India

I am perched in the brief window of time between my return from India and my departure for Laos tomorrow afternoon. I am back at work in body, but my soul remains with the School of Peace just outside Bangalore, India.

I plan to write my experiences with the School of Peace (SOP) into a report in the near future, so I won’t go into too much detail here. In short,

The purpose of the SOP is to encourage engagement between peoples of different faiths in Asia. This is done through bringing together approximately 20 young adults from conflict areas of Asia who share different faith perspectives. Through lectures, exposure visits, and interaction with one another, the participants are able to learn about other faiths, and the importance of living with one another in peace. (Source: APEN)

I know there are those for whom the word peace brings to mind images of bell-bottoms, flowers and LSD, so I feel obligated to point out that the school is not teaching passivity or disengagement from a dangerous world (though I think this might be a misrepresentation of what the bell-bottomed LSD-trippers were about). But the “School of Structural Analysis and Social Transformation” would be a rather unwieldy name, especially as the students are not native English speakers.

I joined half of the students on a field trip in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where we spent the week engaging with and learning from a non-governmental organization called AREDS. AREDS works primarily with the most historically disenfranchised segment of the Indian population, the Dalits (or Untouchables).

At the end of a week spent learning together with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians from seven Asian countries, I was entirely unready to leave them and return to Vietnam.

For those who are interested in reading more about my experiences with the School of Peace and AREDS, I hereby promise that my report is forthcoming.

I suspect more people are interested in seeing pictures. Unfortunately I don’t have enough time before Laos to edit and process the more than 1,000 pictures that made it past the first cut (a quick review on my camera’s LCD screen). I promise to edit significantly before I post them here.

Here’s a preview of what’s to come: