Class trip to India

This is Maya Hatch speaking, since I was the only one who went to India, Mom is making me type this one.  So to get into this school trip to India, I had to create an essay saying why I wanted to go with them.  In the end, I was selected as one of ten children.  We left the night of March 9th and took a 9-hour flight to New Delhi.  From there, we rode in a Pathways bus two hours to the Pathways school, in which we would be spending most of our time.
The first full day was a Sunday, so none of the classes were in session.  We had a tour of the campus, which included the amphitheater, the cafeteria, and the dorms.  They had three cats walking around the campus.  We immediately named all 3 of them: Persimmon, Anastasia, and Georgie. We joined a group of Pathways students playing soccer.  Shannon fell down and hurt her knee.  Me, Shannon, and a Pathways student named Serena went and sat on a bench instead.  Afterwards, on our way back to the dorm, a teacher showed us a gooseberry tree.  Gooseberries are known for giving you thick and luxurious hair.   We slept in the dorms, which had four rooms per floor.  Each room had two connecting mini-rooms with 2 beds in each.

the gardens! 

On Monday morning, we attended a small announcement where they were introducing the Chadwickians to the Pathways students.  They dipped their finger in a candle wax-like substance and made a red dot on our foreheads.  They also gave us flower wreath necklaces to wear.  Then we ate breakfast with the Pathways students.  We had toast and butter and fruit.  Afterwards, we went to art class in which we made an Indian type of art known as the honey bee forest (translated in English). This particular type of artwork is made using big shapes then using double lines and adding patterns in the small spaces and large blocks of paint in the bigger areas.  Mine was of a fish in the deep sea. After our art class, we played tennis with some Pathways students.  Me and Evie would bounce the ball back and forth over the net.  We had curry and rice for lunch.  Next we went back to art class and made clay seals, I made a sunset.  My favorite one of all of them, was Mattie's Taj Mahal.  For dinner we went out and had a bonfire.  We ate curry, rice, naan, and water.  It was fun and we tried to climb a tree, but Annika got hurt, so we didn't anymore.

When we woke up on Tuesday we went straight to the bus and we rode for 4 hours, very long boring hours, to the Taj Mahal.  I learned it is pronounced Taj Mahel.  The Taj Mahal is actually a grave site for a queen. The king of India at the time had thee wives. The first two gave him no children at all. But the third wive gifted him with fourteen. so in return he built her a giant place which he named after his beloved wife, Taj Mahal. He planned on making a black version behind it to be his own grave site but his son arrested him for spending too much money on the first Taj Mahal. To his delight his daughter gave him a diamond with which he could see out his window at the Taj Mahal.  So he could watch his wife all night and all day. 

The first thing we did on Wednesday was attend an assembly in which we presented a little about our Korean culture.  Myself and Evie told them how to say some Korean words.  The Pathways students put on a two dance numbers for us and sang two choir songs as well.  They then spoke to us and we gave them a present. We had a Hindi lesson in which we learned "Hello" and "My Name Is ____" and several other Hindi words.  "Hello" is "Namaste".  "My Name Is __" is "Mera Nam _  Hey".  Afterwards, we went to a music lesson where we learned how to play traditional Indian instruments like a two-sided big drum, a smaller two-sided drum, and an instrument somewhat like the violin with seven strings and a little plucker thing that goes on your finger.  We learned some traditional dances and a Bollywood routine at the dance class with a bunch of 8th graders and the dance teacher.  Chadwick students all went out to the field to ride the horses.  There were seven ponies in total.  Tuffy, Socks, Red River, Ginger, Magnet, Sea Lance,and Sparta.  I rode Red River but my favorite horse was Tuffy.  We rode around in a big circle on the Pathways track.  We didn't really ride the horses because there was a man in front who was  guiding the horse around.  We were just sitting on their backs..  After which, we borrowed saris (a traditional Indian garment) and we traveled to a very famous Bollywood musical studio called Kingdom of Dreams.  It was really fancy and we watched the musical Zangoora.  We, being English speakers, did not understand Hindi.  So, the studio loaned us translators.  This musical was about a king who had his baby and the king died and the baby was lost in a gypsy kingdom.  So a gypsy woman raised the baby as her own child.  Eighteen years later a  princess came to meet the new king.  The princess and the gypsy prince fell in love but a man came to the gypsy kingdom and told Zangoora, the gypsy prince, that he was a prince, but now he was the King.  The princess was not actually a princess.  She was actually a commoner trying to save her father from the prisons of the new king's dungeon.  So, she and Zangoora got married and defeated the evil king and freed the princess's dad.

The next day we went shopping.  I bought a chess set for my brother, a ring for my mother, some tea for my dad, and I bought a gold spinny thing for my sister, but I lost it.  My friend gave me something she had which was a bunny necklace and a moustache ring.  So I gave that to my sister instead.  While we were in New Delhi we had lunch and I got some ramen stuff that wasn't really ramen.  It was like ramen, but without the soup.  It was really good.  At least it had meat!  Afterwards, we went to the India Gate.  The India Gate is a gate for all of the people who died serving their country in India.  They have an ever-burning flame that is watched by a person at all times day and night, just standing there, doing absolutely nothing except feeding the fire wood.

The next day, Friday, we hiked up a hill and we saw the view of a small town and another hill.  The teacher who went with us from Pathways gave us butter cookies and milk cookies.  They were delicious.  We rode on a bus to the Lohagara Farms.  At the farms we got henna tattoos, camel rides, pottery, and we went to a haunted house. When we got back to Pathways, we attended a Holi Festival with flowers and songs and fun.  We would find flowers on the table, pick off the petals, and throw them at each other.  It was amazing and we had flower petals in our hair for the rest of the day.   At 8pm, we rode two hours in the bus to the airport.  We had a seven hour flight and I slept six hours of it.  When we arrived at baggage claim and walked through the doors, all the parents were screaming our names and were holding up a sign saying Welcome Home.  It was very amusing seeing other people in the airport trying to find the people they were looking for.

In the end, this was a very nice, fun cultural experience with all my friends and teachers.  This was a great opportunity to meet new friends and explore new places around the world.