Rustic Pathways

Looking to experience the Chinese culture? Hike in Matchu Picchu? Or help out a small community in India? Rustic Pathways, a travel and service company for high school students, can help you fulfill those desires. This summer I traveled with Rustic Pathways to spend four months in small Tibetan communities in India. It was an extremely inspirational and rewarding experience. While in India I had the opportunity to live and work beside the Tibetan people in their community. We taught the small monks English, we cemented a path for them to walk to school, we also helped build a temple for them to pray. The best part of this trip was having the opportunity to see the people reap the benefits. The children smiled and laughed as we taught them words that may have sounded silly to their ears, such as “llama” and “hippopotamus,” and bow down to us, thanking us for improving their walk to school. Just their smiles were enough to know how much they appreciated our work in their community. If you want to help out people like the small monks in India and experience a culture very different from your own, go to www.rusticpathways.com for more information on how you can broaden your horizon and lend a helping hand.

Significance of Service

After five life-changing days working together to finish two very special houses for two families in need, the Cherry Hill East Habitat for Humanity Spring Break group formed a circle in the basement of a church in Alabama to discuss the powerfulness of the week's events. This talk was prompted by questions such as, what did you learn about yourself this week and what was your favorite part of the week. This talk really put things into perspective. We came to the consensus that the best part of the week was seeing the pure joy and sense of achievement on the faces of the new home-owners as they received the keys to their Habitat home. I have done many Habitat builds over the past two years, but this was the first time I ever had the privilege to give a house away and watch the dedication. Both families consisted of a mother and a young daughter. During the talk we agreed that watching the homes we worked on for the past few days get handed over to the crying mother and the sassy little girl who loves Princess and the Frog, who we just spent an hour dancing with on her new driveway was the most meaningful experience of many of our young lives. At this point we felt grateful to give up our spring breaks at the beach relaxing with our families to help these families accomplish their dreams of home-ownership. This talk allowed everyone to share their feelings on how the trip had both affected and changed them for the better. At the end of the talk everyone came in the center for a group hug of 50 teachers and students and concluded the talk with the chant of "ROLLTIDE". Talks like this are very important to step back and reflect over the significance of your service and share memories that will last lifetimes. 

Full Emergence

Throughout my travels i have discovered that the most important thing to do in order to completely emerge yourself into a different culture is to leave your past behind. Turn your phone off, say good-bye to your friends and family, leave your favorite foods and your designer shoes at home. Shop in the markets, bargain with the store owners, wear the clothes of the local people, eat their food, use their showers. During my travels I left behind the two things that i believe connect me most to my world at home; my cell phone and my twin sister. My cell phone is very important to me because it keeps me connected to my friends and family and keeps me updated on whats going on in my community, but it also allows me to tell others what is going on in my life. My twin sister is a second half of myself. The two of us do everything together and we share the same friends. Leaving those two important things behind allowed me to shave off two layers of my home life and allowed me to completely emerge in the communities in which i stayed. I was able to spend time talking with the people and learning about their everyday lives in these communities and then experience it for myself. Once i learned enough about these people and experience first hand how they live i was able to work side by side with them to better their community, through teaching them English or building them bunk-beds to sleep in. Fully emerging yourself in the culture makes it easier and 100% more rewarding when you do service because you can understand what the people truly need and give them what they want to better their communities and simplify their lives. 

 

Recording the Memories

The most important thing I learned about traveling in foreign countries is that you must keep a journal. While traveling you will be rapidly hit with a culture shock. You will be observing new experiences and sights and sounds all at once. It is beyond necessary to take some time at night to reflect on your day and write it all down. What did you see? What did you do? What did you eat? Who did you meet? Many years from now you will want to look back into your journal and remember the names of the towns you visited and the people you met. So far in during my life time I have traveled to Costa Rica and India and I have big fat journals from each of my journeys. I would spend time each night nestled under the covers of my bed on the floor of my home-stay house, using my head-lamp for light in the dark, moist room, using my pen to swat the flies away as they buzzed in my ears, reflecting over my days events and writing it down in my journal. I never want to forget the time I spent traveling into other cultures. With the aid of my journals of my journals I will remember them until I'm old and grey.

