I had arrived into a calm center of peace. The inhabitants of this five-story house were lovely people, doctors taking time for themselves, students between classes, people seeking healing and balance. They were far more helpful than the staff in introducing me to the schedule, as they had lived and breathed it for the last week. Meditation, Yoga, Breathing Exercises, a Walk in the Jungle – all before breakfast!

The classes were split between two instructors: Bivyam – the dismissive man who had showed me to my room when I arrived, and Durga - a beautiful glowing woman who led chanting sessions in the afternoon. She opened her first class by telling us how people can see when you are awake inside, when you carry the light. “Because the entire world lives in darkness.” She said, “So you don’t have to do anything to share the light, just like hiking in the darkness – when you are there, the entire way is lit. The path can be seen.”

While Durga’s classes oozed with spiritual philosophy, Bivyam’s yoga classes were straight forward – we would do 30 minutes of sun salutations, and then 30 minutes of asana, holding each pose for a minute. His spoke only to instruct for a pose, not including any of the spiritual philosophy I love so much in yoga. At first I thought he was new, but his was just an approach to instructing I had not met yet.  He didn’t check in to ask for the names of his students or how long they had been practicing and if they had any injuries he should know about. So then he didn’t know why some people in the class were not doing the backbends or the knee pressure bends. They were avoiding these movements because of injuries – I saw it, but he just asked them if they understood what they need to be doing, why were they not giving it a try?

I found the yoga classes at Sadhana to be highly independant and advanced int the way that you have to know what you are doing well enough to keep from becoming injured. I could see how it would not be the best course for a beginner. And I found it a fantastic yoga lesson. I was not learning poses so much as I was getting a chance to view how far I had come.

It was difficult to be present at times, when holing a pose facing the window I found that I could spot five different types of butterflies at one time in the jungle outside. And the white-faced monkeys who swung by to peer in the windows and holler at us made me laugh and loose my balance. This wasn’t the typical yoga backdrop and distracting as it was, I loved it.

The second morning at Sadhana, our class was very different.  Bivyam announced that in this yoga session, we would do backbends and twists for one minute – he said, “Do this motion as many times as you can in one minute. Faster and faster.” He did a backbend reaching up behind him and then bounced into a forward bend reaching for his toes. I understood what he wanted us to do, but those movements are ones I normally do gingerly and mindfully, moving slowly as to not harm my back. Backbends are big poses, where it is easy to pull something if not paying attention, and it was in this pose that I remembered pulling something in before.

Bivyam wanted us to bounce back and forth straining our backs, and I just didn’t see that as healthy for me. I still did the motions he asked, just slowly and mindfully, communicating with my body the entire time. If I went too fast, there was a chance I would push past my own limits and hurt something. Bivyam came over and said, “Faster. Come on!”  When I didn’t speed up, he thought maybe I didn’t understand. “We are doing as many as we can in a minute. If you do not move faster, you will not have many counted.” The only thing that this comment changed about my posture was that now it was a laughing asana. I laughed out loud. Because of his tight face and his peer pressure and because I know what is good for my body now, and won’t go against it – even to please someone in a position of respect.

The timer rang signaling us to stop moving. “How many did you get?” He asked me, in an exasperated tone.

“I wasn’t counting.”

“Bah!” he scoffed.

“Yoga has never been a competition for me.”

“But that’s what these poses are about! Moving rapidly.”

“I’m sorry, but I won’t do that. Backbends are poses in which I have tweaked my back doing incorrectly before, and I would rather focus on alignment than chance that.”

“I don’t understand you.” He said.

I just shrugged and smiled. That was okay. Never sacrifice the integrity of your body for the glory of the pose.

Sometimes you don’t know what you have learned until you get the opportunity to apply it.  I realized that morning on my mat that I had learned the lesson of knowing my body’s limits and sticking to them. I now knew how far I should go and how much I should do to have a healthy practice. This applies to so many other area of my life as well. In my past, at work I have done too much, exerted too much energy and found myself sick. In previous yoga classes, I used to break and enter my body – I would stretch it farther than I should and pull muscles just to be able to do what the teacher could do rather that was healthy for me or not. The teacher in my first yoga class had years of practice and training to get into that pose, and what did I have? A competitive drive, something to prove, and two strained muscles.

