So here I am! Telling you a story of how I was once left speechless. 

I recently went to a small village named Bourg Saint Maurice in the heart of the French Alps for a cultural exchange program through my school because I had been studying French for almost 6 years. During this program, I lived with a French girl of my age named Lucile, and her family. I walked into the home of people who were complete strangers to me. They were not fluent in English and even though I had been studying French for 6 years, I was new to the concept of interacting with French people. On my first day there, I was a little scared about how the next 20 days were going to turn out.  All my apprehensions were broken because it turned out that language was not a barrier at all. I learnt a lot from them and taught them a little Hindi too! For everything good that happens, they still say “Je baat!”- and that is how I know that people have had a great impact on each other.

I went to my partner’s school and attended classes with her. The way their classes were conducted was really different from ours. During her lunch break, we went out and sat on the steps of her school which faced the entire town and a cemetery. The breeze was so fresh and the view from there was one of the best views I had ever seen.

I also took a papier mâché class and I carved out a little angel from the material and painted it. I took that back as a souvenir and it has a lot of memories attached to it because that was the first time I ever sculpted something of that kind. 

I had always found the whole idea of trekking really fascinating and I went for a trek on the snow-covered mountains. The sun was so sharp - it was hurting the eyes but the warmth it gave was so comforting! The whole view from there was beautiful. One could just stand and stare for hours and hours without realising the passage of time.

Deah Gulwani
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