In ICS, most students go on the Week without Walls community service trip. For the past two years I’ve been helping at the Shalom Foundation in South India. We spent 7-8 days there per trip, and there has never been a day where I’ve never been amazed by the people’s hospitality. We do engage in activities such as manual labor, volleyball or art and crafts with the life trainees and boys who are part of the foundation. Each time we visit them, I learn that even the simple and ordinary things in life can keep one happy. Those children and young men are not always very fortunate and yet they are able to smile everyday and carry on with life. Despite having so much, there are times, where I’ve not been content with my life.
The Week without Walls trip we make every year impacts me the most. Living in a city and a life where everything is a routine and where complexities are just all around us, being with people who are less fortunate with us can teach us how to enjoy the simple pleasures in life. These trips have taught me that sometimes there’s more to life than just responsibilities, work and obligations, and those things are not the internet, music or the TV, but people. It is quite amusing how much joy just being with people, and enjoying each others’ companies, can bring.
Michaela Milton (Class of 2011)