I wasn't tall enough to see the spot, so I had to give Torie a boost, and she looked. Torie moved some brush and dirt, which sprinked onto me below, and pushed vines out of the way. She reached behind a vine, and behold! There was no treasure.
We looked on that tree in the EXACT spot where last year's students left the treasure, but we couldn't find anything. We spent an hour looking on the tree. Finally we gave up, and contacted our friends from last year's program. They sent us a picture of the note they had hid in a ziploc bag for us! The note must have blown out of its spot, or maybe fallen out of the tree in the year since they had left Bangalore.
At first Torie and I were disappointed that we hadn't found what we set out to find, but we realized that this little lesson tells a lot of the story of our whole trip to India. We first set out with expectations of what we would find, but really the journey, the challenges, and the people we worked with were the real treasure. When I think back to what I thought I would learn and do before coming to India, it is much different, and much more treasured.
Thanks for sharing in my adventure through these writings, and I hope you all are inspired to set out on your own treasure hunts! You may not find what you are looking for, but you may find something better!
