Here is an overview of my trip to India and Nepal. I had been dreaming of travelling to Auroville for many years and finally made the dream come true. Some of the highlights of my journey included trekking the Annapurna circuit, visiting Auroville in India, and opening up Namaste Daycare in Nepal.
A little background:
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| Fly geyser near my grandfather's old farm |
Although I was granted an interview for Teach For America (a huge accomplishment considering none of my other friends who had applied got to the interview stage), I did not land the gig. The English teaching in Japan also fell through, so there I was with a part-time job tutoring at Allan Young school in a high security mental health facility in Norwalk, CA with no place to stay. Fortunately, the kind parents of my sister-in-law, Werner and Ursula Vonderohe offered me a place near Venice Beach. After a few months there I moved to a house near Dodger stadium in Los Angeles to work doing video production and academic tutoring while trying my hands at gardening in the back yard. One day I picked up a book at Barnes and Noble called "Delaying the Real World." The book was filled with great ideas like Wwofing, Peace Corps, and many others. What stuck out to me was this opportunity called Teen Travel Tour Guiding. Apparently, you could get paid (a small amount) to take teens on trips to exotic international locations. I made a video resume and sure enough I landed a job with Adventures Cross-Country as a trip leader.
These trips gave me practice leading service-learning trips with the necessary elements of preparation and reflection. This great responsibility of leading teenagers on international trips quickly built my skill set in areas of group dynamics, leadership styles, risk management, and most importantly - confidence. My own experience building a house in Tijuana as a teenager had a profound effect on me. For those 4 summers leading trips with Adventures Cross-Country, I was able to help facilitate service-learning trips that no doubt have brought similar benefits to the youth who took the journey with me.
I even tried my hand at the family business. McKay Drilling is a geothermal and water well drilling company started by my father and grandfather. Today my uncle (Steve) and father (Gordon) run the business. While I worked there, I got a variety of job experiences from performing payroll to running well tests. My time at McKay Drilling gave me insight into what is takes to run as small business, and also allowed me to get to know my father and uncle on a deeper level.
In 2008, I started my role as Youth Enrichment Specialist as Community Chest in Virginia City. This little non-profit started by my friends and mentors Shaun Griffin & Deborah Loesch-Griffin, provides essential services to the rural areas in Storey County. With social justice programs that focus on emergency needs, youth development, and mental health; Community Chest is an excellent model for a rural non-profits. Here is a small sampling of the things they offer: thrift store, food closet, early childhood education program, before-and-after school care, counseling service, job placement, case management, Nevada Works site, business center, community garden, and many more. It took me a little while to adjust to the philosophy and freedoms of working at Community Chest. Shaun and Erik, both truly transformational and inspiring leaders, helped me to understand and internalize the work that I was doing. I had the goal of improving the lives of youth. I attempted this by running a before-and-after school program, facilitating substance abuse prevention programming, performing academic tutoring, and leading Global Voice international service-learning and wilderness therapy trips. My work days had a nice amount of variety and my role offered me the flexibility that in addition to working on the programs listed, I worked with walk in clients to help them with computer skills, led large groups of students in an anti-bullying program, and even testified at the Nevada State legislature on out-of-school time standards.
To my delight, friends new and old, family, and people I had worked with, sent in donations. Most donations were in the $10 and $20 range, but several reached the $100 range, and there was even one for $1,000! With over $3,000 raised, I made my preparations for my trip to Nepal and India. My best friend Joey threw a going away party for me at his house and I felt so much love and well wishing from friends, family, and co-workers. Before leaving, I got a call from my brother asking if I wanted to transport his dog from Washington DC to Nairobi, Kenya. I of course jumped on the opportunity and in late September flew to the East Coast.
Ashley and I visited our friends Jake and Randi in New York City. We got to have several days in the city exploring central park, walking the highline, and even visiting a Prohibition era bar located in a super secret location. We ate great food and dined at a place joined by friends Kurosh and Lindsay where we ate cow tongue, tendons, and intestines. Next we headed up to Boston where we visited my longtime friends Kyle and Keiffer. Afterward, we stopped in Philadelphia and did some indoor rock climbing before heading down to Washington DC where we had to say goodbye ;(
I spent 5 days in Mumbai. At the beginning, I felt a tidal wave of people trying to get money from me whether it was through a tour, buying trinkets, or less appropriate things. There I was not just asked if I wanted to buy drugs, but I would be followed around by guys for several minutes. After a few days, I started to respond by saying, "I like hugs, not drugs" and would attempt to hug these entrepreneurial street pharmacists. This worked like a charm. I got laughs and hugs from many people. The colonial architecture of the place was amazing. One day I met a guy named Ganesh. After speaking with Ganesh for over an hour and him not asking for money from me, I decided to join him on a short trip north of the city. We stopped at a slum where massive amounts of clothing are washed by hand. After that we, Ganesh took me to these Buddhist carved caves outside of Mumbai that were fantastic. We had a great day. I bought him a beer at the end of the day and then he told me his story about his dad being killed in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. He was going to college and was working a shoeshine business on the side, but he did not have the money needed to buy the proper setup. His plea worked, and I handed him over the cash to start his business. I figured that I would have paid more had I hired a tour guide, so I considered the deal fair.
