Day One: Orientation

We spent the day with the director of AVSAR at orientation. She went over a ton of information that was really helpful. I learned more about my NGO (which I will be visiting tomorrow). My project will involve working on the organizations brochures and branding campaign, which fits into most of what I did throughout my past rotation.

Then came the scary part of the night - the Mumbai train system. I am completely freaked out. The train that we got on was supposedly not crowded (i beg to differ). There is no concept of personal space and people are quite comfortable brushing up against you, actually i think its preferred to stand that way. I have to get over that quickly. There are so many things to keep track of - when's my stop?, is someone trying to steal my bag?, am i going to be able to get off the train?, what platform should i be on?, is this train going in the right direction?, and the most terrifying for me is always hoping that I can keep my balance while walking on the downward sloping slippery steps at the station. !! I'm always looking at the ground to make sure that I'm not falling down that I havent had the opportunity to to observe my surroundings. It's definitely going to take some getting used to. I already appreciate how clean and organized America is relative to here.

After the train ride, the evening was quite pleasant. Though it was raining, we walked around South Bombay which is primarily the business district. First stop was a local pastry shop. We walked up Marine Drive and saw Chowpatty Beach from across the Arabian Sea. Bombay University is gorgeous with its Indo-Gothic architecture. I had the pleasure of seeing the Gateway to India as well as the infamous Taj Hotel(which charges an average of $500/night). A volunteer named Vikram showed us around; he knows ridiculous amounts of information about the city so it was amazing just to walk around and listen to him rattle off stats and random tidbits about the area. We went to a barista(the coffee was much needed!), and then ended up having dinner in the tourist district. There are so many amazing things at the markets, I cant help but wonder how badly we're going to get ripped off when we end up buying things.

There are three other volunteers here this month. One girl has been here for two months, and the other two (who are from Canada and are friends) are here for September and October. It's really great to meet people with similiar interests and to experience everything for the first time together. I dont know what I'd do if I was completely alone here. Though it would be much easier to be here if I had a buddy from home with me...