Trip To India for Ava

I'm raising money to go to India for two weeks this spring with Baylor. I was selected for this trip through my involvement as an instructor with the Baylor outdoors program, Walkabout, which focuses on climbing, kayaking, running, as well as leadership skills. While in India, we will spend 5 days kayaking and trekking, and will visit a non-profit home for girls in the Himalayas, the Taraloka Happiness Home. We will be in a part of India that is mostly Tibetan Buddhist, but my time in India will also allow me to study Hinduism as well as Indian culture in a way I wasn't able to fully in my Eastern Religions class. While in Eastern Religions, I completed a project on Hinduism on the ideological values of the West vs the East and how those values are reflected in religion as well as the way India has changed in the past twenty years. That project as well as my application to the India trip can be found at the link below. 

https://pathbrite.com/portfolio/P6hQeuPVtZ/study-of-eastern-religions 

Here is an excerpt from my application to the trip that I feel really helps describe why I want to go:

"At the end of my junior year, I believe I will be coming up to a point where my scope of the world and the lens through which I see the world will really have an influence on where I end up and who I choose to grow to be in the next years. My parents should be enthusiastic because my experience at Baylor and my experience in the South should only be a part of this lens, and I should grow in the direction of widening this lens- widening it to understand my privilege and understand the differences in human experience and how geography, standard of living, and the values of a culture can both vastly change the experience of a person’s life but also how universal certain aspects of human experiences can be . Going on this trip in my junior year will allow me to cultivate this perspective into my senior year, which I believe will be a pivotal point in my life, will help me to look back at my time at Baylor with not only a sense of closure but also the gratitude that comes with perspective, as well as hopefully pushing me into the next direction of my life with more reverence for other cultures than I could have otherwise with just my Southern background and heritage. It is not an easy trip, and it will, hopefully, push me mentally and physically to the point I grow not only in my perspective but also in my ability to handle the travel and new, independent experiences I know I will seek out into college and beyond."



March

28   - depart Atlanta

29   - arrive in Delhi

30   - fly to Bagdogra - drive to Jorethang

31   - kayak

1     - kayak

2     - kayak

3     - kayak

4     - drive to Rabungla

5     - drive to Lingtam (Dzonghu)

6     - trek to Chana

7     - trek to Tholung

8     - trek to Lingtam

9     - Gangtok 

10   - Gangtok

11   - flight to Delhi - PM flight to Atlanta

12   - arrive in Atlanta