This is my final week at Kodai School. I have begun saying my farewells and packing up my things. On Sunday I will fly out of India, headed to Amsterdam, where Cory and I will spend three beautiful weeks tooling around Europe.
This entire experience has been so much more than I expected. It has been jarring and disorienting, beautiful and rewarding, and most of all mind-broadening. I have realized things I take for granted that I would never have thought of. I have met amazingly dedicated teachers and kind-hearted students and administrators who are doing awesome things with minimal resources. This experience has helped me to really experience the global community that everyone blathers on about. The people I met here barely have a homeland. They travel, they work all over the world, and they speak so many languages that this ignorant American feels like its time to get it together and broaden my horizons.
I am grateful for everything that has happened here because I feel like I am a stronger and more creative person for it. I am also very excited to be returning to somewhere "easy". I'm excited to be able to wear shorts in public and sit alone at a cafe. I know these may seem like small things, and they assuredly are, but the lack of gender equality and personal freedom that I have experienced here has made me infinitely grateful for what I have back home. It has also given me such respect for the strong female friends that I have made here.
It is ironic because for the last month and a half (approximately) I have been ready to leave this place. I have been homesick and restless and craving the things that weren't an option here. Now that the time has come to leave, I find myself nostalgic. I will miss the kids who helped me go from an unsure preservice teacher to a confident one, capable of running a classroom and thinking outside the box when encountered with one of many odd situations. I will miss the brilliant friends I have made here. I am only sorry that it took the majority of my stay to really find a group that I feel comfortable with. Now that I have established a good network here, its time to go. I will miss the teachers and admins here who helped smooth my transition into Indian culture and gave me so much authority to run my classes.
Most of all I am sad to leave my eleventh graders. They are an amazing group of young people who will do incredible things with their lives. I know right now they all think they will be doctors and lawyers and actuaries, but even if they become artists living on the beach in Goa, I am confident that they will do it well and with passion. I wish I could stay to see them become seniors, leave for college, and take the world by storm. I have complete confidence that they will do it.
So though I have one more week here, this seems like a fitting place to say goodbye to my blog followers. Thank you for following me through this crazy, emotional, exciting journey. All the best.
Love
Alex
