Hello family and Friends!
It has been an amazing week so far, filled with adventure. After sadly saying goodbye to one of our favorite cities, Varanasi, we headed to serene Bodhgaya. For those of you who don’t know, Bodhgaya is the place where the Buddha attained enlightenment. Even I, the not spiritual one, felt the presence of Buddha under the Bodi tree. The Bodi tree is the tree under which the Buddha actually meditated to reach enlightenment. As we sat under the tree, it was magnificent to watch all the people from all over the world feeling the presence of Buddha. It made me feel incredibly special to be there.
Classic tourist me, after the Bodi tree, I had to check out every single Buddhist temple in the area. For me, that meant a temple for every single country that practices Buddhism… Let me tell you, that was even too much temple touring for me (yes Mom, I said it). After exploring this capital of Buddhism, we headed to the train station to take a train to Kolkata (Calcutta, for us Westerners). Let’s just say, our train was delayed by a few hours, and it was the dirtiest of the dirty Indian trains. But since we were all so exhausted (it was 1am, and we usually fall asleep at 10pm here), we fell right asleep until our train halted to a stop at Kolkata. As we arrived in the ex-capital of British India, we could not believe we were still in India. There were yellow English taxis everywhere the eye could see, British 19th century architecture, and too many Western restaurants (aka McDonald’s, Au Bon Pain, and Subway). Since it’s only our second day here, I do not have much else to tell besides our first day at Mother Teresa House. We all volunteered in Prem Dan, hospice care for the elderly and sick. We helped clean the area, feed the people, manicure the ladies, and play lots of fun games. We all had an amazing time getting to connect with people who didn’t even speak the same language. It was a really amazing experience. For our next 5 days, we all are able to choose which house we would like to volunteer at, so I will leave that a surprise until next time!
Miss you all!
Love,
Gabriela