The intense heat let up a bit today. It was only in the 90’s F, or about 32 C. But the humidity still lingered and it was quite hot as we carried the lit torch through another section of Michigan today. It was a complicated schedule today with ceremonies in several locations along the route at different times.

My team of Sunabin from Siberia and Prabhakar from Canada ran along highway 131 into and through the very nice town of Three Rivers. We were greeted there by Mayor Tom Lowry after a very inspiring escort from one of the police officers. Teresa, a local woman, was also present to greet us as well as Elena Hines from the Three Commercial Newspaper. We were joined by one of the women’s teams—Vilupti and Sevati—who had finished running earlier. It was a small but intimate group of harmony lovers who shared many thoughts about life and how we can improve it with work and action, not just words. Mayor Lowry is not only the mayor but the owner of a local bookshop called Lowry’s Books. We are very grateful that he and the others who attended took time out of their busy schedules to greet us and share with us wonderful ideas and thoughts on world harmony.

I wanted to mention some wonderful people from Battle Creek who helped us get accommodations tonight as well as feeding us. Cindy Fadel and her family, Mamoud and Hassan, their son, opened up their beautiful home to us for a great Lebanese style meal. Many friends with their children also came to greet us as we all had a great time with some Frisbee games and trampolining after dinner. Cindy was very kind in her enthusiastic support of our run as we also hope to see her tomorrow at the Battle Creek events.

Arpan and the Team

Ceremonies In Kalamazoo

We were greeted by many children at the Boys and Girls Club in Kalamazoo today. There was also Channel 3 news and Maria Suszynski and Gabriel Akoi who were the Art Director and Youth Development Directors. Our team most enthusiastically introduced them all to our journey. In front of the camera’s eye we told some stories, foreign words which we taught the kids and mentioned some of the famous people from around the world who held the Torch.

To give them a real taste of the run we formed a big circle around the track and passed the Torch to each other. We finished with a big group of runners including teachers and staff.

After a short interview for the T.V. News, we headed towards City Hall. One of the men’s teams joined us there after running their miles.

Here in the centre of town just by city hall we were met by Robert B. Jones the Mayor of Kalamazoo and a few of the older representatives of the boys and girls club. The Mayor offered us some encouraging words and the boys and girls gave us some beautiful works of art.

Maria

---

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

< USA 24 July

USA 26 July >