It has now been a month since I left London to start this adventure and what a month it’s been! It actually feels like a lot longer! I think its because of how much I’ve experienced in that time, its been pretty amazing! I love it here in India, I definitely want to come back one day. Looking back to my 1st day here, being lost in Mumbai airport about to miss my flight and wondering why I ever thought this was a good idea, I’ve come a long way! I have already seen some change in myself. Just being able to embrace new things instead of being scared of it. Back in London, I would have been terrified at the idea of turning up somewhere on my own where I didn’t know anyone! I liked nothing more than staying in my comfort zone. But now here I am on the other side of the world in such a different country experiencing such a different culture and environment, living in a house with 30 people I’d never met before and I’m loving it! The project here is going well, and we are seeing improvement with the girls we’re working with. I do still miss my girls in the slums in Goa though. I think about them and wonder how they’re getting on. Strangely, I haven’t really been homesick here yet. I definitely thought I would be. I think maybe because I’m always surrounded by people and always busy, either working, exploring the area, or hanging out with the people in the house here, I haven’t really had time to think about my life back home. I’m definitely looking forward to 5 more months of this!

I met up with my friend Nick today. Of all the places to meet up with a friend from London, Jaipur is possibly one of the most random places! He was here for a few days after volunteering with Vision Rescue in Mumbai for 3 weeks. It was really cool catching up and chatting about our volunteering experiences.

So I finally managed to get my visa extended on Tuesday, the day before it expired so I’m pretty relieved! It would have been pretty stressful to have to start changing all my plans if it didn’t go through. I can now relax and finish the week of volunteering here, and then join the tour for the final week, see the Taj Mahal and trek up the Himalayas so I’m pretty excited!

We went away to a town called Pushkar for the weekend. It was pretty different to Jaipur, a lot quieter. It is considered a holy town so meat and alcohol are strictly forbidden! We shopped in the markets there, visited the Pushkar Lake and some of the temples there. While walking through the markets, we got so many stares from people! I had quite a lot of the local ladies coming up to me looking so curious and wanting to touch my hair! Kinda funny! On Sunday, we went on a Camel Safari which was really cool!

The group of us doing the women empowerment program start work in the afternoon so we try to do some site seeing in the morning. So far, we have been to Hawa Mahal, Amber Fort, the Monkey Temple, and the Water Palace. I got to ride an elephant again at Amber Fort which was really cool! During our orientation here, we were told that India was known as the land of contrasts due to the contrasting climates all over the country, the religions, and the huge gap between the rich and the poor. You can definitely see that here. One thing is for sure though, even with all of the poverty here, it is an incredibly beautiful country! Here are pictures of some of the sights.

The flight from Goa to Delhi was 2.5 hours. As soon as I got out of the plane, the heat hit me. It felt amazing! Goa was pretty rainy and quite cool so I was happy to have some heat. I got out at Delhi airport, and there was a guy there holding a sign with my name on it. He took my bags and took me to a car. While driving out of the airport, there were quite a few children knocking on the windscreen asking for money for food. I didn’t see anything like that in Goa. I can definitely see the differences here, it feels like the real India. Its pretty crazy, and just like I expected! We drove to a hotel which was nicer than I was used to after the last 3 weeks. It had AC, Sky TV, and wifi! I was told that another girl would be arriving at 11pm and sharing the room with me, and we would leave for Jaipur with 2 others at 8am the next morning. I got some dinner, and by the time I finished, it was around 8pm and I wasn’t keen on the idea of going exploring on my own so just chilled in the hotel room. My roommate arrived at 11.45pm. She is from Minnesota and seemed really nice. We chatted a bit and then went to sleep.

The drive to Jaipur was long! Around 5 hours which I wasn’t expecting seeing as they’re so close on the map. It just shows how big the country is! We finally got to the volunteer house and were shown to our rooms. The house is quite nice. There are 3 floors with 8 bedrooms, each room has bunk beds and sleeps 4. On each floor, there is a shared kitchen, and communal area. The top floor has a TV with some Indian DVDs we can watch, and the 1st floor has a dining area, just mats on the floor and small tables. There are around 20 volunteers in the house at the moment, from all over the world – New York, Florida, Minnesota, Mexico, Germany, Holland, Belgium, 2 from Scotland, and then 5 from England. We had lunch together, and then headed out shopping. The girls in our group have to wear traditional Indian clothes for work here which consists of a Salwar Kurta which we can wear with leggings or trousers. Its funny, driving around here, the men all wear Western clothes while the women all wear Sarees or Kurtas. I wonder why that is! We went to a big shopping centre called Hypercity which looked incredibly Western. I haven’t seen anything like it since I’ve been here. We took a rickshaw there, and it was pretty cool driving through the busy streets crammed in and half hanging out! We spent a few hours at the shopping centre. People see us, a group of foreigners, and stare and ask to take photos with us which is pretty funny! We headed back to the house afterwards, had dinner and then just chilled out. The building has a flat roof so we can go up there and sit and look out over the city which is pretty cool. It was hard getting to sleep that night because of the heat. The AC in the house comes on from 11pm – 6am though so it cooled down eventually.

