College Essay

College Essay

It has been said that to know of something and to experience something are two very different things. Here in America almost every human has shelter and food to eat; if the means to procure such things for themselves are lacking then the government helps in the form of welfare. Not many Americans have actually experienced hunger; most claim starvation after only four hours after they last ate when there are others who don’t eat for days.
My childhood was surrounded by my very spiritual family and I harbor the faith they instilled into me; I attended temple weekly and I volunteered time there whenever I could. Four years ago, my parents decided going on our temple’s annual pilgrimage to India would be a good experience. I must admit—I was reluctant to leave. I had heard all these terrible things about India—it was dreadfully underdeveloped, its water was dirty, there were no car lanes and there were monkeys in the street. I was skeptical and critical and erroneously judgmental.
It was, in a way, even worse than I thought. Roads were dirt, I got food poisoning and the monkeys not only roamed the streets but stole glasses right of off of one’s nose. It was also life-altering. I witnessed things I had considered to be fictional—poverty was such a strange thing. The idea that people depended on theft to stay alive was so abstract, so farcical to me that it seemed almost fake, possibly staged. I was stuck in some sort of sick cyclical horror—people couldn’t possibly endure such horrid lives every single day.  
One of my most unforgettable memories was when our bus stopped at a random shack on the side of the road. It had only one room which was currently being renovated—another layer of cow dung was being added to the walls. The stench was positively ghastly; it reeked of rancid self-pity, sweaty hunger and feverish desire. A family of six lived in that house. Their clothes were painted the dead brown of rotting wood by the dirt; even their skin was a rusty...