I am not saying that it is impossible to do these poses. Everything is possible. But some things take sweet, sweet time.  And they are not worth rushing for anyone, no matter how much you respect or idolize them.

After I understood that I could modify the practice to suit my needs, I started to modify the entire experience at Sadhana. If I was paying this much for a retreat, I should make it what I wanted.

(I remember having this same type of realisation years ago in college and how I dramatically changed my curriculum to include classes that actually interested me, the ones I wanted to take. I loved school so much more when I modified it to be the type of experience I wanted to have:)

The next morning, I opted out of meditation class at 5:30 to make time for coffee.  I still woke up at the same time, I just took some quiet space for myself on the rooftop to enter the day as other students participated elsewhere. And I am so glad that I did because mornings at Sadhana are magical.

It didn’t start out magical. But then again, it wasn’t ordinary either. My experience at Sadhana Yoga Retreat in Nepal started out as a very sweaty climb.

The fun part about the word ‘retreat’ is that it hints at being secluded. I have been to yoga retreats before, and they don’t even come close to the kind of seclusion that is Sadhana.  My previous yoga retreat centers all had roads leading to them, and I didn’t exactly have to carry in my stuff on my back through the jungle in 101 degree weather.

No, Sadhana was certainly going to be different, I thought to myself as I climbed up the side of Sarangkot mountain, one steep step at a time. This retreat center was tucked away, accessible only through acres of jungle and rice. So much of my Round The World Trip has been about finding places – wandering around looking for a particular hostel, a train station, a hotel I had booked online.  Nepal was proving to be a unique twist to this regular game. For starters, there were no road signs, no street names and around me was a giant green staircase of rice tiers – carefully cut into the side of the steep hillside.

I was lost, but perfectly calm about it. My entire To-Do list for that day involved showing up. Anytime after 4pm, and even though it was around 4, it was still far from nightfall. I had plenty of time. After about an hour’s hike up a tiny trail, I left the exposed rice terrain and ducked into the shady jungle.

By this time, I had accepted that I was dripping with sweat. Twice, I had thought about stashing my pack in the dense grass and coming back for it. Yes, the pack weighs only 13 pounds, but trust me, when hiking at a new elevation and nearly straight up, 13 feels like 33. Did I really need any of that heavy stuff anyway? It’s a yoga retreat. The most important thing you bring is your authentic self.

Seven different types of butterflies later, a five story building appeared at the end of the trail and a tiny hand painted sign high up in a jungle tree announced that I was indeed at Sadhana.

The door was open, but no one was at the reception desk. I looked around the room. It had a lively feel because the walls were painted orange and red, such a sharp contrast to the emerald shades of tropical green outside the windows. There was a large bookshelf in one corner and I instinctively went over to it. Most of the titles were in English. I found a few that looked interesting and then remembered where I was, that I was still wearing a heavy red backpack, and decided I should check in and get settled before diving into a book – or three.

The room was buzzing. I saw a sign that read “If no one is here to check you in, do not hesitate to come up stairs to find us.” I took off my pack and set it down on the couch.

My ears were ringing with the buzzing tone. It was natural rather than mechanical, more melodic than a bee, but lighter than a hummingbird’s wings. I listened intently. It was coming from the window pane. Two hummingbees were stuck inside the building. They had obviously flown in attracted by the red walls, and then could find the light, but not the exit. I approached them and stared in fascination. Native only to Europe, North Africa and Asia, I had only recently seen these tiny beings for the first time on my travels.

Such strange little creatures – not like a bee at all – more like the lovechild of a butterfly and a hummingbird. They had a hummingbird’s wings and a bird’s face with a butterfly’s tongue instead of a beak.  They were buzzing furiously, as if beating their wings faster would somehow dissolve the barriers between them and the outside world.

I had been in resistance like that before once. I could see what I wanted and would not back away from it, even when it wasn’t the right place, the right time. I had been too fixated on what I wanted that I couldn’t see that I really should wait for a better flow – beating at a closed window rather than looking for an open door.

Remembering that feeling, I knew I couldn’t leave them there.

