Jordan Honeycutt

It’s hard to articulate my feelings of being here right now. Everything has been absolutely amazing! One of the days teaching in Jibhi we were making friendship bracelets for an art lesson, and to make them we showed the girls to just loop the top around their toe. Many of them had closed-toed shoes on and didn’t want to take them off, so I had them loop their bracelets around my toes. I always make bracelets that way so I was ecstatic to make them with the girls! Sonia, Aruna, Babita, and Radha each gave me a bracelet, which just melted my heart, so I made them each one in return. The last day in Jibhi I got to teach my most favorite lesson: personal hygiene. To teach them about germs I gave a couple of girls some glow in the dark powder to rub on their hands, then we sat in a big circle and played “Down by the Banks” to demonstrate how they spread. It was hilarious to see their reaction when I took a black light and shined it on all of their hands to show that they all had “germs” now. The girls were so excited to wash their hands and see that they had successfully washed the “germs” away. I also showed them how to properly floss their teeth. It was funny to see most of the girls stick the floss in their mouth, between two teeth, and just go back and forth. I showed that you have to go between every single tooth; some didn’t quite catch on. Later that day we had to leave our sweet girls in Jibhi, and as always that was heartbreaking. I was keeping it together pretty well until our leader Nick said it was time to start saying our good-byes. Then it hit me. I had some last minute things to hand out to them for their kits, and seeing them all lined up, their adorable little faces just beaming at me, it just crushed me. The tears started coming, and then I would try to awkwardly laugh it off, which didn’t help much. Some of the girls came up to me and told me not to cry and to be happy. They didn’t buy it when I said that my tears were “happy tears.” All in all it was very bittersweet, because the next day we began teaching a new group of girls in Kullu and I already love them as well! They’re not as shy as the last group, so it’ll be fun to teach them and get really close to them! I’m beyond stoked! It’s weird that we only have a couple of days left in India, and then we’ll be on our way to Nepal. Time is going by too quickly here, but I’m loving every second of it!