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The children who live in Ananda Village may grow up in
the serene, sequestered ambiance of a rural, spiritual
community.
But they expand their horizons not only by embracing a
foreign philosophy - Hinduism - but also by traveling
oversees to educate themselves in diverse cultures. [ed:
Our philosophy is actuallly the universal path of yoga
and the truths at the center of all religions.]
On Feb. 16, the junior high and high school students
who gathered in the "Cherry" room of the Ananda
Living Wisdom School in the afternoon had a sense of thrill
and excitement about them. Within a few weeks, 11 boys
will travel to Costa
Rica, while six girls will visit
India.
And for some of them, it will be their first trip abroad.
"The three themes for our school are service, adventure
and self-discovery," said Nancy Kendall, administrative
director of the school. "Part of the reason we go
abroad is to bring students to a different culture.
They have the opportunity of looking at different values
and how they affect the culture. So a part of discovering
themselves is to compare their values to values of other
cultures so that they learn experientially.
"One of the biggest problems of education in the
West is that they have taken all the values out of it
because those values are all based on religious dogma.
So what we are trying to do is to teach them values experientially."
Michael Deranja, aka Nitai, is chaperoning the boys'
trip to Costa Rica. He teaches math, history, social sciences,
and physical education to junior high and high school
students at the Living Wisdom School.
"We call them (the annual student trips abroad)
'service adventure,'" Deranja said. "With teenagers,
they are ready to explore a larger world. If the adults
don't make it possible in a constructive way, then they
are going to choose drugs, and sex, and whatever is available."
According to Deranja, children growing in small communities
tend to get bored with it by the time they are teenagers.
They think they know everything, a misconception, he said,
that's dispelled by visiting other countries.
"When we go to Mexico or India or Costa Rica, they
see an entirely different way of living," Deranja
said. "They see people washing clothes with their
hands. They see people eating a different diet, practicing
a different religion. They see there is more than one
way to do things. It broadens their idea of what's possible
in life."
In Costa Rica, the boys will protect turtle eggs during
the hatching season. They will also help with construction
work at a retreat and painting projects with local villages.
Another group of students consisting of six girls will
go to India. Headed by Kendall, they will visit New Delhi,
Calcutta and the Himalayan town of Rishikesh. As a part
of service, they will do projects at an Ananda center
in the outskirts of Delhi and work at orphanages in Calcutta
and Rishikesh. They will also give musical performances
at the three venues.
Simon Hermann, 16, a junior at Living Wisdom, is in the
boy's group. He had been to India last year on a similar
trip. He even had a chance to meet the Dalai Lama.
"We realize how lucky we have it here," he
said, about what he learned from his trip to India. "I
want to go back ...."I really like northern India,"
he said. "Rishikesh and Dharamsala (the residence
of the Dalai Lama) were my favorite places. I just enjoyed
the whole trip."
Leiya Mahoney, 14, a freshman at Living Wisdom, felt
she has a "deep connection" with India, a place
where it's her "karma" to visit.
....The trips are funded partially by the students' parents
and partly by the money students earn doing odd jobs within
the village. Group fundraisings organized by Ananda also
help supplement the expenses.
...."It's not a cut and dried thing," said
Diane Atwell, aka Hridaya, English and social science
teacher at Living Wisdom, who will also go to India with
the group. "If it looks like a student would work
out here and really wants to be here, we try to work with
their parents. We have them fill out a financial form.
We see what part of the tuition they are able to (fund)
... for the rest, we do it."
For now, it's an atmosphere of eager anticipation among
the students of Living Wisdom, who are all set to set
out into the world for a whole new experience.
"I'm really excited," Mahoney said. "I'm
going to get a lot of it. Maybe from this one trip, I
will get what I could have got here in one year. There's
just so much going on. I think it will help me grow spiritually,
in my self-confidence and independence."
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