“I mean you no harm.” I said, getting within a breath of the window. “If you let me, I would like to help set you free. You need to come into my hands first however.” They continued buzzing, too close to the window pane to get a clasped hand in to help.

“You have got to trust me.”

The hummingbee let up its pace for just a second and it dropped farther down the glass and into my palm. I gently closed my other hand over it – trying to allow as much space as possible as to not take the dust off her delicate wings. I stepped outside into the jungle. The sun found me over the top of a wild coffee tree. I opened my palms and the creature burst forward – thrilled that it’s effort was met by any distance at all. Like a race car with spinning wheels that just took off the e-brake, the hummingbee disappeared into the blue sky.

I went back in and repeated the process patiently and gently letting the mate free.

It took six flights of stairs before I found the sole inhabitant of the yoga retreat building – a man in an Angry Birds t-shirt busy painting the railing. Sadhana was full of railings – with five brightly painted floors, each with thier own balcony.  The place didn’t seem abandoned, it had the energy of several guests, and I just assumed they were all in a class.

“Namaste.” I said.

“Namaste. Are you just arriving?”

“Yes. There was no one at reception.”

He looked at me and then leaned out over the railing and called someone’s name. It was Hindi, and those names still seem to go in one ear and out the other for me because their sounds and arrangement of vowels are completely new.  Its not like meeting Rachel and thinking – Oh, Rachel, I can remember that because I have a sister Rachel or I’ll remember that because it is one of the only names that begin with R.

He yelled the name louder. No answer.

“Well, you can put your things in this room. Let’s call it yours.” He walked to the end fo the hallway and opened a screen door to a dorm room with five beds. “You are sharing with two other people I think.” And then as though he could hear my thought, said, “Girls.”

“I’m Bivyam.” He said.

Oh Bivyam. Right. I will just remember that because of all the other Bivyams I know…

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sara.”

Bivyam tilted his head side to side, shrugged, and turned back to his project and went back to work. I just stood there for a second, wondering if that was all there would be to an introduction or initiation.

He looked back, surprised to see that I was still standing there. I wanted to ask about the routine or schedule for the next few days. I wanted to ask who my teacher would be, and what time dinner was, and where to find a bathroom. But he didn’t seem like the right one to ask, nor was he open to giving many answers. I figured I would find all that out in good time.

“Does that work for you?” he asked, in a dismissive tone.

“Tik cha.” I said, turning to open the screen door to the room.

“What did you say?” He asked.

I turned around. “Tik cha – that’s okay.”

“Where did you learn that?” He asked.

“Here. You speak Nepali, don’t you?”

“Of course, it’s just that none of the other foreigners do.”

“Oh. Well…”

“Tappalai deshko ha?” He asked. (Where are you from?)

“Malaai desk America ha.” I responded. (My country is America.)

“Okay. Have a nice night.” He said, turning and walking away.

Its a good thing I’m independent, I thought. Welcome to the yoga retreat. Find the schedule and the food on your own. Do it yourself: Nepal. First step, find the bathroom. I walked back into the simple dorm room, marveling at its huge windows and the abundance of them. It held a 180 view of the lake, the city of Pokhara, and the jungle mountains.

Behind the house, the Himalayas rose up quickly, snow covered and vague in the afternoon haze.  I could see the Peace Pagoda across the water. It was inspiring, like being in a house on the top of the world.

The only other door in the room led to the bathroom – a tiny tiled closet with a porcelain hole in the ground: no toilet, no toilet paper, no sink, and a water spout with a bucket below it to flush with. I was glad I brought T.P. as I stepped inside. Man, I really need to work on my aim! That’s a challenge when you are not used to it. I was highly distracted too – counting all the things living in the bathroom. A line of crawlies were marching in through the round open hole in the wall. Permanent residents – 4, transient residents nine, no – make that 17. Oh, and then there are the guys on the ceiling. Okay, final answer 19. I made a mental note to put all my food into ziplock baggies as I filled the bucket with water to flush or slosh or rinse the floor or whatever you call it when there is no handle.

So, I had arrived, at a remote five story retreat building in the middle of the jungle in Nepal. I was sharing a room with a closet for a bathroom with at least 19 inhabitants, and over 90% of them had more than four legs.

You see, it didn’t start out as magical.