Habitat Builds Humanity

The thing I love most about Habitat for Humanity is that it brings people together. Everyone taking a hammer, a paint brush, a rake or a nail to that house has helped to piece together a house that will eventually turn into a home for a very deserving family. The family will live their years in this home growing together feeling love and appreciation for all the people who contributed to build their habitat home in such a nice neighborhood. Not, only does Habitat for Humanity give the family a close bond to the many workers and volunteers on the house, but it also brings those groups of volunteers and workers together in ways only dangerous, manly activities can do. Yesterday I went on a day build with the board of my school paper. After a tour of all the problems that old house contained many of us braced the wobbly ladder and headed up to the roof which had a steep slant towards the cement driveway. One by one as we neared the top on the ladder we grabbed hands and secured the person from becoming flattened by the cement. As one of the workers said, "falling isn't bad. The bad part is hitting that hard stuff at the bottom." We didn't want anyone to hit the hard stuff. Our job as amateur roofers was to strip what we were standing on down the the support beams. Each layer was a new surprise; the shingles came off first, under that was a layer of rubber and installation of some sort and then after working together in the warm sun pulling up the nails, cutting the thick rubber with a small, fragile razor and using a pry bar to pull away the layers and throwing them down to the people on the ground trying, but not always succeeding, not to hit them with the flying pieces of shingles and rubber. Once the rubber was piled up in the backyard we could finally see the wood we thought our mission had been accomplished, but then we were told that the wood had to go too. After the wood was piled up in the backyard as well we had to climb over the support beams, trying not to look though the giant gaps at the floor of the first floor of the house, through the hole in the roof onto the ladder and to the ground to go sledge hammer the walls down. Braced with goggles and masks the Eastside board simultaneously took out their aggression on those poor defenseless walls of the house until all we could see was the wooden frame. At the end of the day we had successfully managed to devour the house with no more injuries than a few shingles to the back and some dust in our eyes. We all hopped back on the yellow school bus laughing about our attempts to be carpenters and thankful that no one fell off the roof.

The Ties That Bind

In India jewelery is used in celebration and as a symbol of respect. During the Hindu marriage ceremonies women are adorned with gold bangles, anklets and nose rings as a symbol of wealth and beauty of the women. During the Hindu holiday Raksha Bandhan, Indian children wrap cotton bracelets around their brothers as a promise of protection. Brothers promise to protect sisters from harm and trouble and  sisters pray for their brothers’ protection from evils. 
When I traveled to India I noticed that many of these boys were wearing the strings their sisters had tied around their wrists. I immediately felt a special bond toward these people and their Hindu traditions. From my duffel I pulled out a giant zip-lock bag filled with friendship bracelet string. I never leave home for a long trip without this zip-lock bag. Throughout my travels I have discovered that the act of making friendship bracelets brings people together. I lugged my bag of string over to the tea garden in the little village of Tashi Jong, India eager to teach the women of the village how to make friendship bracelets. As it turned out, they already knew how. We sat around the tea garden until the sun went down teaching each other our unique ways of tying the knots to form different patterns and exchanging the completed products. To this day I still wear the bracelets that these women made me during our time in the tea garden and I know that all the way across the globe these women are wearing the bracelets that I made them. Although we are now practically worlds apart we can still look down at our adorned wrists and feel like we are sitting right next to each other enjoying a warm glass of chi-tea.

Embracing the Culture-Shock

I looked down at the gaping hole beneath me as I pondered my next move. Halfway through the long, threatening drive on the crowded roads of India from Delhi to Himachal Pradesh I desperately needed to use the bathroom. The easy relief I was used to in America became quite the challenge when I opened the bathroom door only to see a large hole in the ground. I soon realized that I was not going to see any extra plush toilet seats for the next month – or air conditioning or hamburgers. Immersion in a new culture has taken me out of the tightly packed box labeled “made in America” and opened my eyes to a whole new way of living. The kind-hearted people I lived with in India spent their lives in small, family-oriented communities satisfied with simple pleasures, such as cooking momos and playing cricket together, without the constant distraction of cell phones and computers. These families welcomed me into their tightly packed, one bedroom homes with open arms. From this experience I grew to greater appreciate the importance of family and the connection with people with backgrounds and traditions so different from my own.