Steve McCurdy

It is hard to believe another year has passed since the last “Grand India Adventure.”
So much has changed with YMAD in India and with a new group of youth from Utah that it seems both a long time ago, and then like only yesterday.

In many ways, that trip seems like a dream, as trips so often do. You return home and you begin to forget all that you have experienced. Then in unexpected moments the memories start flooding back, just as they do now sitting in the airport in San Francisco.

For me, each trip to India has been different and this looks to be just as exciting. Again different, in it’s own way special way.

A year ago, I traveled on my own to Varanasi and Kolkata, at the time, it was impossible to imagine that YMAD would ever travel to West Bengal or to the jungles of eastern India. A place I fell in love with at first sight. And yet here we are.

As I had traveled through West Bengal a year ago I had so often wished that I could share my experiences with someone. I could have never imagined what the follow year would bring. It was five months before Robert, Eden, James and Eli ventured to West Bengal where they too fell in love with the place and the people. We met Mimi and Manami and they would travel to the US. Now today YMAD is going to experience India, West Bengal, and Nishtha together.

I know that we can make the world just a little better through our efforts and I look forward to the possibilities. I am happy that I once again I get to experience India, and Nishtha and share it with someone. I get to experience this next grand adventure with a group of wonderful young people and of course most importantly with my daughter Sara.

The last two years I have traveled to India with YMAD in November and I have been gone on Sara’s birthday. Her birthday is November 14th. I’m hoping that once she experiences India, she’ll forgive me, and that together we’ll enjoy her best birthday ever, in India. I wrote this on the 14th, a day before we celebrated her birthday. Stay Tuned.