Mini Adventures

Although things have mostly settled down, and big adventures only happen on Sundays, we still find ways to appreciate the land around us and seek out mini adventures.

On Tuesday, July 6th, Amy, Miriam, and I went on a nature walk. In the early evenings between work and prayer service, we are allowed to take walks around the Shodhgram campus where SEARCH is located. I had no idea how much there was to see just outside the front gate. It was so beautiful!

First, still on campus, we went to the SEARCH playground:

Then we stopped by the temple of Goddess Danteshwari, located just before the front gate:

After passing through the front gate, we turned left. This early evening walk was very pleasant, relaxing, and serene! Our first stop on the walk was at a hut with additional god statues:

Then we climbed up on a dirt hill. The sun was just starting to go down:

We saw a woman working in the fields:

I made sure to get a photo of myself:

We walked far enough so that we could see one of the neighboring villages. We could hear a lot of noise emanating from the village as people returned from the fields and gathered for dinner:

I don't have photos from the next two mini adventures, but I can describe them.

Everyone here drives scooters and mopeds! On Thursday, July 8th, Sona was gracious enough to let us have a little fun with her moped. Bhagyashree supervised as we took turns learning to drive it. I myself, did not actually take control of the moped, but once Marie felt she knew what she was doing, I hopped on behind her. Woooo! We zipped down the main road of SEARCH, turned left, and drove down the road where I had taken my nature walk with Amy and Miriam earlier in the week. It was a lot of fun and a nice change of pace from sitting in front of a computer all day. Marie made me get off when she turned around because she did not want me to go flying off the side. Then we took a nice ride back to the center of SEARCH. I hope during the next five weeks here that I am able to get on the moped again.

Finally, later that same Thursday evening we took a night time adventure walk! It seems that I have been completely unaware of some special parts of the SEARCH campus. There is a lake, but it only fills up during the rainy season. Earlier in the day some of the girls visited the lake and saw the "SEARCH lake house" on the other side. Since they had seen it in daylight, they knew where we were headed in the dark. I went completely blind. Bhagyashree headed up our mission to the lake house. It was very dark expect for our head lamps. It was so dark that you couldn't see the lake, it just looked like an even darker empty space. I was worried about snakes and the like, but what kept me going is that I was not leading the pack and I was not trailing the pack. I felt safe in the middle. It wasn't that far of a walk to the lake house, really only four or five minutes. Once we got there, we took two flights of exterior stairs up to the roof. We were hoping to see stars, but unfortunately none were out. So instead, we played around on the roof, flashed our head lamps into the distance, displayed silly dances, told jokes, and got attacked by mosquitoes. We were up on the roof long enough that our eyes adjusted to the dark and we could finally see the lake. The walk back to our rooms was not as scary, since I knew what to expect and the distance we had to go. I will try to get photos of the lake and lake house in the future.

I look forward to more mini adventures in the weeks to come.