This post features student writing.

Day 14: July 29

Today started out with a quick hike to a Tibetan refugee camp. It was nothing like I would imagine of a refugee camp—it was a town in itself. There was a beautiful monastery and a school, along with plenty of sturdy-looking homes. As we were walking up the path to the chairman’s office, we actually ran into the chairman himself who was on his way into town. He spoke some English and was nice enough to answer our questions. We also spent some time watching three ADORABLE dogs play and roll around. Afterward, Phurba had the idea to go take a look at a small medical clinic in the camp. it was super interesting to see the difference between Western medicine and traditional Tibetan medicine, which the clinic had both of.

When we got back to the dormitory, we had a DELICIOUS lunch with awesome homemade french fries. When we left for the school, it was raining. When my raincoat gets wet enough, it stops functioning as a raincoat and becomes just a wet fabric failing at keeping me dry. Instead of working today, we all got the chance to teach some of the White Hills’ older students. Tim, Nora, and I taught 8th graders quick French lessons and did the same for 10th graders afterward. It was a really cool experience, as I’ve considered teaching in the future.

Back at the dormitory, we had a quick dance lesson and a Nepali lesson taught by Mingmar. After a delicious dinner we hung out in the common room and listened to Nate tell fun stories. All in all it was a pretty good day. So sad that tomorrow is our last day in Salleri. Thanks for a wonderful few weeks (HEART).

— Abby A.

Day 15 + 16: July 30/31

Yesterday after breakfast, we made our final trek down to the school for the closing ceremony. The ceremony was full of dance performances and speeches from the students at the school and we got to debut our dance.

The afternoon was full of closing festivities at the girls’ hostel. A very intense volleyball match took place where the ball was served over the fence and lost several times. We then had our own closing ceremony with the girls where we exchanged personalized cards and other gifts. We performed our dance again and had a mini group dance after. We had a group dinner with all of our favorite foods we had at the hostel, and had another dance party with the girls. After all the events of the day, none of us were happy about having to pack or wake up at 5 AM to leave Salleri for Kathmandu the next day.

Today, we woke up early to a 5 AM wake up call. We then walked down to where our jeeps were waiting for us and said our final goodbyes to Salleri. We then made our way through the winding and bumpy mountain roads towards Kathmandu. One jeep chose to spend their morning sleeping while the other was wide awake and listened to music. After many hours on the road, we stopped for some dhal bhat (#dhalbhatpower24hour) and continued on our way. We were stopped for about an hour in order to wait to cross a flooded section of road. The rest of the journey was uneventful and we were soon reunited with the rest of the group in Kathmandu.

— Savannah B.