Lesson Learned

This week I went on a school trip with 96 students and 9 other faculty members to the neighboring state of Kerala, with stops specifically in Kochin and Trivandrum. I had planned to have many pictures and reflections about the trip, however, due to what I can only describe as the worst logistical planning that I have witnessed in an group situation, I don’t have many such experiences to share. In short, the majority of the time was spent either waiting for hours on end in various locations or spent on the bus for seemingly endless movements from place to place. When we actually did get someone, the situation was often so SNAFU that I have been on hyper-alert status for four days with very little sleep, evinced by crashing extremely hard once back in Madurai.

As such, the biggest take home message that I have for myself at this moment is what I learned from the kids. Despite being thrown into situations where we were going on 3 hours or sleep for several nights and more miscues than I care to remember, the final night, on the road back to Madurai from our final stop, Kovalum beach, the kids showed a resilience like I have never seen before. Instead of whining and complaining that we were headed for yet another marathon bus ride in the middle of the night, as they had every right to at that point, they were singing and dancing in the aisle to a Tamil DVD of movie songs. There were many, many things that went wrong, but the worst did not happen. All of the kids returned safely, and that was a godsend, as it is any time you take a group of children on large trips to foreign (they speak Malayalam in Kerala), crowded places. So, from them, I learned that at that moment, it did no good to think about what could have happened worse, but the fact that we were all safe and on the bus and enjoying the moment, so why not join in on the clapping.

India continues to teach me lessons on many levels. Sometimes they are not easy to take, but each time, I realize that again, it is as it should be...