We had many incredible entries this year but it ultimately came down to these three worthy contenders.

First place goes to Ruqiyah Patel for her story ‘Mother Rapper.’

An old lady with no teeth is dancing in the room behind us. Charlotte and I know who she is, to a degree – she’s visited the monastery once or twice before. Pema Wangda, the monk most comfortable with girls, puts his head out the door and informs us that ‘Mother Rapper’ is dancing. When we sneak a look, all the monks go silent and stare at us. We sit quietly in the main room and listen.

It will take a long time to help the monks get over their shyness with us, their first girl volunteers, even though they’ve had Lattitude teachers for the past four years. Playing cricket, teaching them Solitaire over dinner, running in circles with the kids, painting the new dormitories, getting to the stage when we’d gather around over a Spot the Animals book after dinner…step one happens tonight.

Someone is playing a pop song we know on their phone – probably Chogyel, who loves English music – and we sing along to it, a habit whenever a monk started to play anything we recognise. Us singing to their music always makes the monks smile.

Mother Rapper seizes the moment.  She dances out of the side room and into the middle of our room, rolling her hands and swaying, taking tiny steps backwards and forwards as we sing. The monks follow her  hesitantly. They stand around laughing as we keep singing and trying not to laugh too hard. It’s fun to watch her dance, and we don’t need to do anything embarrassing in front of the monks.

Then Mother Rapper takes our hands and pulls us up from our bench to dance with her. It’s the first time the monks see us act like idiots, and by no means the last. With all the monks standing in a circle around us, laughing, clapping, pulling their phones out and filming, Charlotte and I go through the Macarena, the Time Warp, and the YMCA, singing badly and dancing while Mother Rapper copies our moves and follows behind us, singing goodness-knows-what enthusiastically in Bhutanese. We slip into We Will Rock You and try to teach Mother Rapper how to do the stomp-stomp-clap drum beat. “STOMP STOMP CLAP,” we shout, and everyone laughs.

A month earlier, a monk told us that he didn’t believe in evolution, or the future, or the past. All he believed in was the now, because it was all that he knew was real. All I can do is believe in the now, shaved-headed robed monks laughing with two girls singing off-key, teaching a hunched little old lady how to make the letters YMCA with her arms as she mutters and laughs and comments to the monks in words we don’t understand at all, and everyone is happy, and laughing, and acting like idiots, and having fun.

Knowing that next year’s volunteers are going to have to sit through that recording doesn’t hurt at all either.

Buddhist monks in India

Click here to learn more about our placements in India.

Second place goes to Sarah Healy’s entry – ‘Vakaraubuka’

Vakaraubuka (Friday) was a vivid day for me. Everything around me was so crystal clear and immediate, the sky, the water, the birds, emotions; laughter was so close to the surface- bubbling up all the time at any unsuspecting moment. Such a great feeling.  I slept until 7.15, jumped up and had bread and butter for breakfast (yes!), a quick shower in the blue drum that catches water from the gutter outside the church and headed to school.

The class was bright, the kids are just so great. So sparkly everyday. We discussed favourite stories, and I took note on how class discussions are much more open now, more involved and fluid. Progress! Surprisingly, Master Simi came during class and whisked me away to Levuka for a school shopping trip. We took the 20 minute boat ride to town where we bought supplies and met Lusi. A bumpy, chatty taxi ride took us to a village called Nasinu where a fixed marriage proposal celebration was happening. I met handfuls of extended family, all so warm and energetic and ate a big Fijian lunch with kittens and children scampering around me.

In the hall there were men singing and playing guitars while everyone sat around on woven mats, drinking Kava and dancing. A man from the village asked me to dance and I jumped up, having developed a love for ‘hop hop’ back on the island. Too soon we needed to head back to the wharf, to keep in time with the tide that would allow the boat to carry us all home.

I stopped in at the supermarket, and met the lovely Tess, another volunteer from a nearby village. It is such a homely feeling when you can go shopping to buy sugar and meet people you know among the aisles. I clambered back into the boat with my fellow teachers feeling happy, loopy, just grinning. I absolutely love zooming across that clear blue water and seeing Moturiki island in the distance, a village of friends, and not knowing whether tomorrow will include spontaneous dancing, boat rides and shopping trips or a swim in a waterfall and a climb up a coconut tree.

Sarah Healy with two of her students

Click here to find out what you could be doing in Fiji!

Third place was won by Sarah Dowd’s story: ‘My Ultimate Lattitude Experience’

From witnessing Royal Weddings to learning very quickly that ‘pants’ has a slightly different meaning in England, my gap year has been filled with ultimate experiences, so to narrow down one seems like a challenge in itself. But before I start I can easily say that my overall Lattitude experience has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Moving to the otherside of the world, whilst my friends in Australia continued to remind me how fantastic summer was, I arrived on a dark, windy and rainy evening at Glebe House School in Hunstanton, Norfolk.

The warmth both in the character of the school and those staff and students I first met is something I will never forget. Whilst these early weeks seem so far away now, I know that the chance given to my fellow gap and myself by our headmaster’s wife to meet Queen Elizabeth II, is something very special. After the Queen attended her Sunday morning church service at Sandringham, we were able to give the Queen flowers, shake her hand and even have a quick conversation with her. For myself, this is something I still can’t believe actually happened. The magnitude of this opportunity to meet such a high profile woman who has been a part of so many events both in the 20th Century and into the 21st still seems unbelievable.

These are the type of opportunities that can arise in taking a Lattitude placement. Being able to live in a country for an extended period of time, when you are only 18, I believe you find out so much more about yourself and others. I know I now have a whole new respect for my teachers, after experiencing through my placement the work that goes on behind the staff room door. By being at a placement in England I have had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout Europe, again experiencing so much and meeting so many new people; some of whom have now become some of my best friends. I am already dreading leaving Glebe, with many of the students already asking me to stay for longer, and particularly after spending such an extended period of time away from home, Glebe has become my home. However, after such a rewarding year, at least I can say that I actually did go to England and yes, I did meet the Queen!

A phonebooth in London

Click here to find out what’s on offer in the UK.

Congratulations to our winners, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading their stories!  We also run a competition for written submissions and video entries, to see the winners of these click on the following links:

2011 Video Competition winners

2011 Photo Competition winners

And click here to see more info about our annual competitions.

An old lady with no teeth is dancing in the room behind us. Charlotte and I know who she is, to a degree – she’s visited the monastery once or twice before. Pema Wangda, the monk most comfortable with girls, puts his head out the door and informs us that ‘Mother Rapper’ is dancing. When we sneak a look, all the monks go silent and stare at us. We sit quietly in the main room and listen.An old lady with no teeth is dancing in the room behind us. Charlotte and I know who she is, to a degree – she’s visited the monastery once or twice before. Pema Wangda, the monk most comfortable with girls, puts his head out the door and informs us that ‘Mother Rapper’ is dancing. When we sneak a look, all the monks go silent and stare at us. We sit quietly in the main room and listen.
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