My world changed because of 2 weeks.

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get use to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget" - Arundhati Roy

It's been a little over a week since I've been back home. I can't get India out of my head. I can't stop thinking about how little my life compares to everything I've seen, all the kids I played with, all the poverty I saw, the vulgar disparities and all the injustice that continues to take over our world. I go back to this quote because I haven't forgotten. I can't ever forget what I saw and how I felt. I can't even explain it. I've spent the last 10 days telling friends and family about my 2 week experience and it doesn't seem like it provides justice at all. How can the world be this jarring?

I spent the first day on my own crying. I wasn't sure how to express my emotions on that first day sitting at home and so crying just made sense. Since then every night before I go to bed I think about the kids the most. I miss their ability to be so innocent. It's not fair for kids to resort to drugs because it numbs their pain from abuse, violence, rape, forced labor. They were too small to make the decision so their path was chosen for them and now they suffer from addiction, loneliness, prostitution, and the liberty of basic essentials - a home, parents, food.

Our last full day in Delhi we went to Salaam Balaak Trust (SBT), an NGO dedicated to pulling kids off the street. Their mission - "to celebrate the spirit of survival". I can't help but think that so many organizations have the mission space to further livelihood - this NGO just wants you to survive.

Our role for that day was to go on a citywalk, otherwise known as a walk down memory lane. Our tour guides, past street kids, walk us along their journey of being a street kid to now having the opportunity to improve their lives. Our tour guide, Satender is a 19 year old boy who ran away from home because his father abused him, his siblings and his mother. He wanted to die but SBT saved him and brought him into a shelter. From there he learned English and is learning computer skills. To also help the visibility of SBT and to help show the world about the unspeakable violence he is a tour guide for the NGO. He walks us along the inner city of Paharjung, the railway stations where kids are belligerently high and how they get saved by SBT community workers, and the shelters where the children temporarily live. It was the hardest day for me.

I go to bed every night thinking about them. I continue to think what else can I do in this world. I have my own bed and I have support. I am damn lucky. How can I share that? How can these boys and girls sleep in their own bed and read their own books and be educated and change their life?

Our class ends by writing a business plan. Our goal is to build sustainability and self-sufficiency. I continue to contemplate how I will do this because what I write needs to be implemented. It just takes more than me. I didn't see a world through a different lens to just continue and watch. I did it so the world changes. I just hope it does...