One Love Journey

By Madalina Serban

A book about faith, breakthroughs and courage to live ones dreams. About those encounters that become milestones in someones life. Equally full of emotions and introspections into the deepest thoughts, One Love Journey captures three months of the authors life spent in Nepal -- a destination found only to become a new beginning.

If we were to let our minds rest within our hearts,

we would find all the answers.

When you meet Madalina, her uniqueness strikes you. Armed with a heart full of love and strength she leaves her work one day, packs up her flat and goes out into the world to follow an inner call. Truthful to herself through every new day, she finds her search to bring out the greatest of gifts, leading her closer to the innermost questions. Courageous and passionate in her dealings with life, Madalina lets us into her gentle soul through these stories. It is an inspiration to read her beautiful writing.

Madalina will donate her paperback and e-book royalties to Nepal Volunteers Hand Children Home that hosted her for the last five weeks of her stay in Nepal. To learn more about the organization please visit www.volunteershandnepal.org

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477131411

Madalina Serban

A book about faith, breakthroughs and courage to live one’s dreams. About those encounters that become milestones in someone’s life. Equally full of emotions and introspections into the deepest thoughts, One Love Journey captures three months of the author’s life spent in Nepal -- a destination found only to become a new beginning. “If we were to let our minds rest within our hearts, we would find all the answers.” When you meet Madalina, her uniqueness strikes you. Armed with a heart full of love and strength she leaves her work one day, packs up her flat and goes out into the world to follow an inner call. Truthful to herself through every new day, she finds her search to bring out the greatest of gifts, leading her closer to the innermost questions. Courageous and passionate in her dealings with life, Madalina lets us into her gentle soul through these stories. It is an inspiration to read her beautiful writing. Madalina will donate her paperback and e-book royalties to Nepal Volunteers’ Hand Children Home that hosted her for the last five weeks of her stay in Nepal. To learn more about the organization please visit www.volunteershandnepal.org

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Madalina Serban. 303876-SERB

ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4771-3140-4

Ebook 978-1-4771-3141-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0-800-644-6988

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

CONTENTS

Dedication

Quiet

Brown eyes

Daal bhaat tarkari, creativity and dipika’s drawings

The perfect chill-out spot

Chasing the rhino and Eli’s birthday party

These days

Sunset

Swinging under the moonlight

Trading the day off

Dependence

A day like no other

The children

Moments

Too much

The Middle Way

One month

City life

Musk, sacred fire and Three Cups of Tea

Living in a House of Dreams

In between

False needs and wholehearted people

What I WENT there for

First things first

The hardest moment

At people’s mercy

Forever

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DEDICATION

To my brother. I love you deeply.

Chasing the light. The light within ourselves. Maybe it’s the same with what drives us from within: there are sunsets, yet there are sunrises again. We walk through sandy, muddy waters so many times along our lives. But if we walk on, confident in our beliefs and true to our hearts, amazing reflections of the world within us will be set free.  We will be caught in wonder.

Sunset, October 6th, 2011

QUIET

September 26th, 2011

There is a time when you need to be quiet. You feel as though you need the silence. Do it. Take it. That moment of freedom is for you, it’s allowed.

BROWN EYES

September 28th, 2011

Brown eyes have always spoken to me. But these brown eyes that have accompanied me all the way from Milan to New Delhi, then Kathmandu fascinate me. They are the deepest, most mysterious eyes I’ve ever seen.

Kathmandu, heavy monsoon rain as I arrive. Rush, colors, contrasts, strong smells and spicy scents. Brown eyes again, only now they have a name: Dipika, the twelve year old daughter of the woman who is running the organisation, in whose house I am hosted.

Chiya, I love it! Hot milk tea. The leaves are boiled with milk, sugar and spices; cinnamon I can recognize. It’s very sweet, that is how they drink it, Pramila tells me and she smiles. We have it now as a welcome drink, but we will have it with each breakfast.  ‘What do we do now?’, the Eastern-Western girl in me asks. ‘We chat …’, comes Sujan’s very relaxed answer, and so we did.

They leave the doors of rooms open. It’s impolite, to use a term I know … to close them. One doesn’t have to knock on the door, they just go in, sit, join. Naturally.

I wake up at 6:19 AM; fresh and without the terrible headache I’ve had the last few days before leaving. Brown eyes will tell me ‘Good morning!’, and smile.

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DAAL BHAAT TARKARI, CREATIVITY AND DIPIKA’S DRAWINGS

September 28th, 2011

I helped cook daal bhaat tarkari today. Literally, it means lentil soup, rice and curried vegetables. It’s the main meal we have here twice a day, morning and evening. Cucumbers as big as eggplants, green coriander and a lot of other spices in small boxes I am yet to know the name of, as they make this simple meal so tasty! Chiya to drink, of course.

A short walk through Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, the strong scent of incents that seem to be burning everywhere. It’s a familiar smell to me, I used to burn scented sticks back home … it’s nice to find it here. I will