One of the main reasons that I went to Mumbai was to be in a Bollywood film. Both my guidebook and the internet described how it was fairly easy as a white person to be asked on the street if they wanted to be an extra in a film. On the third day, someone asked. It was a friendly half Nepali, half Indian guy. His English was pretty good, but he wanted to practice more so he took me to a cafe where we ate a dosa, a thin pancake rolled around spicy potatoes. Had a really good chat with the guy - he talked about living in a Buddhist monastery, getting into fights, girls, learning languages, and the Hindu religion. The guy even paid for my lunch - such a nice change. Unfortunately the next day when I arrived at the restaurant to begin my big day of filming, no one was there to pick me up. I guess being a Bollywood star isn't in my cards, at least during this life. Below is a video of me riding on a train with Ganesh (also the name of the elephant headed god that is prayed to for safe journeys)
Nepal was my next stop. I planed to get started work on the childcare center, but due to the national elections it turned out that things would be at a standstill for the next 3 weeks. I spent a few days in Kathmandu exploring the sites. There are religious stupas all over Kathmandu. Two of my favorite places I visited in the city were the monkey temple and Pashupatina. Below is a video of Pashupatina where young priests perform a ritual as bodies are cremated in the distance before being placed in the river.
As I was getting ready to leave for my trek to the Annapurna circuit, I was looking for other trekkers who were heading to the same place as the guidebook said it was a bad idea to do the trail alone. Luckily, I met Christina and Kate from England who were headed to the trailhead at Besi Sahar. We decided to join forces and I was adopted into their family. We left Kathmandu by bus and after many hours of bumpy and winding roads around steep and treacherous drop offs, we arrived at the starting point of the trail that evening. The next day we began walking through a mostly tropical and green environment. We stayed with other trekkers at "tea houses," simple but nice places with beds and food. For the next 10 days, we walked though a changing landscape as we were left to our thoughts to reflect on our lives and enjoy the views around us. As we started to get up higher in elevation, the temperatures became cold. We started drinking a lot of hot tea and dressed in warm layers when we stopped hiking. While hiking, the body would stay warm and couldn't handle too many layers.
The Annapurna circuit is considered to be one of the best treks in the world. The cultural influence of Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism give it a unique character combined with its impressive landscape. Along the trail, you pass through beautiful terrain, quaint villages, and the largest gorge in world, just to name a few highlights. Most people on the trail have a guide and porters to carry their bags. We chose to use neither and were very glad that we made that decision. After making it to the summit at 17,800 feet, I was proud of my accomplishment and felt surprisingly strong. After climbing down over a vertical mile, we arrived in Muktinath where we met up with several of our friends that we made along the trail. With the girls wanting to take a rest day and continue walking the trail for another 10 days, I decided to say my goodbyes and rented a mountain bike.
ike
Mountain biking down the trail proved to be more difficult than I expected. Downhill sections like the one in this picture were fantastic. What made it difficult was the uphill sections, the wind, the food poisoning, and the fact that I was still wearing my backpack. After a full day of mountain biking, I arrived in Marpha where I proceeded to rid my body of the contents in my stomach several times during the night. I woke up feeling weak and jumped on my bike. After a few hours on the bike feeling pretty ill, I decided to catch a bus when I found an opportunity. Before the guys let me on the bus, at least 12 people had to ride the bike. I was very relieved to be on the bus and able to rest. The terrain was gorgeous and reminded me of the Sierra Nevada mountains near my home. After a few hours on the bus, I got off and began riding the bike again. Now the road had a nice downhill, but the potholes were annoying and I was sucking fumes from the trucks on the road. Given this, I decided to cross a suspension bridge and follow the nice singletrack of the Annapurna trail. The trail lasted for a good 20 seconds. After that I was met with a seemingly never ending amount of stone steps that I had to carry my bike up and down all while wearing my backpack and suffering with weakness from a stomach bug. A couple of kids joined me later on once I had reached a village. They were so excited to see a bicycle because they probably had never seen one before. Eventually I spotted a suspension bridge heading back across the massive gorge to the road. I made it back and started ride the last hour or so to the hot springs of Tatopani. There I spent three days recovering from my stomach bug, doing some reading, and playing Grand Theft Auto on my iphone.
