We arrived at Ambleside Primary School to excited faces and cheerful smiles. The delight of the children is always such an uplifting experience.

The children love doing the actions to our theme song - running in place, thumbs up high as a torch, hands on heart in oneness and arms overhead and hands sprinkling down as the sun.

Nandathu lends a helping hand to his runner friend in one of the skits to demonstrate harmony.

The Harmony Run provides excellents opportunities to overcome our own challenges on the road both without and within. These challenges are one of the reasons many of us keep coming out on the road. We are all striving to become better citizens of the world. We all feel personal growth each time we come. We can only hope to become better examples for all the children that we visit. Teekhnata writes:

"Another day on the WHR, another opportunity for self-transcendence. Even though I've been on the US Run a couple of times, somehow I managed to avoid, save a sentence or two, public speaking.

I actually give lectures as a profession but have been hesitant, petrified actually, to lead school ceremonies. I kept telling myself it was because I was used to teaching adults and just wasn't comfortable with the unpredictability of children.

But, if I was really honest with myself I couldn't deny that this was a lie. The real reason I've been avoiding it is because my fear of looking like a complete idiot in front of my teammates.

Despite the fear, I agreed to do the first part of the first ceremony today at Ambleside Primary School. My only mission was to introduce the run and start a fun guessing game with them. I felt a little queasy in the morning beforehand.

At the ceremony my anxiety came to the fore and my mind went completely empty. I forgot about a half of the information I was going to share despite obsessively practicing in my head about 20 times previous to the event.

Later I thought how ironic it is that I find it so difficult to empty my mind during a meditation and yet, in this moment at the ceremony, the only sound in my brain were crickets chirping. Aargh!

Somehow the show went on amusingly enough, and my teammates only showed me love and support and even told me that I did a good job. I guess I'll let go of the shame...no need to carry that around being that it doesn't serve me or any one else at all. Will I lead another ceremony? I don''t know. Stay tuned."

The second school today was Windermere C of E Junior School. We waited about a block away because the children were going to come out and join us for the run into the school.

When they came running down the road to join, I noticed that the smallest girl was out front sprinting at a pace that would be difficult for me to run.(pictured above) Mind you, she looked about 7 years old. Later, I told her what a good runner she was. Her response was, "I know", with a proud smile. I then asked her to what she attributed her speed and she said, "grapes and apples." She continued that she only liked grapes and apples and so she ate alot of them and this made her fast. Being quite the fruit eater myself, I was delighted to hear about her "training diet".

We all really enjoyed both schools today. The children were very sincere in their appreciation for the ideas of the WHR. It is a true blessing to spend time with children like this. It makes me hopeful for the future.

Windermere Town Councilor Allan Winrow came by the hold the torch and offer his support of the Run. He very cheerfully participated in our ceremony and was quite good with the kids.

Our local assistant coordinator, Devashishu, joined us today to guide us through Windermere and on to Blackpool. We even got a few miles out of him! He was so kind to tack on a few "extra" miles as well.

We wish to offer our sincere gratitude to the Hilton Blackpool for hosting the team at a substantial discount. They even gave us an additional room to use a computer room.

---

The World Harmony Run proudly supports the International Year of Youth (IYY) and the International Year of Forests (IYF) proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly.

See the recent Youtube video on African experience which illustrates IYY slogan "Our Year Our Voice"  International Year of Youth - Zambia World Harmony. They surprisingly mention Presidents and UN Secretary-General in a unique way! 

See also the UNESCO World Heritage (WH) Centre support for IY of Forests.  ... Convention for conservation of forest biodiversity. (more)

 

– Atulya and Teekhnata

---

Distance: 57 miles

Team Members:
Salil Wilson (Australia), Apaguha Vesely (Czech Republic), Balavan Thomas (Great Britain), Shobhavati Davies (New Zealand), Amalendu Edelsten (Australia), Shraddha Kurzemniece (Latvia), Lenka Svecova (Czech Republic), Teekhnata Metzler (USA), Atulya Berube (USA), Ilvaka Nemcova (Czech Republic), Nandathu Zach Saltzman (USA), Atul Arora (India), Devashishu Torpy (England)

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

Gallery: See more images!

< Great Britain 21 June < Ukraine 21 June

Great Britain 23 June > Ukraine 23 June >

Ukraine 22 June