Blog Post One

With our new friends (Samir and Sushan) in Jamkhed Maharashtra

Our humanitarian camp ended yesterday afternoon.

Today I am writing to you from Delhi where we landed this morning on the first flight at 07:40 from Pune . Yesterday the whole team was dismissed with a moving ceremony of thanksgiving as a sign of honoring us "guests" organized with the grace and delicacy typical of the Indian people. In less than it takes to write it, a small stage was set up at the entrance of the hospital with decorative carpets and curtains , placards with our names on them, all organized and paid for by the families of the operated patients! We were seated in the center and one by one we were thanked.

We were given an orange turban and scarf, the symbol and color of festivity in the Maharashtra region. Together we also received a coconut symbolizing abundance and fertility and a red rose symbolizing beauty and elegance typical of this people.

On our foreheads they put carmine-red pigment, considered the point where creation begins and can become unity. It was also described as "the sacred symbol of the cosmos in its unmanifested state." Bindu is also the central point around which mandalas representing the universe are created. The red dot, symbolizing our third eye that is turned inward toward our God particle, no matter which God!

At the end of the ceremony everyone present wanted a souvenir photo with us. What a commotion, my wife could not hold back the tears...the beautiful women dressed in their colorful sahri came to wipe them away by putting their babies in her arms to be photographed in turn with us.... It was an indescribable moment of emotion, the energy of gratitude from these people for just doing our job, for making our skills available.

At the end of the ceremony we were finally able to visit the children at the camp daycare (we had been putting it off all week because we always finished work late at night!) bringing them clothes, games and candy!

We leave with so much gratitude in our heart and a promise to return in 2024.

Thanks to all of you back home who followed us every day giving us the opportunity to live a reality different from ours.

Here I know we have fulfilled our duty.

Namaste.

(as written by my wife Michela Pagliuca on her Facebook page).

The emotions were so many and such that still weeks after, just by closing my eyes after passing through some of the pictures, I still can feel the vibrant energy of Jamkhed…