Hank Rugg is an American teenager only a year out of high school. Before becoming a Gorilla Highlands volunteer he had an India experience that has deeply influenced him – therefore let us start over there…
It’s important to understand that so far your whole life has been in classrooms. Pretty much all you can remember is around the time maybe preschool began. Now you’re out. It’s on you to decide whether or not to head right back into school through college, or maybe you decide to take a leap forward in experiencing a life besides tests and studying for classes.
That began for me when I travelled to India…
As a Westerner from the beautiful Golden State of California, when you first arrive to the Indian subcontinent you see in front of you what many would call chaos. No crosswalks, stop signs, lanes on the streets, or intersection stop-and-go lights. My brain couldn’t believe what my eyes were witnessing: a fluent stream of traffic, always honking and taking risks, just to get to a destination. A level of poverty inconceivable. Taking a walk through the cities at times felt like being on another planet. I was embracing the culture that walked by me.
Thinking about it reminds me of why I went there.
I was a senior in a public high school near San Francisco, where I took great interest in Eastern philosophy; Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, and Buddhism most of all. The story of Siddhartha greatly fascinated me. At the time I actually believed I was already somewhat of a hardcore traveller, who had been exposed to many different cultures and societies. I had been all over the U.S., Europe and Australia, thanks to my mom’s lust to get her only child out into the world. This confidence that I would later find naive pushed me to take a gap year, India becoming my main target.
I joined Carpe Diem Education, a program that sends young adults into developing countries. The point was to experience what it really meant to be “living in India”. I met up with several other students who had decided to endure the motherland of India. We immediately clicked and became an amazing squad.
I got to live with a Tibetan Buddhist family, and got to see the Dalai Lama in North India, where many of the exiled Tibetans live. I learned and practiced sitar in Varanasi, the oldest city in human history. We went to Amritsar, and lived right next to the Golden Temple, the holiest place for Sikhs in the entire world.
The chaos that I was introduced to in the beginning had turned into a beautiful chaos. Their system for everything worked so well! I got used to how things were done, by learning Hindi and cultural norms of the nation that was the polar opposite of mine. It was a magical thing.
I was more inspired there than I had ever been. I was now more hungry than ever to experience culture shocks, meet people from the other side of our planet we share, and most of all, be able to practice Mahayana Buddhism in a place that was significant to me.
The epic journey to India was just the first semester of the gap year program, and there was a second one to come - this time by myself, with no other Carpe Diem students. During your first semester you aren’t allowed to bring a device that can use the internet, the point being to make you stay focused on what is in front of you, instead of being distracted by what is going on back home. I had to go to internet cafes to talk to my advisor who was helping me plan my second semester. She assisted me in finding what country I wanted to go to next, and what I wanted to do there.
I wanted to experience the monstrous, wild continent of Africa, and do film.
Ever since I was about six I was obsessed with film. I took drama classes for about 9 years, and went to the video store with my father every week. I kept my love for film all the way up to high school, where I took classes on film production.
My Carpe Diem advisor immediately sent me the website of Gorilla Highlands, and told me to check them out and tell her if I’d like to volunteer as a videographer. I was hooked the second I saw where the location was, and what my job would be doing. The beautiful gem of Africa, Uganda. My stereotypical impression of Africa was shattered the second I was exposed to the images of Lake Bunyonyi.
All my friends who had graduated were now either busy trying to get a job or rent an apartment. Some were stressed with classes they were taking at universities. All of this was happening for them while I was taking a plane to marvelous East Africa, knowing that I was going to be doing my spiritual practice and pursuing my passion in film. Using the skills I learned in school, out in the real world…