I spent the next few days working in the morning at the International School. Because of the Dassai holiday, the school was sitting vacant, so the other volunteers and I asked for the key to the gate, requesting to use the space. Then we walked around the neighborhood to three different orphanages and gathered the children escorting them to the school space.  There we played a variety of games designed to educate and encourage, and I taught arts and crafts lessons.

It was fulfilling to hear the children laughing, to see them thinking and watch them play with and encourage each other.  Interesting how I was there to teach the kids, and yet ended up learning so much about myself in the process.

I spent my afternoons in New Life Orphanage, bringing art supplies for drawing painting or beading. Poonam and I spent a lot of time together, forming a very sweet friendship.

One afternoon, as I arrived at the orphanage, Billy the kitten was waiting for me, winding around through the metal bars of the gate meowing. He kept crying even after I picked him up.

“What’s wrong, little one? Why the tears?” I asked him.

He kept meowing and I got that he was hungry.

I set him down with a neighbor boy and went back out into the street. Because of the holiday, most of the stores were closed. I tried my neighborhood store and it’s garage door was rolled down. No luck there. I stopped at a tiny store the size of a bathroom that had food and shampoo and greeted the shopkeeper.

“Namaste.”

“Namaste.”

“Do you have cat food?” I asked slowly in English.

“Red Bull?”

“No, cat food.”

He gave me a questioning look.

“Cat, like -meow- food?” I imitated Billie’s cries.

“Oh. No.” He shook his head and gave me a look that told me just how odd he thought my request was. “Why you feed cat?”

The restaurants were also all closed so I couldn’t get Billie some chicken. I went up to the next tiny counter that was open and just looked for something I thought a kitten might eat. I remembered him snubbing the bowl of milk that Bikesh put down for him. Cookies were too hard. Granola bars had chocolate in them.  They don’t really do bread in Nepal…so… I spied some cake in the case. Perfect. White cake. That was as close to cat food as I was going to get.  It was 15 rupees, or 25 cents, and soft.

I returned and with Billie fed and purring happily, I entered the orphanage.

I found Poonam in the kitchen, drying dishes with a tee shirt.

“Would you like to go out to lunch with me?” I asked her.

She beamed.

“It’s a nice day. I was thinking we could take a walk through the neighborhood, if you’d like. Just the two of us?”

It was a treat for this 10 year old girl to be involved in an activity without her 16 brothers and sisters. And I wanted to make her feel special.

“We have to ask Amma.” She told me. “She is out buying noodles by the field. I will show you.” She took my hand and we stepped out into the warm sunshine. I was delighted and I noted my own happiness, strolling the dirt streets holding Poonam’s hand. I wasn’t quite a mother to Poonam, and not a sister either, and yet something more than a friend. Whatever it was, it felt perfectly natural.

I asked, “Poonam, do you know what a pen pal is?” She shook her head.

“It is someone that you write letters back and forth with.”

“Letters?” She asked.

“Yes. Do you write letters at school?”

“No.”

“Have you ever received a letter in the mail?”

“No.”

“Oh.”  I tried to explain. “A letter is a way of talking to someone who is far away. That way you can still know how they are and what they are doing even though you don’t see them every day. If I was to write a letter, it would say something like: Dear Poonam, how are you. I am fine. Today I went hiking and saw a deer.”

“Oh. I understand.” she said.

“So I wanted to ask you if I could be your pen pal and write letters back and forth.”

“Yes!” she said quickly.

We spotted the Orphanage mother, buying her daily snack from a Noodle Street Vendor’s cart by the edge of the football field.

Her entire body lit up with a smile when she saw us. Poonam ran over to her and asked in Nepali if it was okay that she went to lunch with me. Amma tossled the little girl’s shiny black hair and beamed at us.

“Oonsa.” She said. (Of Course).

Then she looked at me and her tone changed to serious. “It is SO good to see Poonam with someone she trusts. She loves you.”

I smiled and hugged Poonam. “I love her too.”

I wouldn’t know until later what a huge thing it was that Poonam was going on a walk with me. I misinterpreted Amma’s comment to be about how the children only got to eat out in a restaurant once a year, and that having one-on-one attention was very rare. But it was much bigger than that.

