys, and speak to them face to face without flinching, it is also true that many of them, particularly the circus rescue girls, have none of the self confidence or self possession that all the boys and the girls who come from other backgrounds have. I went on a trek with eight students a few days ago, and as night fell on our one night away from the refuge one of the girls began to cry, another, who was sharing my tent, begged me to come to sleep early, because she was too afraid to go alone. Ghosts, they said, might attack them. The boys, though they, too, believe in ghosts, are not afraid. To them, life is still under their control. In fact, in all the boys over twelve, there is an arrogance that comes with knowing that, no mater what, they are dominant in this culture. Though they don’t exactly talk down to the girls, and are generally respectful to me during class, there is something in their manner that is not simply the cockiness of any boy, but instead a feeling of definite superiority. Though, like the girls' insecurity, instead of being infuriating individually, it is maddening on the whole. The five boys who come from circuses are proud of the gymnastic abilities they picked up. Two of them have gone on to win medals in gymnastic competitions in Kathmandu. They are not embarrassed to talk about their time in the circus. Their stories are ones that can be told. But the stories of Jaya can never be told. No matter how much I believe that truth is preferable to lies, nor how passionately I want stories of human rights abuses to be told so that the causes can be found and eradicated, the mouths of these girls, most of them young women by now, are sealed forever by a culture that teaches them to look pretty and be polite. Here all my western convictions that talking through painful truths and being allowed to cry is healing and necessary for true recovery from trauma, are of no more use than my knowledge of the Boston Tea Party. I’m learning, slowly, and certainly painfully, what so many have learned before me: that I will never really know the impact of my work here, never know if the genuine love I feel for some of the children who I’ve developed personal relationships with, will effect them in any real way. Never know if my English lessons will do more than frustrate them for a few evenings. Never know if all our talk and laughter and comparisons of culture will do more than make them shake their heads at the strangeness of the west. Never know if my love of being here is anything more than a selfish amazement of the beauty of the east, an infatuation born in so many westerners before me. But, without any certainty, I will keep trying. I bend over the little text book with Jaya, reassuring her that she isn’t “very bad” at English. Encouraging her. Pushing her to think for herself. Refusing to feed her answers. Over an hour later, snack time arrives. I usher a mentally tired Jaya from the room, drained myself. It may not be a success story, but it’s something, I tell myself as I drink my over-sweetened tea.

Sanjay

6/17/09
Blogger Timmia E Hearn Feldman, Morse College 2012
Written from Toukkhel, Godavari, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

I’ve been teaching the evening lessons of Class 9 here at the Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation refuge in Toukkhel, Godavari, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal at once or twice a week for the last three weeks. This is the first class that has been so disorganized, so late, and the first one that Sanjay has bothered to attend. And he only arrived because I saw him going up the stairs and asked him if he was coming to class, and he really had no other choice.

Out of the 103 students here at the refuge Sanjay is one of the few I’ve never talked to before. About sixteen years old and very hansom, I know a little of his story. He was one of the street kids who was picked up and brought here to be educated. His file says that, even as a little boy, he was always a bit of a rascal, but always very sweet, and always smiling. One of those winning smiles that so often get young boys out of trouble no matter what. I’ve never heard Sanjay speak a word of English. Whenever I’ve said something to him, he just grins and walks away, wide eyed as though he doesn’t understand. And yet, he’s in class nine, he must have passed his exams so far, and he goes to the school where half the classes are taught in English.

When he walks into the room he doesn’t have paper or a pen, I tell him to go get one. Looking around at his fellow students to share in the joke that he’s in class and being made to do something, he walks out, grinning at me. Much to my surprise, he returns, with a pencil, albeit broken, and a pad of paper. We begin the lesson, I rather frustrated the it’s already fifteen minutes past six. Five minutes later the last students wonder in, pausing at the door to ask if they can come in, I usher them in and they take their seats. After a brief explanation of a few vocab words, I give them a daily theme to write. The class falls utterly silent for ten minutes. Or, it usually does, Sanjay seems to think that speaking in Nepali while he’s supposed to be writing will go unnoticed by me. I remind the class the the number one rule of English class is that they aren’t allowed to speak Nepali. Grinning, unbelieving, at me, he starts working.

He’s one of the first to finish his work. I go over and check it, surprisingly well written. But then his neighbor, Aakash, the best behaved student in class, says he’s also done. When I read Aakash’s work it’s clear that someone has copied. I ask who. Sanjay just grins, Aakash points at his friend, and laughs. It’s not funny and I tell the whole class that copying is unacceptable. Sanjay doesn’t seem to mind being berated, probably he’s used to it. The rest of the lesson passes, the only incident being Sanjay and Aakash’s insistence on chatting, and a power outage cutting the lesson short.

