Day Four: Lakpa and Hannah

This morning at 6:40 am, Lakpa woke up to the cacophonous screeching of a scorned bird. It was, however, alright, as she was preparing for a morning hike up the Ridge Trail with Jacob, Alma, Kim, and Amy.

Meanwhile, Hannah was asleep with Quorra, her penguin Pillow Pet. (Yes, named for Olivia Wilde’s character in Tron Legacy.)

The hike was incredibly steep going up, and Lakpa and co. had been heading up for about half an hour when they saw a spectacular sunrise from the top of the trail. They did, unfortunately, take a wrong turn on their way down, but found their way home!

Meanwhile, Hannah was still asleep with Quorra.

Lakpa: The morning hike was really refreshing, and I felt rejuvenated! However, I felt pain in my thighs at the end of the hike, but I must say that it was worth it. The hike was great overall.

Hannah: Quorra is a superior cuddler.

(Lakpa: Hannah is adorable! <3)

Following their hike, Lakpa and Amy tried to take a picture in front of the Datcha. After several attempts, they were finally able to take a good picture!

Soon after, Black dog came out from the farmhouse to get her early morning massage. Like a boss!

After several attempts, Hannah was finally able to get up and stumble up to the Farmhouse, where she and Priyanka, after several failed attempts, were finally able to make coffee.

After coffee, Hannah, only three-quarters groggy now, hiked back to the Library for the leaders’ meeting, where the day’s activities were discussed. Yay delegating!

Lakpa was assigned to a group with Priyanka and Alma to go stain the Library, Wildman and Elisa’s home. The weather was sunny, but the wind was really chilly.

Lakpa: I would say staining was not as easy as it seemed. Priyanka, Alma, and I had a lot of trouble putting up the ladders, and it took a long time for us to get it. We were finally able to get started when Jerome, one of the leaders from UMBC, brought a ladder down to help us out.

Hannah was assigned to work with the remains of an apple tree that’d blown down: with a group of students from both Rutgers and UMBC, she worked to sort and further cut pieces of the tree.

Hannah: I’m proud to say I used a chainsaw for the first time today, and now have yet another reason to smile to myself with smug satisfaction every time I wear one of my many plaid flannel shirts. Throwing logs into the pile, I also pretended like I was Peeta in training for the first Hunger Games. Because I’m totally a Peeta. The Peeta-est Peeta to ever Peeta. I must say, I enjoyed working with wood today.

Before lunch, everyone migrated back to the Art House, where Lakpa, Manjiri, Jessica, and Amy were preparing to give the canoe a shot, with Kim and Hannah watching.

It was nice, until the canoe tipped, and everyone fell out into freezing water. Luckily, we were still pretty close to shore. To say the least, it was a memorable moment.

Lunch was nomz: we had pizza toast, or tomato sauce and three shredded cheeses on bread that was then toasted. There was also salad with homemade dressing!

After lunch, everyone returned to work: Hannah and co. headed back to the apple tree, which, after some bonding over JLaw, was quickly finished, at which point she headed over to help with Lakpa and friends.

Lakpa: I noticed a change as we were staining the Library. The staining just started getting darker than the previous ones! I felt like something was wrong.

Hannah: Famous last words.

And thus, the ombre house was born.

Team Ombre worked on finishing the wall well into – and past – supper, as well as past the descent of the sun below the top of the misty mountains. It was cold. Super cold.

We made up for it when Hannah brought out her ukulele, though! Priyanka played some sick chords and we all rocked out to an acoustic version of the Biebs' "Beauty and the Beat." It was a pretty amazing experience and quite frankly, we all deserve a Grammy.

Finally, we made our way up to the Farmhouse to have dinner – and props to Jessica for helping out! – for some delish vegetable stir fry with brown rice. Tinley also made some bomb gluten-free dairy-free blueberry cupcake!

After supper, we watched Clownin’ Kabul, a film depicting a clowning trip to Afghanistan in preparation for our clowning trip to a VA Hospital tomorrow.

Lakpa: Luckily the lights were off while we watched the documentary. I teared up. It was really emotional. I feel more respect towards Patch Adams, and I feel like he’s very strong as a person because he was able to go out there in such a dangerous place and perform, just to bring a smile to war-affect children. At that point, I felt really glad that I was part of this change.

Hannah: Even though it was my second time viewing the film, it was still incredibly emotional. Compassion is so often such an incredibly brave act, and I feel like it goes so often unappreciated. This really helped me come back to that knowledge and appreciation myself.

After the film, we did a reflection, gossiped a little bit, and went to bed, excited for the day ahead and the adventures to come!