It finally happened yesterday! One of the cameras broke. I was wondering how long it was going to take before we broke those cameras in (pun intended). It was an accident and the guilty party was apologetic. Frankly, I was relieved. I felt like it was a kind of christening for the program that I had been waiting for for a while now. I handed the boy my personal camera and he took off smiling.
The group of 6th and 7th graders were the last to participate in, "The Best Part of Me" project yesterday at the Druk White Lotus School. Being the oldest students at the school, they grasped the idea of the project failry quickly and easily. Their images were beautiful and clear. I helped a few of the 6th graders pinpoint the subject of their photo, but other than that, they were all driven by their own ideas and creativity. Ahhhhh......success!
The project is now coming to a close as I'm making prints to be stitched together in a final grid formation to be hung on the wall of the community dining hall. I can't wait to get it up there, to watch the kids walk in and see their own faces staring back at them. It will be great. I will try to video tape it and post it.
To finish the day off, I took a walk up to the Leh Palace in the dark (with no flashlight - smart, I know), which is very difficult since you have to scale the side of a mountain for part of the journey. But, when I reached the top, the city was breathtaking - lit up from the inside, out. All of Leh was glowing last night. I felt such a sense of accomplishment, not just for myself, but for the students. I'm so proud of these kids I can barely stand it. So I guess I will just keep climbing mountains with each of their triumphs, big or small, to exhale some of this LIFE that's overflowing in me. It isn't hard to see, even when I close my eyes, the new world these kids are creating through their cameras.