That night, over dinner with my host family, the Volunteer Director sought me out to see how my volunteer experience was going. I told him about the day, and about taking Poonam out to lunch.

“She went walking with you. To lunch with you. Alone?” He asked.

“Yes. And I got to introduce her to chocolate for the first time too!.” He looked at me thoughtfully for a while and then told me her story.

Poonam came to the orphanage from India after both of her parents died. Last year, her grandmother showed up insisting that she needed to take Poonam back to India so she could prove she physically existed to collect her inheritance. She said she would return the little girl in 15 days. Poonam left the orphanage with this woman, who she had not seen for years.

Poonam was not returned home in 15 days, and after 30, the organization started to get worried. But they had no contact information for grandma. After 45 days, the woman returned Poonam to the orphanage. The little girl had cuts on her hands and her face, was starving and riddled with lice. It took a while for her to become stable again.

Two weeks ago, the same grandma called saying she was going to take Poonam home for the holidays. The orphanage mother asked Poonam if she wanted to go, and she replied ‘no, I am not going anywhere with that woman.’ I was happy to hear that the orphanage mother let Poonam make the choice. The grandmother still showed up insisting on taking her, but Poonam locked herself in her room until Grandma went away.

Poonam had been abducted by someone she trusted in the past. And this walk she took with me was the first time she had been out alone with someone since. Now, knowing what I know about her past, it is a wonder she goes out of the house with anyone at all.

I thought back to Amma’s comment, “It is SO good to see Poonam with someone she trusts.”

Trust is a huge thing in a child’s life. Here I had wanted to be a part of a positive project for the kids. I wanted to do great things, to help them. I had time and energy to give, I wanted to build a school or teach them skills that would improve their lives in some way.  And yet, today I had learned that children just need a good role model – they need someone calm and stable enough to rely upon. Just by showing up how I normally do with love and enthusiasm, without really trying, without orchestrating some huge project, I had taught a little girl to trust again.

I think that sometimes we forget that showing up authentically and spending quality time with someone is truly a gift in itself.

After the stress and weight of my first day at the orphanage in Kathmandu, I was relieved to turn my attention to something different: Nepali language lessons. My teacher, Ishwor had dark skin and long hair hiding brown eyes so dark they were almost black, and thin fingers.  His way to say ‘yes’ was to tilt his head side to side and shrug, a gesture that always made me smile. The classroom was located on the rooftop, where Ishwor wrote out Nepali words and had me say them out loud and write them down. About an hour into our lesson, one of those same huge birds of prey flew up and landed on the railing just a few feet from the window. I stopped talking mid-sentence and turned to admire the bird.

“How do you say his name in Nepali?” I asked Ishwor.

“That is chil – eagle.” He told me.

With two flaps of his black wings, the bird left the railing and soared down through the apartment buildings of the city.

“Where I come from, it is very special to see them.” I told Ishwor.

He looked at me as though I was nuts. “Special?”

“Like a good omen. A neat occurrence.” I struggled with finding more simple words to cross the language barrier and explain the meaning of seeing an eagle that close.

“In Nepal,” Ishwor explained, “It is not good or bad. Nothing is. The eagle is not good or bad, it is just an eagle.”

Interesting. I pondered over Joseph Campbell’s idea of man attaching meaning to objects, animals, occurrences for a moment. Campbell said,”Life is without meaning. You attach the meaning. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.” Perhaps in Nepal they had mastered that. Or just stopped attaching meaning?

After our lesson, Ishwor took me sightseeing on the back of his motorbike. Once I got over the awkwardness of where to put my hands to hang on (on his shoulders), it was a lot of fun. We went up to the airport where there was a grand view of the city.

I was struck by the duality of this country – so much beauty and so much chaos. It was everywhere I turned – soft little puppies wrestling in the garbage on the streets, beautiful murals covered in grime,

peaceful pagodas on one side of the street

and a jumble of people and powerlines on the other side of the street.

The mountains were hard to see through the smog and there was trash scattered all along the roads, in the meadows and lining the river banks.