From Tatopani, I caught a bus to Pokhara. This was another treacherous ride that I overheard a Westerner say they had seen on a television special called the world's 10 most dangerous roads. After surviving that ride, I found myself in the lovely lakeside town of Pokhara. I got a room with a television and spent a few days watching movies as I recovered from the stomach illness. I soon enrolled in a 3 day yoga retreat where I stayed at a Buddhist meditation center. We started our day before the sun rose by rinsing our sinuses with a Neti pot. Having 3 days to concentrate on yoga postures, philosophy, and meditation was a real treat - it reminded me that I should do yoga everyday. After I left the retreat, I ran into several friends from the Annapurna trek. I spent the next several days exploring the lake by boat, visiting the pictured Buddhist Peace pagoda, and generally relaxing in this wonderful little town.
A little while later, I flew to Chennai, India and made my way towards Auroville. I first stopped for a few days at Mamalampuram where there is a slew of great carvings and temples. I had a night in Pondicherry staying at an Aurobindo guest house and visiting the Ganesh temple before taking a tuk-tuk to Youth Camp guesthouse in Auroville. I rented a moped scooter and began driving it through the red earth trails looking to find my way around the large area of land. This land has been altered and improved be the residents living there. In fact, there is an estimated 2 million trees that have been planted in Auroville since it began. I ran into a German fellow with a beard that put ZZ-Top to shame and he led me to the financial services building where I picked up my Aurocard. In Auroville, one puts money on an Aurocard so that you can buy things from some of the businesses that only accept Aurocard. Places like the solar kitchen, where over 1,500 meals per day are cooked using heat from a giant parabolic mirror, and cost less than $2 for a plate of food that looks like this.
On the evening of the first day in Auroville, I took a bus with about 40 others to a place called Sadhana Forest where we had a tour of their reforestation and garden project. Much like Auroville's transformation since it established in 1968, Sadhana forest has been slowly converting dry red barren earth into a greenly forested area. After our tour, we were taken to a large bamboo lodge where we were told additional information about the project and philosophy. As our speaker was talking about how greater trust is put into children here, a young maybe 10 year-old boy was climbing and swinging around on the inside of the structure 30 feet above our heads. The movie "Revenge of the Electric Car" was shown and we were fed a lovely meal composed of many plants that were grown on site. This was my Thanksgiving and I was able to chuckle about it with a fellow American.
The next day I continued to explore. That evening I attended an all-you-can-eat pizza party put on by kids at a place called the youth center. My first impression of this place made me think of the lost boys from the movie "Hook." High school aged kids were blasting dubstep music, playing foosball, and cooking pizzas in a wood fired oven in their own very unique community. The surrounding area had homemade carnival rides and interesting art projects. The pizza was delicious and the kids were friendly. There I ran into a French Canadian guy Giel who I spoke to for a few hours. He told me some of the background history of Auroville, with the nearby area formerly being a French colony; and therefore, the heavy French influence in Pondicherry. After our good chat, he invited me to come by to his project at a new housing community called Sacred Groves. I showed up a few days later, and after getting an awesome tour of the project, I began to help in constructing a metal windmill slated to be the largest in all of Auroville following its installation. After two days of solid work, running support cables, fastening pipe couplings, etc., we began the process of raising the windmill. The first step went fairly well. When I came back the next day, I found crumpled steel on the ground. Apparently, that morning, a group had tried to raise the windmill and it had collapsed about 15 minutes before I got there. Luckily, no one was injured.
A few days later, I began volunteering at Solitude Farm. This is a really cool place located near the center of town. Krishna, born in the UK, has been running the farm for over 20 years and has married a Tamil woman whom he has two beautiful children with. The farm uses permaculture practices and is inspired by the Japanese farmer Fukuoka. I was one of about 14 volunteers working on the farm. We represented the nations of India, Germany, England, Georgia, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, and the US. This was some of the most labor intensive and difficult work that I have done in my life, but it was also fun. In my week of volunteering I got to do many things including: clearing the jungle, returning organic matter to the soil, building a swing, laying bricks, working the nursery, and planting lettuce, tapioca, eggplant, tomatoes, mint, and many other plants.
