Bumpy Roads, handmade shoes, and lost soccer balls — By Whitney Greaves

            To get to the school in Mihar, it’s about a 10-minute drive and a 5-minute hike. The roads, like all of them so far in the mountains here, are so narrow and bumpy. I mean they might be fine but then the suspensions on the car have to be totally shot. It’s fun though because we all pile in the back and the views are amazing. Yesterday, the driver drove to pick us up and he wasn’t turned around so we drove like a mile backwards with the drivers head out the window because the roads were too narrow to turn around on. The driver is super skilled but scary because he was driving like 40 mph backwards on a super messed up two-way mountain road. But we survived so that’s cool.

Yesterday evening we went to the market. It was so interesting to see the differences between shops in the US and here. The people too. Everything is so different and surreal. We were walking around when I noticed this tiny nook in one of the walls and it was full of handmade shoes with metal tools and leather all around. There was this old little man sitting inside who didn’t know any English but a few other Indian men walked over to help translate. I tried on a bunch of shoes because Indian show sizes are not the same as in the US. The old man was picking out shoes for me and I found a pair that I really liked! They were about $6 or 550 rupees. I thought for these really intricate and beautiful handmade shoes, that was cheap so I just paid him and left. I told one of the translators and she said I paid too much for them.

            Lastly, today after lunch we were playing with the kids and kicking around a soccer ball. One kid kicked it off the cliff and it was just gone. We couldn’t see it anywhere and so all the kids were so sad, later Collin tried looking for the ball and couldn’t find it. But I guess a few other kids like slid down the side of the mountain and found it.

            These three things have really shocked me about how lucky we are in the US and how little we need. It’s hard sometimes when the rides are bumpy, but it’s all manageable and okay. And at the market, I was paying like $6 for these beautiful handmade shoes, but in the US we pay hundreds for mass produced shoes. It made me think about how easily we throw away that money. And for the whole school, they have 1 ball. And they manage fine, I think they could have more and I think that is something we are considering gifting, but it’s a lot less than we have in the US.

-WHITNEY

4 Responses to “Bumpy Roads, handmade shoes, and lost soccer balls — By Whitney Greaves”

1. Joanne Cinalli, on May 30th, 2019 at 1:41 pm Said:

   Beautiful. We are so blessed!

2. Donna Joost, on May 30th, 2019 at 1:51 pm Said:

   Well said!!!

3. Tim Cinalli, on May 30th, 2019 at 2:58 pm Said:

   Great post!

4. Dan Greaves, on June 2nd, 2019 at 3:29 pm Said:

   Nice post Whitney. I’m glad you’re seeing first hand from this experience that happiness isn’t in the accumulation of things, but rather being grateful for what you do have and enjoying it with those you love. And those shoes are totally amazing. What a neat memento. Miss you and love you. Dad.