Our Departure from The Village

It was our final morning in the village and time to head back to Dhangadhi Airport where we would be catching our flight back to Kathmandu.

We were asked to meet the group at 7:00am for breakfast so we could get an early start. So we woke up again in the dark (even though we set alarms our families always acted as our wake up call!), grabbed all of our bags and headed over to breakfast. After a quick bite I (Desmond) headed back to take advantage of my last opportunity to take photos in the village. Unfortunately, It was extremely foggy that morning, but as had been the case every other morning (when I had my camera out at the end of Yoga), there was a small entourage of boys that would follow me around, sticking very close, and asking to see what photos I was taking. Being that it was so foggy and dark, I decided to just take some portraits of the boys that had been a part of my morning each day. What surprised me most was they changed from being silly, energetic and boisterous when following me around, to suddenly being serious and stoic when posing for a photo.

This is my posey

Another one of my posey before I shot their portraits

When I returned to the breakfast area, the mood was very somber, as everyone was feeling very emotional. Roxy and her host mom (the sweetest woman ever!) shared quite a few tears throughout the morning, and all of the families had escorted each of their guests to breakfast and hung around until it was time for us to get on the bus. There were LOTS of tears being shed and I don’t think anyone expected there to be such a strong bond built with our host families in such a short time, especially since many of us couldn’t even speak the same language. But the ties clearly go beyond a shared language.

Before getting on the bus though, I really wanted to pull our group back over to the spot I had just photographed the boys in, for an individual portrait of each of us.

After the portraits, we went back over to the bus and our waiting families. Some more goodbyes and tears were shed and soon we were driving away with heavy, yet full hearts.