Maheshwari's question.

I leave in 4 days. on August 20--my 20th birthday. how everything will turn out I don't know. at this moment, I feel like my life has a big question mark attached to it. and most of the questions are coming from the kids. why didn't we have dance class yesterday? why are you leaving? when are you coming back?

when are you coming back. not are you coming back. of course, as anyone knows, I have to answer honestly that I don't know if I will be back. but each time I watched them in assembly, or took a snapshot of their little faces this week, my breath became short and I realized that I have to come back. but again--question mark. money? time? career? family?

as I told my 10th graders, if I leave here the same person I was 3 months ago, I will have failed. but Maheshwari, smart and beautiful with a natural cynicism that makes you question everything, asked "Amy, what are you going to change?"

I have no idea. I'm a good person. I was an ok person before I came here. but really, what am I going to do when I get back? in 4 days. I miss them already. I wish each of you reading now could understand how it feels when their tiny hands come and touch yours, barely fitting around your two fingers. or how it feels when they hand you a card that has a giant rabbit standing on 2 legs, holding a pet dog and some butterflies. it reads "Dear Amy, we love you? I miss you. your dance class were nice. come back whenever you can. love, Thanu." I want you to know how I feel when they beckon me over with a downturned hand, pulling me down to sit by them and eat my birthday cake made of the red, southern India dirt ("mud" as the kids call it). I want you to understand me when I tell you how proud I was of Pushpa for playing the violin to the Tamil song, and how I look in Stella's eyes and see remarkable beauty that stings because I know a portion of what's inside her--pain, happiness, curiosity, loneliness.

how can I tell you of these things? how can I tell you how painful it is for me to leave this place, this haven of peace? I miss my family tremendously. I missed Kate's graduation. a day I wouldn't have missed for the world. but I did. I missed it for India. congratulations Kate. I look up to you in every way and know you will be the best nurse in the world. I wish for the day when you join me in coming back here. but don't get me wrong. I am going to have slice of pizza, a glass of root beer and a bag of peanut m&m's the moment I'm back on the mainland. I am going to get a pedicure with meg, see Harry Potter 6, and catch up on Gilmore Girls reruns. I'm going to be a TA again! I'm going to be with my roommates. I love my roommates! I miss them! I'm going to be back at BYU--one of my favorite places in the world. I'm going to be taking great classes and seeing old friends and making new ones. (p.s. the guy next to me's phone just rang. his ringer was "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely")

it's just that I have entered myself into a world which I previously didn't know existed. and I have to give it up a few moments after I fell completely and irrevocably in love with it. it doesn't seem fair.

it is customary for volunteers to give a little speech at assembly at the end of their stay at Shanti Bhavan. Allegra said it beautifully: it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. Tony, the first volunteer to leave when I arrived, taught the kids a great American saying, one in a million. in America, we use the saying to reference a small and miraculous chance. Tony made the kids do a little math saying, how many people are in India? around 1.1 billion. how many of those people are in poverty? about half, so about 500 million. now let's just say, that 200 million of those people are children. how many kids are there at Shanti Bhavan? 200. each of these kids has been given a literal one in a million chance.

I've been thinking, of course, about what words I can share with the kids when I go. I will tell them how wonderful they are of course. and I will tell them that I will miss them tremendously. but I want to tell them my 2 wishes for them. first, I hope they get as rich as they ever wanted. I hope the vision of Shanti Bhavan is a miraculous reality. I hope that they make millions of dollars, bring their families and villages out of poverty, and that they build 10 more Shanti Bhavans--just as everybody hopes for. but second, I hope they gain what I have gained from them--riches the world doesn't understand.

so to answer your question Mahesh, I don't know who I'll be when I return home. I know I will have an appreciation for Indian culture, and that will be different. on a lighter note, I do not trust myself to go shopping for a few weeks. I have forgetten what's "cute" and "fashionable" and will only be able to pick you out a nice sari or dupatha and maybe some matching bangles. 3-week volunteers (volunteers that come for 3 weeks, how many of them I've seen come and go) have been telling me I've been in India way too long. I don't taste the masala on my almonds anymore. I don't hesitate when I cross the street. I say "telling" instead of "saying." I bob my head. yes. I bob my head. and I don't even notice it anymore. but other than that, I don't know how I'll be different. there's a question mark there.

despite the thousands of Rupees I spent on silks and bangles and toy elephants, I know that I am coming home a rich girl.