We passed women carrying heavy loads of grain or sticks on their backs – all rearing the Punjabi outfit that I had seen throughout India – the long sleeve shirt that comes down to their knees with flowy pants and a very long silk scarf around their neck. In Nepal, it is rare to see a woman in modern dress and much rarer still to see women in clothing that reveals arms or ankles. One of the other volunteers had to remind me on my first day – “I don’t mean to be rude, but what you are wearing is not appropriate here. Women should never wear tank tops or any pants or skirt that shows bare ankles.” I thanked her for the tip and quickly covered up with a thin long sleeve top. I am grateful the weather here allows for such. In the heat of India, long sleeves were also required but were sweat soaked in a matter of minutes.

We parked the bike on a busy street and walked in an alleyway. Merchants were selling fruit and spices and books and towels off of little carts lining the sides of the alley. We passed a man that Ishwor knew and he stopped to embrace him. I watched his face light up as he talked openly, and held out his hand for this man. Instead of shaking it, he friend held Ishwor’s hand until they said goodbye and quietly inside my head I had the silent ‘ah-ha!’ So this was the brotherly romance I had heard of in Nepal.  It is normal for men here to hold hands walking down the street, sit on eachother’s laps after lunch, stroke eachother’s hair affectionately and talk quietly together whispering in ears. This reminds me a lot of the “girlfriends” in high school – best friends who were very tender with one another, although not in a sensual way. In fact, up until recently, homosexuality has been forbidden in Nepal, subject to imprisonment or even the death penalty.  The thing I find most odd about the ‘bromance’ is how men do not show the same affection to women in public. Husbands do not touch or hold their wives hands in public, and you won’t see Nepali couples exchanging even a friendly kiss on the cheek. I have to wonder if girlfriends and wives ever get jealous of the affection their man shares only with his guy friends.

The alley opened up and it was blindingly bright inside. I reached for my sunglasses, and with them on, I could see a temple, painted white with a gold steeple in the middle. This was a stupa, a Buddhist building created for worship. Unlike a church, people don’t enter a stupa, as it has no center. It is more of a pedestal to sit and meditate on. This one was easily as wide as a city block. Things were more calm inside the stupa square. It was a peaceful paradise compared to the busy street where we left the bike. Monks were walking by in orange and red robes.  The stupa had a white wall around it, with prayer bells built into it. People of all nations were walking the perimeter, spinning the bells and murmuring to themselves. Men walked by with strings of beads, saying prayers as they passed each bead through their fingertips.

“What can you tell me about this place?” I asked my teacher.

“It is a Buddhist Stupa. The largest in Asia. It was built in the 19th century. We are not allowed to go inside, but we can walk around it.”

We passed by an ornate building with a gate. “That is a Buddhist monastery. There are over seventeen around the square.”

“Can we go inside?” I asked.

I was careful to remove my shoes and not to walk on the door frame on my way in. I bowed to the space and entered, walking up the center aisle. A huge Buddha with long elegant fingers looked down at me, its gold eyes gleaming. I smiled up at it, noticing the mermaids of the directions around its head.

Pink Lotus flowers adorned an alter that it sat upon, and on the right was a photo of the Dalai Lama. The space had a quiet glow to it, I felt I could stay for a long while. I looked at the meditation cushions and considered it.

We went back outside and continued our path around the stupa. I saw several people walking on the platforms around above the gate level. At first I figured that they were locals and only locals can go inside. But then I saw a girl of my same age and coloring and asked Ishwor, “So why are we not allowed to inside? I think I see some foreigners in there. Why are some people allowed?”

“We believe that there is a statue of the Buddha housed inside the stupa. And if you are up on that level, you are walking around on a god. That is very disrespectful. You can do it, some people do, but it is not recommended.”

“Oh. Boo-je. (I understand).” I said, practicing some of my new Nepali words.

Hundreds of strands of prayer flags were strung from the top of the stupa to the gate giving it a brilliant colored maypole affect. They lit up with the sun, and I watched the wind take their prayers out into the sky. Through the flags I could see blue eyes looking at me – the Buddhist eyes that see all, experience all. I was very struck by the image of the eyes within the glowing gold point and the light shifting through the colors of the flags surrounding them. I stopped and took several photos.

A tiny hunch-backed monk walked up to me. He was dressed in orange robes, and from his four foot height, he had to strain his neck to look up and make eye contact. He said something in Nepali that sounded very familiar and I smiled at him, slightly confused. He continued to walk on and I turned to Ishwor.

