I arrived in Goa at 6.15am on Tuesday morning. The airport was empty so I got out very quickly and the driver was waiting at the exit for me. He drove me to the volunteer camp and my 1st thoughts were that this was not what I was expecting! I thought Goa would be a nice introduction. I’d heard it was very European so didn’t think it would be too much of a culture shock. Driving through though, you could really see the poverty around so clearly! I was a bit shocked! The camp was around 30 mins drive from the airport in an area called Majorda and the building looked pretty nice in comparison with the other buildings nearby. On arriving, I met Sophie who is going to be my roommate. There are 2 sets of bunk beds in the room so it can sleep up to 4. A bit of a change from living on my own but I’ll get used to it. I was exhausted when I got there and just wanted to crash! But I had a full day ahead and breakfast was being served in 30mins so I only had time to have a shower (which was cold!) and get changed. I met the other volunteers at breakfast. There are 7 of us here at the moment, all from the UK surprisingly. We had a meeting at 9am and then headed out to the various projects to see what the organisation does and decide what we want to get involved in.
We were taken to a computer class they run and is available to the locals free of charge. They go through the basics from typing to Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and using the internet. Next we went to an orphanage started by a nun who is now 76 and still runs it along with 2 other nuns. They have 98 children there! They need help during the day to help look after the children who are too young to go to school and in the afternoon for the older kids, to help them with their homework. Next up was a school for mentally challenged children, and finally was a trip to a slum called Monte Hill which was pretty horrible and smelly. If you look up Monte Hill slum Goa on google images, you’ll get an idea of what its like. You couldn’t imagine that people lived there. The organisation have 2 small huts, around 8ft by 6ft where they run classes for the locals, from the young children to the teenage girls and even women empowerment classes for the married teenagers and older women. We were told that it was a very strict muslim community and they didn’t see the value of education for the girls as it was more important for them to learn how to look after their home and help to look after their younger siblings. The girls were expected to be married by 16. The organisation try to encourage the parents to let their girls attend the classes and by bringing the classes to the community, they were more open to it. With the older women, we were told that they weren’t allowed to leave the community without their husbands and didn’t know much about the rest of the world so the empowerment classes were there to try and teach them basic literacy skills, teach them about the rest of the world, and teach them skills such as things they can make and sell to make some money. They also take them on excursions to the beach or the volunteer camp.
We then had a meeting with the program manager and had to pick an option for the morning and afternoon so I’ve picked the teaching in the slums in the mornings, and orphanage in the afternoon.