A Family Experience

My husband and I took our 2 teenage children to Ladakh and volunteered at the Lamdon School. It was an amazing experience. We lived in the home of the school nurse who was so very kind and welcoming. I became her "sister" and my family was her's. We went to many local events with her, and her family -- and had the opportunity to really experience life within her community as best as we were able. She cooked for us each night, and I had the opportunity to cook with her. Our teaching experience was not great but that was likely because we are not experienced teachers and did not have the breadth of skills that would have been useful. But even with that we enjoyed the opportunity to interact with the other teachers, administration and the students. I also broke my ankle 10 days into out 7 week stay... so that limited my and our ability to interact as fully as I would have liked. We felt so very fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel and live in Ladakh. We appreciated all the information that we received from HELP, and the placement in the home of the nurse. HELP did not provide an extensive orientation but that was perfect for us. We had lots of information ahead of time, had the ability to write to others who had lived in Ladakh and so had some idea of what to bring, and how to prepare for our time. We were fairly independent once we arrived, but that was fine and suited our family.