THE BEST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE-INDIA 2014

All my life I’ve wondered what good I’ve done, what’s worth remembering in the long run. If I think of it now, the first thing that comes to mind is the trip I took to India in August 2014. My parents, who are leaders of a youth group in our church in Italy, took a group of nine teenagers to India. The purpose of the trip was a mission. A mission to see other people’s lives and how some people work to change lives. My father has been a regular visitor at the Vimala Dermatology center in Mumbai for several years now, and he thought it best that we went to a place he knew and trusted. We left on the 14^th August, had a stopover in Istanbul and arrived in Mumbai on the 15^th. We were welcomed by the lovely Sister Bertilla, a wonderful nun from the north of Italy who has been serving God in India for many years. Her warm smile encouraged our scared teenage minds, as we looked around and saw poverty and people with nothing. At the hospital there is also a orphanage for daughters of lepers or who suffer from the illness themselves. There are only girls there, as in India they are often considered less important and they get abandoned more easily than boys. The joy we received from these children was great, and we really couldn’t believe how happy they were with hardly anything. In the days following we were brought round some slums: little villages made out of plastic and cardboard houses, than often are made out of ruins. They don’t have clean water and many days they don’t have anything to eat. On the 17^th we left Mumbai to go to Rishabdev, a little village next to Udaipur, in Rajistan. We were going to stay there for ten days, in the hands of five very welcoming nuns: Sister Ramila, Sister Santoshi, Sister Glory, Sister Ignatia and Sister Marisa. They, and two priests, are in charge of the St Paul school and boarding, looking after and caring for over five hundred children. As soon as we set foot in the school grounds we felt lost, and we didn’t know if we would be able to bond with the children, as they couldn’t understand or speak any English. But soon enough we had bonded with nearly every child, big or small. We played games, taught them some words in English and Italian, and they taught us some Hindi, they’re main language. The culture there is very different, and at first it was hard to adjust. The girls are always separate from the boys, and we always had to dress with long trousers, even though it was boiling outside. I’m so happy that I got to be a part of this amazing experience, and I really recommend that you should go volunteering in a third world country, as it was most definitely the best experience of my life.

Love, Sara xx