You’re in India.  I thought to myself as I watched the rugged landscape and small towns pass by through the car window.  The small houses constructed out of pieces of tin and small bamboo, and the lush green landscape of flat farmland surrounded by trees with a horizon of blue mountains in the distance.  One month ago I was seeing all these sites for the first time and now that I was leaving I still could not believe that I was in India.  My whole life-changing month just seemed like some part of a breathtaking dream that I never wanted to wake up from.  As I sat there looking out the window my mind couldn’t help but wander back to the amazing experiences I’d had at Jhamtse Gatsal, a school of eighty-five orphaned and foster children. The name, Jhamtse Gatsal, is Tibetan for a Garden of Love and Compassion an extremely fitting name for a school such as this, a little slice of heaven amidst the Himalayan Mountains.     
            “Tashi Drolma, let’s go wash your hands.”  I said as I grabbed little Tashi’s wrists and lifted them up so that her painted hands wouldn’t get all over her clothes.  We walked down the stairs to the sinks outside the bathroom and I scrubbed her hands clean as blue, yellow, and red tainted the water and swirled down the drain.  Tashi Drolma was the known troublemaker of Jhamtse Gatsal; she was one of the younger children there and had a knack for causing trouble.  Today was no exception as she unscrewed the top of the soap dispenser and ran up the stairs with it.
“Tashi, come here.  You have to put that back in the container,” I said as little Tashi Drolma stared at me smiling.  No response came from her parted lips, but instead from her legs as they carried her up the stairs and into the hallway to the children’s living quarters or houses as they’re called farther away from me.  I jogged up the stairs and spotted her at the other end of the hallway, the top of the soap dispenser dangling from her hands.
“Tashi…” I called out to her a little more sternly this time.  I started down the hall only to watch her little blue crocs disappear behind the wall as she ran around the building for the opposite end of the hallway than I was headed for.  I turned back around as I decided to change tactics and wait her out instead of chasing her all around the school.  She darted back into the hallway, the soap dispenser top still grasped in her hand as she ran into one of the houses.  Good, now I can catch her, I thought to myself as I ran down the hall to the door she had just entered.  I reached the door and opened it slowly and quietly, trying not to disturb the children resting inside.
“Tashi.  You have to come here.”  I whispered sternly.  Through some miracle she listened this time and sauntered over to the door, her hands empty.  I pulled her outside and closed the door.
“Tashi, where is the soap dispenser?”  I asked as I knelt down in front of her.  Tashi Drolma’s grin was gone and she almost looked frightened by the question.  She looked down at the ground as her face contorted into a look of guilt.  A puzzled look came over her rosy face before she looked up at me, opened her mouth, and pointed in it.  It took me a second to realize that what she was trying to say was that she had swallowed the plastic soap nozzle.
“Tashi, I know you didn’t swallow it.  I saw you walk into the family house with it.  Can you please go get it inside for me?”  Tashi’s puzzled look changed to one of disappointment as she realized her plan had not worked.  She turned into the house and came back out a few seconds later with the top of the soap container in her hand.  Although she had now done what I had asked, she wasn’t finished being mischievous.  She took off running for the stairs, but stopped abruptly before them to latch onto the railing over looking the sinks.
“Tashi, come on.  All you have to do is put this back on the container,” I said as I tried to pry her hands free, only to have her head whip back and then forward and hit the rail.  Instantly she let go and started to cry.  “Tashi, sweetheart.  I’m sorry, but that wouldn’t have happened if you had listened to me.”  I said softly, holding her hands.  Something I said clicked in her head, as she realized I was right.  She realized she wouldn’t have gotten hurt if she hadn’t run away with the soap dispenser in the first place.  She took the soap dispenser and walked downstairs with it and returned it to its rightful place.   Later, when I was told about where Tashi came from, the expressions that I had seen come across her face made more sense.  The frightened look that she had had on her face when I had asked her about the soap nozzle came from the fear of being hit for doing something wrong by her alcoholic father.  The reasons behind her mischievous acts are to seek attention, because that was the only way she could at home.  She was still too new to the atmosphere at Jhmatse Gatsal to notice the loving arms of the people around her. 
As I think back to rascally Tashi, I smile to myself and think about what she might be doing now, causing some other form of turmoil or simply bouncing about outside in the fresh mountain air.  As I peer out the window of the car a little boy cradled in cloth on his mother’s back catches my eye.  He’s a small baby and he doesn’t look to be very old, only a few months, if that.  His little face casts a look of sadness ahead of him as he gazes at the passing cars and it reminds me of the remarkable story of Tenzin Phuntsok, the youngest member of the Jhamtse Gatsal community.  My mind wanders away from the passing villages of tin and bamboo branches that pass by to the incredible story of baby Tenzin and Gen-La, the founder of Jhamtse Gatsal.  
One winter, Gen-La, the founder of Jhamtse Gatsal, was visiting people in surrounding villages when he stumbled upon a little baby.  The baby was no more than a month old and had death whispered across his blue lips.  Despite the cold the sun still shone strong and bright during the day, causing the baby to become sunburned.  There he lay, red and blistering from the intense sun, and blue and cold from the winter freeze so close to death.  Lying next to him was a young woman, passed out with an empty bottle next to her, the baby’s alcoholic mother.  Gen-La picked up the small child and was miraculously able to locate the baby’s grandparents.
“Please take him with you to your school.  We cannot provide for him here.  We know that he might not survive, but at least he’ll have some moments of bliss with you before he dies.”  The grandmother pleaded, as tears filled her eyes, and splashed down her face.  Despite the fact that Gen-La doesn’t usually take in babies, especially not this young, he knew what he had to do.  Gen-La wrapped up the baby boy, and carried him back to the school, one step at a time.  Once at the school, Baby Tenzin as he became known, was put under serious medical care to try and keep him alive.  The fate of the boy’s life was unknown to everyone; they didn’t know if he would see the next day much less the next year.  After months of being hospitalized Tenzin fought through, and today he is a happy, bubbly, sparkplug.  Tenzin, just like the majority at Jhamtse, owes his life to Gen-La.  I think about Baby Tenzin and his contagious smile, a grin that made his whole face light up.  I think back to the time I taught him to make a friendship bracelet, sitting him in my lap and putting the loop at the end around his little toe as he tied knot after knot.  Or the time he tied a piece of cloth around his neck and pretended to be flying with a cape.
When I arrived back in the United States I was hit with a sudden feeling of sadness mixed with excitement.  All the things I had experienced in India are now just memories that I could hold onto.  I am the only one who can access the memories, the laughs, and the smiles that I shared with eighty-five extraordinary children.  Children who changed the way I looked at life, to be happy no matter what because life is an amazing thing with so much to offer.  The world is so big, and shares so many things with us every day.  Everyday the sun comes up and you take a breath of fresh air, is a day to be thankful for, because there are some people that are fighting for a breath.  Listen to each other and help each other, because you never know the battles that one has fought that make a situation remind them of a more serious traumatic one.  Finally, be a flower in a garden of love and compassion, and let it heal you and make you bloom into something spectacular.