Back in the days when I was a volunteer myself, traveling all over the world and experiencing different cultures and becoming a part of different people's lives, I kept a personal travel blog to share my experiences with friends and family. I continued this online journal up until the opening of Joining Hands Nepal orphanage. I thought it would be fun and enlightening to occasionally share an old post with everyone. With the first full year of the orphanage just completed, no post is more relevant than the last one I wrote before the first children were taken into the home to commemorate the experience of Himal (director of Joining Hands Nepal) and myself setting up and preparing for their arrival. Enjoy!
End of an Era
In a few shorts days this house that was once so quiet will become filled with the sweet noise of children laughing, playing, learning, and growing. From 2 will become 12 and a new era will begin. I cannot help but take this moment to say goodbye to the era that is ending, and even lament a little its loss. For though all we have been working towards is about to be thrust upon us and we will embrace it with open arms and hearts, there has been something special about these last 5 weeks. It has been the two of us living alone, cooking, eating, washing, working, in the house we have made together. These days of planning and dreaming, merely imagining the day when our efforts would finally bear fruit, have been some of the most memorable of my life. It is in the journey, and not the destination, when our true character is revealed, and when we learn the most about ourselves and those with whom our lives have become intertwined. Despite the minor setbacks and frustrations, victories and errors, we have made our way together and become the closer for it. We have created our own inside jokes and spent countless hours laughing at them us two. We have developed our own language mash-up of Nepali and English that nobody knows but us and provides us endless entertainment. We have set our sights high like dreaming men are apt to do, and can only hope we shall not soar so high so fast as to meet Icarus’s fate. Today I allow the sadness for these days gone by to enter my heart and flow through my spirit freely, for tomorrow a new era begins, ready to refresh my spirit and refill my heart with love.
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