Tomorrow, my fourteen classmates and I are going to India, where they will meet my seventy brothers and sisters at Sri Ram Ashram where I grew up. I came to study in the U.S.A. at Mount Madonna School in 2004. For the past six years I only dreamed that my classmates would get a chance to meet my family. Today I see my dream about to come true.

For years I’ve been telling my peers stories of my brothers and sisters, and they always told me they wish they could meet them. Despite the excitement I feel for this occasion, I am also uncertain of how they will perceive each other. My siblings at the ashram in India have seen me grow for the first ten years of my life, while my classmates have seen have seen the differences and challenges I have faced and overcome to adapt to a completely foreign culture. The feeling of belonging somewhere has always been a priority in my life. When people asked me what I consider to be my home I immediately answered India. Now I confidently say that I have two homes. One that I have always known is Sri Ram Ashram and my other home is here at Mount Madonna with my classmates.

As I look ahead at our journey, I have to be confident and be ready to contribute at all times. I am one of the four people out of everyone who is going, that has been to India, and the only one from our group that speaks the language. Even though I have lived in India for ten years, and visited numerous times, I am afraid to take this journey with my classmates. They have never seen me in my home environment, and the fact that they will witness this makes me vulnerable. I hope that after this trip my peers will understand who I am, and the history behind the journey that has gotten me to where I am today.

Soma Sharan