I apologize for the tardiness of this blog post. We arrived last night in Granada, Nicaragua and are staying for two days and three nights before we head to our next set of homestays in Playa Gigante. The city is beautiful and very historic – every street is lined with gorgeous Spanish architecture and vibrant colors. More to the point, I shall now reflect on the past week and our… Read More
Kia Ora (Hello) everyone!
Tara (T. Banks) Cherwony, here to tell you all about our amazing stay with the Maori! October 28th was the day we started our stay at the Rongomaraeroa Marae, but our fisrt stop was the Porangahau festival. We spent the afternoon relaxing with the locals, trying new foods, and checking out local art creations. We met Ahuriri who organzined our stay at the Marae (communal sleeping… Read More
Last Sunday we got up nice and early (3:30am) to catch our plane to Lima, Peru and then on to Cuzco, where we were greeted with a nice, welcoming Spanish exam. Having been placed in pairs according to our level of fluency, we started classes the next morning at FairServices Spanish school. Our classes consist of 2 hours of grammar in the class room and 2 hours of practice. Practice… Read More
Alice’s turn to blog!
Leaving Bodhgaya with 2 shaved heads and, for the most part, healthy people, Shanti group headed to Varanasi, where we became students again. The first night we all stayed in a long-term hostel for students, which was almost like a dorm room. The next day, it was immediately time for us to begin our Hindi study and then visit all the different options for internships. Those… Read More
Here in Kolkatta the Shiva crew is celebrating both Halloween and the half-way day of our semester. It is hard to believe that we are half-way through – I am so proud of what our crew has accomplished as a group already, and looking forward to seeing even more self-growth, adventures, and hilarity in the remaining half! I wanted to give a shout-out to all of the family and friends… Read More
Namaste friends and family!
Our Shiva family is in Calcutta now, doing some volunteer work at the Mother Theresa Home. Before Calcutta, we spent a lovely couple of days in Bodh Gaya.
Bodh Gaya was a breath of fresh air. Literally. After crowded, polluted, over-powering Varanasi, it was nice to take a couple days to decompress in such a beautiful, calm, and spiritual place.
We stayed at the Root… Read More
We are broken up into four groups every day; Daily Chores, Kitchen Crew, Gardening Crew and Farming Crew.
The Daily group is the only group who’s job is the same everyday; milking the cows! Your day begins at 6 am when you walk to the milking house and milk 55 cows whose milk is used to feed the baby calves. Then its off to feed the chickens before breakfast. The… Read More
Hello to the Itza group’s family and friends from Carpe Diem HQ,
We hope you all are well and have been enjoying the blog and following along on Itza’s adventures. We wanted to let you all know about a small change we’ve made to Itza’s itinerary. As some of you may have heard, there has been a stomach bug going around the Itza group, and while everyone has been treated… Read More
Hey everyone! We just got back from our week at pun pun farm, doing various acts of volunteer work for the farm. We learned a lot about eco-friendly farming and recycling various sorts of resources to save money and help the environment. It was a cool experience and we got to talk with a lot of people who have been working with these sorts of things for their entire life. … Read More
Leaving San Marcos was a bittersweet experience for the group. We greatly enjoyed our time in this beautiful town, but at the same time we were ready for our next adventure, which was sure to be exciting, just as every new place proves to be. On Sunday morning we left San Marcos and embarked on our 8 hour drive to Coban, where we stayed for a night. The Car ride… Read More
Hola from Xela guatemala. This is our last day in the city after over two full weeks. Tomorrow bright and early we will leave for the Lago Atitlan trek, a 3 day long endevor that is sure to be an exiting challenge for grupo ITZA. The general consensus throughout the group is that we are ready to move on, but that doesnt mean we havent had a blast in Xela!… Read More
Hello world! I am writing from the city of Quito right now and it is a beautiful, sunny day. The group decided to splurge a little bit on the hostal for our last 2 days in Ecuador.. . and the extra few dollars per person has definitely been well worth it. Last night, most of the group gathered on the rooftop (which has an amazing view of all of Quito)… Read More
We spent last week in Xela at a language school. I remember after our first day of class we met up afterwards and everyone was so excited! We all loved our teachers and were already learning a lot. After school we did a variety of activities. Our group did our first hike together, listened to a speaker about the revolution of ´44, enjoyed some live Guatemalan music, and took a… Read More
It’s day three on the Sentry Hill organic farm in New Zealand and we’ve been up to just about everything. Tom and P.J. have taught us how to herd flock, milk cows, feed chickens and pigs, thistle grub, plant crops, sheer sheep, and cook for 19 people three times a day! However today held a special suprise for the Hongi students; Pet Day! We accompanied Tom and P.J’s kids, Ben,… Read More
Namaste from Kailaji! Here blogging about our time in Calcutta and our transition into Bodhgaya.
We spent 11 days in Calcutta, and looking back trying to figure out what to write about, I realized we defiantly made the most of our time! We spent the first half of our days spread out through many of Mother Teresa’s houses, as Tully covered in the last blog. While we all walked away… Read More