The following day I arrive in the class room early and set up. Again, surprising me, Sanjay is in class. Today I don’t let him and Aakash sit together. Sanjay has that wicked grin back on his face. We begin by wrapping up yesterdays unfinished lesson. I hand out another daily theme: write a memory. It’s something I’ve been working up to. Here the students haven’t been taught to put their own thoughts into English, only to say standard sentences with their own information contained. I’ve been trying to teach them to think outside the box. After much conversation, many questions, me confirming that several opening sentences are good, and the class settles into silence. Today I’m being assisted in class by Lotty, my fellow volunteer. She’s from England and not a teacher herself, so she sometimes helps me in class. She motions to me and whispers that Sanjay seems to be copying his neighbor’s work. Sighing I stare over at him, I catch his eye and point to his own paper. Grinning, he bends his head.

Soon he’s finished. I go over to check his work. The first sentence is almost identical to the one I’d okayed for his neighbor. Frustration rising, I point to hers and tell him that this is absolutely unacceptable. I’m not even going to check it. Write another, your own words. Unbelieving grin, but he bends again over his work. I’ve checked most of the rest of the class, when he raises his hand again. And I breath a sigh of relief, even as my heart beats faster. He’s written what no one else wrote: a memory about before coming to the refuge. About being a young boy who was a thief, and being caught and sent to jail. So that is how Sanjay ended up here.

The piece is written well, though he’s missed so many early lessons that he doesn’t understand how to use tenses. We’ll work on that. But I correct his mistakes, thank him for doing his own work and compliment him on it. No rouge smile plays over his mouth now. He doesn’t take his eyes off of me for the rest of the lesson, unless to write something down I’ve told them to write. And I have a creeping feeling of accomplishment. I think I’ve won his respect

"I never want to leave this country; where human rights are pathetically lacking."

6/17/09
Blogger Timmia Hearn Feldman, Morse College 2012
Written from Toukkhel, Godavari, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal

The quality of the heat was the first thing I noticed was different. Along with several hundred other passengers, I disembarked in Delhi, India, and was instantly struck by the heavy heat of this part of Asia in the summer. Heat such as I had never felt before, despite my childhood in the scorching summers of Kansas and winter breaks in Trinidad and Tobago. This heat was heavy, thick, tangible, and somehow far more bearable than other heat I’d felt before. Perhaps it was more bearable because it was so foreign. There is intrigue in what is different. It surprises me how easy it was to adjust to life in the heavy heat, to the fact that there are only two meals a day, morning and night, and that both are curry. How little it surprised me to suddenly have no shower and no toilet paper (only a tap, a bucket and water). But life went seamlessly on, and before I knew it, I was in love with not only the children who have become my students, but with Nepal itself.

It strikes me as strange that I never want to leave a country where human rights are so pathetically lacking, where wife beating is all too common, and where male dominance is the order of the day. Where there hasn’t been a stable government in years, where pollution and littering aren’t really even concepts but instead such common practices that the rivers and roadsides are dotted with almost as many plastic bags as plants, and where the education system, to say the least, is sub standard. And yet, somehow, I find pleasant breezes that make the heat more than bearable, and see the smiles of my students as more than worth every clean well organized school room in my own home town.

The organization I am currently volunteering for is highly progressive for Nepal. The boys learn to respect the girls, and the girls learn to have respect for themselves, and learn their own value. They are friends across gender and age, and there is nothing more wonderful to see than almost all of the 103 students here having a profound appreciation for what they are given. From education to food, they absorb it all and take nothing for granted. And I know that is because they have come from slave labor in Indian circuses, where abuse was a daily experience, or from the streets, begging and stealing for their daily rice, or from abusive or grindingly poor families. I know that these kids have suffered more than anyone should ever have to suffer in a life time. I’ve visited the huts where some of the kids come from. I have seen the terror of being reunited with a family who could not protect them, as well as the tears mingled with longing to stay with their families, and anger at those same families. The other day in class my fellow volunteer, who has been having a very difficult time here, had to leave class half way through because it became too much for her. The students were all very worried and after class all went out to see what was wrong. She told them she’d been missing her family, and one of the girls in the class began to cry. Missing ones family is a very sore subject. But through all this suffering, something truly beautiful has been born. These children are given the opportunity to have ambitions and hope of achieving them.

Two students will be off to university in a year or two, and might get to go abroad and get an internationally recognized education. Others have already left the refuge, with university degrees, though none international as of yet. But it’s not just in higher education that these children are getting to thrive in. I watch them every day and see the bonds of love between them, see their trust and love of the staff here. They are being protected, they have a support system, and despite the large number of them, they are each known personally and loved individually. And they find beauty in their lives. Not just beauty in their current fortunate situation, but beauty in the surrounding landscapes: they take pride in Nepali music and culture. The young ones have hearts so open to love, and they cling to my hands when we take walks together or play together. They are responsible and thoughtful. There is honesty in their smiles and their words of broken English that I am working to improve. Within the heat and pollution of Nepal there are the most beautiful breaths of fresh clean air. Off of the dirty streets are beautiful fields of rice, and houses of stunningly elegant architecture. From lives that could have been just one great tragedy have been born stories of laughter and learning, joy and knowledge. Tomorrow some of us take some of the older students trekking. Another adventure unfolds.