Day 44

It is our last day in Udaipur. Needless to say it was an emotional day, especially at the end of the night as we pulled away from the house, waving goodbye to all our friends on the balcony and promising to visit them sometime in the future.

As I write, the train is slowly pulling away from the station bound for Agra and the Taj Mahal. I should be excited to see this wonder of the world, and I am, but my face is flushed and my stomach is in knots.

It still hasn't hit me this is the end.

I still feel as though tomorrow I am going to wake up at 8 am. Mena Ji will be downstairs cooking lunch with chai and cornflakes all ready for us. Ariana, Allie, and I will be rushing to each take a five minute cold shower before we have to leave and Allie and Ariana will be praying the power doesn't go out before they have time to straighten their bangs. There will be scattered worksheets and crafts all over our bedroom floor, our Indian artwork will be decorating the walls, and our suitcases will be tucked away atop a dusty shelf… empty.

But instead… here I sit, on a surprisingly quiet train, my best friends sleeping in the cots above me, and my suitcase so full it took two grown men to stuff it underneath the seat.

I am bringing back so much more with me than just what is inside my suitcase.

I am bringing the sight of marble palaces glistening in the setting sun, and the smell of fresh gulab jamoon sizzling in piping hot oil.

I am bringing the sound of thunder and the monsoon rain as it lashes against the window screens and we sit in a circle talking by candlelight.

I am bringing the taste of Ritu's fresh mango custard, so sweet and savory it dissolves on your tongue and makes you close your eyes out of pure unadulterated satisfaction.

And lastly, I am bringing the feeling of eleven first graders all fighting for a seat in your lap during story time.

No wonder my suitcase feels so heavy…

India is a country of extreme sensations.

The spiciest foods…

The sweetest desserts…

The loudest… everything…

And even though we have grown accustom to these extremes, the sensation of love and attachment for this country is one extreme of India that I am finding hard to handle. It is a feeling from deep inside my core, swirling constantly, a beam of light pushing outwards. The presence of this extreme feeling has been growing with me since day one, and I have this terrible feeling once I leave it will begin to shrink.

I can't allow that. Instead, I must learn to nurture it, preserving that feeling within me… until the next time I can return to India.

Today while we were on our way to what would be our last day of teaching the first graders, the car stopped for a parade of men slowly walking through the village. In the front of the procession were four grown men, each of them with a hand on a large parcel wrapped in bright cloth and covered in orange carnation flowers.

Behind this were around forty men each of them carrying a large piece, or in some cases, multiple pieces of wood. It took a moment before I realized the parade was actually a funeral and the parcel was in fact a body on its way to cremation.

At first I thought the funeral was a bad omen for our upcoming trip. However, once I realized that was simply the paranoia talking, I considered this sight of death as not a negative sign, but as a positive reinforcement for the idea of leaving anything behind.

In the rural area of Udaipur where work is life, death has only a small time slot for recognition.

Death is a regular occurrence in India. Fathers leave behind mothers with many children, and the very next day, after her husband has passed the wife must still get up and attend to her daily chores. They can not afford to take any time to mourn.

And so one day is reserved for a processional, hence the parade of men carrying the body miles upon miles through the village and leaving a trail of orange carnations.

My final lesson in Udaipur is that, well, to put it bluntly, whether it is in death or an amazing summer in India…leaving sucks.

In our lifetimes we will do much leaving, sometimes without even the knowledge that it is goodbye. It is just a fact of life, and no matter how we choose to cope with this fact, be it mourning or milking the cows the next day, we should allow for one constant…

… that when we leave, we leave a trail of orange carnations

We may be leaving Udaipur, but the three of us are leaving behind much more than just what we couldn't fit into our stuffed suitcases.

We are leaving behind twenty five volunteers who we have given advice to, encouraged, and laughed with at least a hundred times during this trip, twenty five volunteers who lined up one by one to pull us into a huge bear hug before we left.

We are leaving behind two AMAZING new friends, Kerry and Shelby, whom we have grown so close to these last few weeks, and whom we have been invited to stay with have we ever the chance to visit them in their home country.

We are leaving behind many memories of nights spent throwing shaving cream at each other, dressing up like cats, having fake saonces, singing at the top of our lungs, playing cricket, and wearing dresses made entirely out of diapers.

We are leaving behind a coffee shop that benefited very well from our coffee frappe addiction.

But most importantly, we are leaving behind forty students whose lives we have hopefully touched in some way, who have, for an hour and a half each day, had the chance to take a break from conventional Hindi school and play and talk with a few Americans.

We are leaving, yes, and we must say goodbye and move on to our next leg of this great adventure…

However… we can take comfort, I think, in the knowledge that Ariana, Allie and I did not leave behind a trail of carnations…

We left behind a monsoon of them.