After my time at Solitude, I returned to Nepal to the village of Tokha just a half hour north of Kathmandu. This village is the site of Namaste Day Care which has been funded by family and friends. Here is a video of the staff. The idea of Namaste Day Care is to provide child care for young children between the ages of 18 months to 4 years. This allows women to attain employment giving her a greater voice in family decisions, and giving the family an overall access to more resources. Children receive nutritious food twice daily and are exposed to a variety of games, songs, and social interaction. Namaste Day Care is a huge asset to the community and it will be exciting to see the continued growth of the center.
As for me, love and opportunity have pulled me back to the US. I have accepted a position at Lake Tahoe High School working with students to help them to get into college through tutoring and counseling. It is great to be back home close to family and friends, but immersed in the beautiful area of South Lake Tahoe. I continue to communicate with my staff at Namaste Day Care on a regular basis, and hope that the center will move closer to financial sustainability so that outside funds are no longer needed. Of course, we are far from that goal at the moment and we can use additional contributions to continue operations. Currently we are funded for 6 months, but we would like to raise funds to continue the center for a year. If you would like to contribute, you can click here.
As I was getting ready to leave for my trek to the Annapurna circuit, I was looking for other trekkers who were heading to the same place as the guidebook said it was a bad idea to do the trail alone. Luckily, I met Christina and Kate from England who were headed to the trailhead at Besi Sahar. We decided to join forces and I was adopted into their family. We left Kathmandu by bus and after many hours of bumpy and winding roads around steep and treacherous drop offs, we arrived at the starting point of the trail that evening. The next day we began walking through a mostly tropical and green environment. We stayed with other trekkers at "tea houses," simple but nice places with beds and food. For the next 10 days, we walked though a changing landscape as we were left to our thoughts to reflect on our lives and enjoy the views around us. As we started to get up higher in elevation, the temperatures became cold. We started drinking a lot of hot tea and dressed in warm layers when we stopped hiking. While hiking, the body would stay warm and couldn't handle too many layers.
The Annapurna circuit is considered to be one of the best treks in the world. The cultural influence of Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism give it a unique character combined with its impressive landscape. Along the trail, you pass through beautiful terrain, quaint villages, and the largest gorge in world, just to name a few highlights. Most people on the trail have a guide and porters to carry their bags. We chose to use neither and were very glad that we made that decision. After making it to the summit at 17,800 feet, I was proud of my accomplishment and felt surprisingly strong. After climbing down over a vertical mile, we arrived in Muktinath where we met up with several of our friends that we made along the trail. With the girls wanting to take a rest day and continue walking the trail for another 10 days, I decided to say my goodbyes and rented a mountain bike.ike
Mountain biking down the trail proved to be more difficult than I expected. Downhill sections like the one in this picture were fantastic. What made it difficult was the uphill sections, the wind, the food poisoning, and the fact that I was still wearing my backpack. After a full day of mountain biking, I arrived in Marpha where I proceeded to rid my body of the contents in my stomach several times during the night. I woke up feeling weak and jumped on my bike. After a few hours on the bike feeling pretty ill, I decided to catch a bus when I found an opportunity. Before the guys let me on the bus, at least 12 people had to ride the bike. I was very relieved to be on the bus and able to rest. The terrain was gorgeous and reminded me of the Sierra Nevada mountains near my home. After a few hours on the bus, I got off and began riding the bike again. Now the road had a nice downhill, but the potholes were annoying and I was sucking fumes from the trucks on the road. Given this, I decided to cross a suspension bridge and follow the nice singletrack of the Annapurna trail. The trail lasted for a good 20 seconds. After that I was met with a seemingly never ending amount of stone steps that I had to carry my bike up and down all while wearing my backpack and suffering with weakness from a stomach bug. A couple of kids joined me later on once I had reached a village. They were so excited to see a bicycle because they probably had never seen one before. Eventually I spotted a suspension bridge heading back across the massive gorge to the road. I made it back and started ride the last hour or so to the hot springs of Tatopani. There I spent three days recovering from my stomach bug, doing some reading, and playing Grand Theft Auto on my iphone.
From Tatopani, I caught a bus to Pokhara. This was another treacherous ride that I overheard a Westerner say they had seen on a television special called the world's 10 most dangerous roads. After surviving that ride, I found myself in the lovely lakeside town of Pokhara. I got a room with a television and spent a few days watching movies as I recovered from the stomach illness. I soon enrolled in a 3 day yoga retreat where I stayed at a Buddhist meditation center. We started our day before the sun rose by rinsing our sinuses with a Neti pot. Having 3 days to concentrate on yoga postures, philosophy, and meditation was a real treat - it reminded me that I should do yoga everyday. After I left the retreat, I ran into several friends from the Annapurna trek. I spent the next several days exploring the lake by boat, visiting the pictured Buddhist Peace pagoda, and generally relaxing in this wonderful little town.
