There is nothing better than the smell of fresh soil that has been wet by pounding hard rain.

To some of you rain is annoying, but to me, it’s a sign that the trek will be filled with animals that are getting ready to drink water. “We have to make a stop at the ATM,” My uncle says.” “Ok” I respond with a devilish smile, because I love clean, new money that gets dispensed out of the machine.

“Can I have some money, Uncle Phil?” I say already knowing that he will say yes.
“Sure, I have 100 rupees.” he says with a smile.
I take the money and slowly walk up to the small little boy, and I give him the money thinking about what he can actually buy with it. I can tell he doesn’t have enough kindness being shown to him, because of the ripped ear, and a sign that says that he is only 5 years old with no chance of ever walking again. He glances up at me with a smile that would warm a thousand hearts, but I keep on thinking about the fact that I am doing nothing for him. I feel as though someone had stabbed me in my throat. Why must this little boy have nothing? He needs something. My uncle walks up to me and pulls me back, and I go with him. I did nothing for that little boy. Nothing, but give some money that probably only buy a small dosa that’s infested with germs…
While wondering about how to help that small boy, and give him a better life, my uncle repeats the map of how we are going to the mountain. I continually ignore him. Finding something to do with my hands, because if I don’t, I will start to show the little water drops that trickle down your face showing either your sadness or happiness, and then my uncle will ask me if I don’t want to go on the trek, he has already asked me four times, and it’s only 7o’clock in the morning. My mother didn’t want to me to go like any mother would, but I needed this. I check to see if we have all of our bags even though there is only two. My uncle tells me “This is the third time you’ve checked to see if we have our bags, do you want to go back?” he asks with the kindest tone. “No I want to do this,” I say with a slight annoyance in my voice, and that’s his cue to be quiet.
We come to the bottom of the mountain even though it doesn’t look like it, because everything is uphill in this part of town, and I start to think about how much training we had to do to go on this mountain. If you googled Ladakh you would see all these beautiful pictures, but this is different. There is nothing like it. We have been planning this trek for a year, but recently there was a war in Ladakh with rebel fighters killing civilians, and we had to postpone three times. The locals call the mountain Carum. Which means mighty.
The ranger was explaining to the group about how we have to be on the lookout for wild animals when I saw him, the little boy that was on the street. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, He had been sitting there only a car ride ago with a sign showing that he couldn’t walk, but now he was walking completely fine. The sadness that I had just felt a moment ago had immediately turned to hatred. He lied to get money. I realize how many people in India do this horrible thing. I wanted to confront him ask him why he would do that, but I know that it would go right over his head. He obviously doesn’t care about what he just did. I realize that even people who have had so much hatred shown to them can be just as hateful. This small thing of cheating makes me want to never give money to anyone ever again. He is the reason of why the millions of people that actually do really need the money never get it. Just think this all about a small boy who cheated me of about 100 rupees. Fortunately for the little boy, our group started the 3-day trek, but  I’ll remember him.