“Did he just say what I think he said?” I asked.

“You have learned this, you tell me.” Ishwor replied.

“I think he said – Hello there little sister.”

“Yes. He recognizes you as family.”

I landed into Kathmandu, Nepal at sunset and smiled up at the eagles soaring through pink thunderheads lit up in the evening light. The city was not like I had expected.  For the capital of a country, there were very few finished polished buildings. Everything was apartment-style, but there were no skyscrapers.  And although there were mountains, it was difficult to see them through the smog.

I loaded my red martian of a backpack into the backseat of a dented hatchback Suzuki taxi. The driver rolled his window down and peeled out of the airport parking lot. The next thirty minutes were white knuckle. Horns blaring. Motorbikes jetting. No streetlights, no road signs. Stop and go traffic with people weaving through the lines of cars. The occasional cow in the middle of the road. Dust clouds kicked up from dirt roads, jostling and bumps from trash and rocks. More horns blaring. Dust and engine fumes clogging my lungs, making me cough. No seatbelt.

And then, I realized- this reminds me a lot of India. I got a rush of nostalgia and relaxed. I sat back and thought about what had brought me to this address in a city of 700,000 people. My original plans had involved a hiking trip through Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan staying overnight in monasteries. And in one simple stamp, the Chinese Government had changed my plans as they changed the policy and forbid  Americans to enter Tibet. Suddenly, I was in Greece with a ticket to Nepal and three open weeks stretching before me. I could have been sad about the cancellation of a portion of the journey I had so looked forward to. But this RTW trip has taught me a lot about going with the flow. I’d rather not push to try and make something happen that just isn’t meant to be. And instead, I look at what else I could be doing.  I saw the hiking trip cancellation an opportunity to do something else. What other things did I want to do in Nepal? After doing a little research, I chose volunteering with children.

Even that did not go as expected. I had only planned to be in Kathmandu for a few days before being transferred to an orphanage in the mountains in the city of Pokhara. However, after arriving, I was told that the volunteering spot in Pokhara was no longer available. My Nepal experience was yet again a beautiful lesson in being flexible. I responded with, “Okay, if I cannot volunteer in Pokhara, where is the need? I will go where the need is.”

Because really I was less attached to a particular city in Nepal, and more concerned with helping. So it made sense to just relax and be okay with going wherever I was needed.  But this was landmark, as it was the first time in a while that I didn’t plan where I was going. Or even know where I would be. I was leaving that open and letting go of the control.

My last thought before I fell asleep that night was: What an odd culture I have landed into. Where people bring a flashlight with them any time they go up or down a staircase, just in case the power goes out. Which it does, daily.

I began Nepali language classes the next morning, and went to meet the children of New Life Orphanage.

My first few moments in the orphanage, I met Poonam, who showed me around and introduced me to everyone. Because the boys were all nearly the same height, I allowed myself patience, knowing it may take me days to learn everyone’s names. So I decided to just start with Poonam, focus on her, and branch out from there.

She and I had a basic conversation – what is your favorite food, your favorite color, your favorite animal, etc. She is 10 and likes Pink and Yellow and her birthday is June 15th. We drew pictures and made origami shapes. She drew me a picture and dedicated it , “To My dream Friend, Sara.”

When I asked her, “Why am I your dream friend? What does that mean?” She responded, “One day I will wake up and you will not be here. It will be like a dream that I have known you.”

Then one of the boys asked if I wanted to play ball outside. We walked out and around to the back of the house to an empty lot. This was not like an empty lot in the states. For starters, it isn’t flat. It has rocks and bricks and a chaotic jumble of pipes and trash throughout. But the boys stacked two rocks to make a goal, and we played soccer. One by one they got in line to kick at the goal, defended by a little guy who was quick on his feet. I played the voice of the announcer, “He eyes the goalie. He steps back for momentum, he approaches, kicks and oh! So close! The crowd holds their breath…” And after every boy made a goal I gave them loads of positive reinforcement. Because of their silence, I was uncertain if they liked this from me or not, but I offered it just the same. While waiting our turn, we did things that boys like to do: we caught frogs and turned over rocks to look at centipedes and broke sticks.

