February 28, 2023

Final Thoughts

This blog marks the last blog for myself, which means the end of GCIL23 is near. While many of us have plans to continue exploring India, Mexico, and other parts of Asia, I will be going back home to Seattle, something I am very much excited for, yet internally struggling with accepting. Like many of you know, I was born in Romania, in a village, with similar environments as ones we have seen and visited during our time here. While I have visited Romania once since moving to the USA at the age of nine, my ten weeks in India has allowed me to revisit a lot of things I had forgotten, and to appreciate my upbringing even more, for it has allowed me to trust my neighbors, to gain valuable life lessons, and to appreciate little discomforts life might sometimes bring.

Seeing all the poverty, hearing about the challenges the people of India face everyday, and knowing many won’t have the opportunities and resources to improve their lives and reach their dreams makes me think of all the troubles we left behind when moving to the USA. While I didn’t know it then, I can clearly see it now, how fortunate we truly are.

We all will leave India and return back to our beautiful, clean, and quiet lives. Some parts of Seattle or your neighborhood will remind you of your time here in India, but many things will make you appreciate your surroundings even more.

If we continue to stay in the areas that make us appreciate home, we can’t work on making the ugly places in our cities better; the only way to do that is if we continue looking at our cities and problems with the same eyes of judgement we looked at India’s. Because as I learned during my time in India, one must solve their problems home before traveling to try to solve another.

And while I learned a lot about India, about its problems, people, politics, culture and successes, and also had a wonderful time exploring, talking to strangers, eating great food for a fraction of the cost, and making new friends, I still struggled to find a deeper purpose.

And, so I am hopeful that given a real problem by our organization to work on for our final project will bring some deeper meaning to my time spent here.

Go team TUI!

By Carmen