Being present for the first day of the vocation camp at Karunapuram, brought back memories of my own first vocation camp in Gunadala. The travel from Hyderabad to Gunadala, I have no memory of, but certainly the return journey is vivid in my mind. I travelled back with Fr Balaswamy and Fr Anand. Charlie was the driver of the jeep!
The excitement of settling in the dormitory, the first family get together... The excitement of the cricket match, wherein I took a hatrick of wickets, for which Fr Gnanam - then a brother and the umpire of the match - congratulating me). The sharing of food in the dining hall, a totally new experience, because back at home all of us were used to being served by our mothers, so none of us at the table had any clue of proportion and distribution! Washing the utensils was not in our dictionary at all, leave alone cleaning the table after meals.
The one aspect that I liked most of this particular camp in Karunapuram was the fact that two-thirds of the participants were boys from our own settings - something very very rare all these years! These boys knew 'Don Bosco', felt at home with Salesians. That's something really really good. It is an indicator that we Salesians are doing some good. Irrespective of their desire to join us or not, the very fact that they choose to attend the vocation camp is encouraging!
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