ACS - Nepal, 2014 Update 3

It's day 5 on the Week Without Walls for ACS here in Nepal. Lets here what the students had to say about their day.....

                                      "Today was our first day of community service in Nepal; a day we've been looking forward to for a very long time. At 5:30 students were beginning to line up to sign for the activity they wanted. We chose to visit a school and help out. To get to the school, we had to hike up an intense exhausted mountain full of slippery rocks. The one think that kept us going until the end was the beautiful view and the idea that we are lucky enough to have an opportunity to help out the less fortunate. We reached the school and were warmly welcome by the students and teachers. It was so beautiful to see the entire student body singing dancing and performing to our arrival. In return, we offered a DVD player and school belongings that we had bought through fundraisers. We started the day by interactive activities with a certain group of students where they taught us their language, culture and traditions, and in return, we shared our Arabic culture. This experience along with many other had a tremendous impact on us. We realized how fortunate we are to be living the way we do, and to be able to travel farther than 50 miles away from home. But most importantly we were shocked to see the joy and innocence that filled the children despite their hard living conditions. We now know to never complain again"             

                                                                                       Cayanne

                            "

Hey everyone, so today we started our community service. Our group started the day off by crossing a suspension bridge. Although there were a few missing spots along the way, we all managed to safely reach the other side. We then continued to climb over a fairly steep mountain, overseeing a beautiful view of a river, amongst other natural beauties. Panting heavily we arrived to the warmest welcome of school kids and teachers, a perfect reward for our tiring hike. As they put flower necklaces around our necks and bindis on our foreheads we felt integrated into a community and culture, appreciative of all people, based on their common form of greeting, “namaste”. By this they acknowledged the divine with in us and we returned this with sincerity. Teaching the children not only made us feel deeply gratified but brought us close to each other. The combined experiences of painting the classrooms and teaching them inspired a sense of selflessness with in all of us as individuals. All in all this experience will stay with us forever, and we can only hope that we made an impact on them as well."

                                                 Habib and Layan