A little while later, I flew to Chennai, India and made my way towards Auroville. I first stopped for a few days at Mamalampuram where there is a slew of great carvings and temples. I had a night in Pondicherry staying at an Aurobindo guest house and visiting the Ganesh temple before taking a tuk-tuk to Youth Camp guesthouse in Auroville. I rented a moped scooter and began driving it through the red earth trails looking to find my way around the large area of land. This land has been altered and improved be the residents living there. In fact, there is an estimated 2 million trees that have been planted in Auroville since it began. I ran into a German fellow with a beard that put ZZ-Top to shame and he led me to the financial services building where I picked up my Aurocard. In Auroville, one puts money on an Aurocard so that you can buy things from some of the businesses that only accept Aurocard. Places like the solar kitchen, where over 1,500 meals per day are cooked using heat from a giant parabolic mirror, and cost less than $2 for a plate of food that looks like this.On the evening of the first day in Auroville, I took a bus with about 40 others to a place called Sadhana Forest where we had a tour of their reforestation and garden project. Much like Auroville's transformation since it established in 1968, Sadhana forest has been slowly converting dry red barren earth into a greenly forested area. After our tour, we were taken to a large bamboo lodge where we were told additional information about the project and philosophy. As our speaker was talking about how greater trust is put into children here, a young maybe 10 year-old boy was climbing and swinging around on the inside of the structure 30 feet above our heads. The movie "Revenge of the Electric Car" was shown and we were fed a lovely meal composed of many plants that were grown on site. This was my Thanksgiving and I was able to chuckle about it with a fellow American.
The next day I continued to explore. That evening I attended an all-you-can-eat pizza party put on by kids at a place called the youth center. My first impression of this place made me think of the lost boys from the movie "Hook." High school aged kids were blasting dubstep music, playing foosball, and cooking pizzas in a wood fired oven in their own very unique community. The surrounding area had homemade carnival rides and interesting art projects. The pizza was delicious and the kids were friendly. There I ran into a French Canadian guy Giel who I spoke to for a few hours. He told me some of the background history of Auroville, with the nearby area formerly being a French colony; and therefore, the heavy French influence in Pondicherry. After our good chat, he invited me to come by to his project at a new housing community called Sacred Groves. I showed up a few days later, and after getting an awesome tour of the project, I began to help in constructing a metal windmill slated to be the largest in all of Auroville following its installation. After two days of solid work, running support cables, fastening pipe couplings, etc., we began the process of raising the windmill. The first step went fairly well. When I came back the next day, I found crumpled steel on the ground. Apparently, that morning, a group had tried to raise the windmill and it had collapsed about 15 minutes before I got there. Luckily, no one was injured.
A few days later, I began volunteering at Solitude Farm. This is a really cool place located near the center of town. Krishna, born in the UK, has been running the farm for over 20 years and has married a Tamil woman whom he has two beautiful children with. The farm uses permaculture practices and is inspired by the Japanese farmer Fukuoka. I was one of about 14 volunteers working on the farm. We represented the nations of India, Germany, England, Georgia, Japan, France, Italy, Spain, and the US. This was some of the most labor intensive and difficult work that I have done in my life, but it was also fun. In my week of volunteering I got to do many things including: clearing the jungle, returning organic matter to the soil, building a swing, laying bricks, working the nursery, and planting lettuce, tapioca, eggplant, tomatoes, mint, and many other plants.
After my time at Solitude, I returned to Nepal to the village of Tokha just a half hour north of Kathmandu. This village is the site of Namaste Day Care which has been funded by family and friends. Here is a video of the staff. The idea of Namaste Day Care is to provide child care for young children between the ages of 18 months to 4 years. This allows women to attain employment giving her a greater voice in family decisions, and giving the family an overall access to more resources. Children receive nutritious food twice daily and are exposed to a variety of games, songs, and social interaction. Namaste Day Care is a huge asset to the community and it will be exciting to see the continued growth of the center.
As for me, love and opportunity have pulled me back to the US. I have accepted a position at Lake Tahoe High School working with students to help them to get into college through tutoring and counseling. It is great to be back home close to family and friends, but immersed in the beautiful area of South Lake Tahoe. I continue to communicate with my staff at Namaste Day Care on a regular basis, and hope that the center will move closer to financial sustainability so that outside funds are no longer needed. Of course, we are far from that goal at the moment and we can use additional contributions to continue operations. Currently we are funded for 6 months, but we would like to raise funds to continue the center for a year. If you would like to contribute, you can click here.
