We are now into our last week of our 4 month journey. Today we continued our journey as we ran into a new state – Vermont, but before that we had a ceremony in Albany, New York.

There we met children at North Albany YMCA. The children loved running around the gym with the torch. A big thank you to Danielle Depeaux, Camp Director.

Our next ceremony was at the YMCA in Troy.

Ms Jenna Jura, Camp Director, who kindly offered the whole team a free pass to the YMCA facilities for a week, greeted us.

We would have only been too eager to use them if the run didn’t have to continue onwards.

The children were very excited to see us and each child ran a short distance with the torch.

We ran into Vermont in the heat of the afternoon, and we also ran into a meeting in the historic and pictureque town of Bennington, with the Bennington Recreation Department's summer program. We were welcomed by Economic Community Development Director Scott Murphy, and Director of the Recreation Department Tracy Knights.

The children were sitting in a group on the grass, and on the wall they had hung a long poster welcoming us.

They were a little bit shy at first, perhaps they were a bit sleepy in the heat!

One girl asked "How old do you have to be before you can become a Harmony Runner?" She was 8 years old - "That's how old you have to be- you can run today!"

When it actually came to time to run with the torch we started off at first with just one volunteer, but once he'd run a lap down to Dima and back the others got inspired to run too, and then most of them ended up running twice each.

It was great to see the joy on their faces as they ran, holding the torch out carefully in front of them. They would have liked to all have run at least one more time - one or two of them kept sneaking back in to the back of the line hoping that we wouldn't notice. Unfortunately however we were out of time - we still had a few more miles to run ourselves.

Before we left, one of the children presented us with a sign he had made for our visit. It said "peace rocks. peace is the sign of happiness". Scott Murphy also presented us with two Bennington t-shirts to remember our visit by. Thank-you!

This was the first official meeting in Bennington for the World Harmony Run, (thank you Akankha!), and we definitely look forward to coming back next time around now that we have some new friends here.

Just east of Latham, NY, we met the sister of a good friend of ours. Laura saw us running, pulled over quickly to ask "Is this associated with Sri Chinmoy?". "Why yes", we replied. She had been in San Diego visiting here sister, Linda, who manages a yoga study that had hosted the World Harmony Run in June. Needless to say we were all excited about this serendipitous meeting. Truly is a small world!

We finished our day at a wonderful farmhouse, just outside Bennington, Vermont, belonging to our good friend Arun. Arun was not there to greet us but Diana Sinclaire cheerfully gave us a tour of this beautiful place. Arun most generously bought pizza for the whole team that we thoroughly enjoyed.

The calmness and stillness of the evening pervaded the whole place as we all relaxed; some taking a stroll around the fields greeting the many horses grazing here, others watching the sunset, others sitting down to an open fire whilst others sitting in the rocking chairs on the front porch. So ended a most splendid day in the rolling hills and English countryside feel of Vermont.

– Kokila and Mark

Distance: 73 miles

Team Members:
Atulya Berube (San Diego), Drsalu Gruenstaeudel (Austria), Vladimir Salnacov (Moldova), Mark Collinson (England), Kokila Chamberlain (England), Surya Smolennikova (Russia), Kshetragna Ulanova (Russia), Dima Grygorievski (Ukraine), Sukhada Korshunova (Russia), Nisanga (Bosnia)

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