I was distracted from my game with the boys by the sound of something screaming. It sounded like a small child, and the little voice was hauntingly full of pain. I ran around to the front of the house where I saw a boy wildly swinging a black and white kitten around by one leg. I wasn’t sure if he had torn a muscle or broken the limb but I intervened. I stepped up to the child and put my hand on his back, grabbing his swinging arm with mine and then tried to pry the cat out of his grasp.

“That’s not a nice way to treat the cat.” I told him.

He continued swinging, and I could not bear the tiny animal’s screeching. “Please stop.” I asked him, reaching for the cat.

He stared at me with wide brown eyes and pulled the kitten close to him, squeezing it to his chest with both arms as if it were a stuffed animal, turning away from me.

“This kitten is a baby.” I said, fighting to keep my tone calm.  It became increasingly harder to speak. “We need to be gentle with him.”

The boy wouldn’t budge. The cat gasped and I could tell it was having difficulty breathing. I heard a soft click and wondered if that was ribs or lungs. I was unsure if the boy could understand me, but I didn’t have the words in Nepali yet.

“May I see the cat please?” I asked.

No response. He just stared at me, seeming shocked that I was reprimanding him.

“What is the cat’s name?” I asked.

“Billie.” The boy replied finally.

“Why were you swinging him around like that?”

“So he would meow.”

“Are you aware that you were hurting him, and that you might still be hurting him now?”

“Cats say meow. I was making him talk.”

“You are right. Cats do say meow. They also feel pain when someone is being rough with them. If someone was swinging you around by one arm that fast, it would hurt you, wouldn’t it?  Cats can get hurt or even die if people are not careful with them.”

The boy looked at me with a blank expression. “So?”

I was appalled at his apathy. The lump in my throat grew. Then I had an idea.

“Did you know that cats have another sound they make?” I asked, blinking back tears.

He just stared at me.

“They can purr.  Anyone can make a cat meow, but it is very tricky to get one to purr. Can I show you?”

He slowly loosened his grip on the kitten and passed it over to me. Billie was indeed just a baby, and was weightless in my hands. I sat down on the concrete steps in front of the orphanage house.

“Hey there, little one.” I said, stroking him. He was shaking, frightened and stressed.

“Cats make a little rumble sound when they are happy.” I told the boy, who was listening intently.

I waited until the little one had relaxed a little and tried to exude peace so it knew it could trust me. Then I stroked the top of his head gently and moved my finger under his petite chin and scratched. He lifted his head up to allow me more space to touch and began to purr.

“Do you hear that?” I asked the boy. He leaned down and put his ear close to the kitten’s head. “That is a purr. Cats only make that sound when you are doing something that they like, something that makes them happy. And the neat thing about this trick is that when the cat is purring, it actually wants to stay with you. You don’t have to chase it to catch it. It won’t run away. See,  -watch- no hands-” I help up both hands and the kitten stayed curled in my lap “See, he stays. He is happy.”

I broke up two fights that afternoon – the bigger kids of the orphanage ganging up on smaller ones – torturing until they screamed, and then some. It made no sense to me. They continually tried to hurt one another as if they were aiming for suffering.  They older boys responded the same way as the boy with the cat had – they were shocked that I was reprimanding them, as if no adults ever intervened or tried talking to them about their aggressive behavior before.

I walked home with a heavy heart. Did these children have no respect for life? Did that come from loosing their parents at an early age?  Was it from formative years growing up on the street? Did the suffering in their lives before the orphanage cause them to think it normal or fine to cause suffering in those around them? I was troubled that they only seemed to respond to negative attention. I was here because I wanted to be a part of a positive project or change for them. I wanted to improve their lives in some way. But where could I start? How could I get through to them? What was I doing here?

Although I felt ineffective and disturbed in this volunteer position, I chose to stay another few days to see if it would get better. Perhaps with more information, I could figure out how to help them. And I am so glad I stayed. Because that raw and vulnerable place I was in, that huge lump in my throat, that feeling of  being powerless – those are all tell-tale signs that someone is about to grow. You see, sometimes it is the difficult things we go through that expand us. And although I felt so sad and helpless on that walk home from the orphanage the first day, that was exactly what was happening.