The next morning, the 4 of us who had driven down from Delhi together had an orientation where we were briefed about India and the projects here. The only project that was still available was the women empowerment project so that was what we were doing. The project tries to give girls the skills that will help them get jobs easily when they are older. Due to the globalisation in India, they believe that the most important skills for the girls are English and IT so that is what we would be teaching. I was assigned to a group of 8-15 year old girls in a village here called Ninder.

The 1st day working was good. The girls seem really nice and are keen to learn. Their English is all of varied levels, some speak no English at all while others can put simple sentences together so we have to teach different things to different groups.

The other projects they run here are teaching at a government school, teaching street children, and working at an orphanage. The volunteers at the street children program found their 1st day quite tough. It sounds like the kids there are pretty crazy. They leave the classroom whenever they feel like it and fight a lot so its exhausting and hard trying to keep their attention. The volunteers at the orphanage were complaining that the children there aren’t treated well and its very hard for them to see. It sounds like what I experienced in Goa. Its a shame that wasn’t just an isolated case though.

Here are a few photos of Jaipur:

This is how we spent our downtime…

Its funny, at the start of the week, I was thinking I think I’ll be ready to leave by the end of this week but now my last day is here, I don’t feel ready. I don’t want to leave the kids here. Even though its only been 3 weeks, I’ve definitely got attached to them! I headed to the slum in the morning for my last lesson with them. As it was my last day, we just had fun. We did some artwork, decorating a piece of A1 paper with drawings, and then played some games. After the lessons, the children gave me a present! Something pretty for hanging up on the wall, and a packet of silver bindis, one of which they put on me. It was so cute considering that they have nothing! They were telling me not to leave, and telling me how much they’ll miss me. I started crying. The older girl who was my favourite told me not to forget about her. I assured her that I wouldn’t. I really wish there was more that I could do for her!
It was a similar experience at the orphanage in the afternoon. Normally, we have Friday afternoons off but they agreed to take me to the orphanage so that I could say goodbye to the children. They were asking me if I will come back and I told them hopefully. I couldn’t really say no, hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to come back and see them again one day.
After I left, they took us out to watch a Bollywood movie. I wasn’t expecting much, the film was in Hindi with no English subtitles and was 3 hours long so I expected to be completely lost, but I loved it! The film was called Blaag Milkha Blaag which means Run Milkha Run and was about Milkha Singh, an Indian runner. I loved all the dancing in it! We had one of the ladies from the organisation with us and for any bits where we were confused, she would whisper what was going on and we would pass it on to everyone like a game of Chinese whispers! The Indian cinema experience was funny. You would hear people’s phones ringing, and they would actually answer while in there! And then there was an intermission halfway through the film! Some adverts followed before the film restarted. Shortly after that, there was a power cut! So the whole cinema was dark, and everyone started laughing and whistling! We’ve had around 8 power cuts in the 3 weeks I’ve been here so I guess everyone here is just used to it.
After the movie, we headed out for dinner. Its become our Friday night ritual. We go to a restaurant called Pentagon at the end of the week to have a break from the food at the camp. It was a nice way to spend my last night. Tomorrow I fly to Delhi. I’ll be there for 1 night, and will then head to Jaipur to start my next project.
Below are some photos of the children I have been teaching:

So I’m already nearly at the end of my 3rd and last week here! I’m going to be sad to leave. We had 2 more volunteers leave here last weekend and 7 new people arrived on Monday! So there are now 14 of us here, 13 girls and just 1 guy. Not sure if I should say poor guy or lucky guy! In terms of nationalities, there are 3 Brits, 4 Australians, 3 Swiss, 1 Irish, 2 Belgian, and 1 Spanish! One of the Belgian girls was born in India but was adopted by a Belgian couple when she was a baby so she’s back here to see where she originally came from. After her visit to the orphanage, she was saying it was strange for her because she would have been one of those children, she was just lucky to have been adopted. I guess we all are in a way though, so lucky to have everything we have. You really realise that after seeing the children here. You can’t help but think about all the opportunities we have compared to them, just because of where we were born.
The new volunteers went on their tour of the projects on Tuesday to decide what they want to do. They came into my class and I talked to them about what I do there. When they left, I asked the children which ones they want and they all said we don’t want any of them, we just want you! So cute!
The lady whose house we use for the classes asked me to help her draft a letter yesterday. She wants to apply for a loan for some money to start a business making jewellery and clothes so needed to write a professional letter to the bank requesting the loan but her English wasn’t good enough to write it so I helped her draft it. She also currently sells ‘ice cream’, basically blocks of frozen fruit juice to the local school children. They stop by her house straight after school and give her a few rupees for some of the ice cream. Its a nice way for her to make a bit of money for herself and it’s really nice to see the entrepreneurial spirit.