When I landed in Mumbai at one in the morning it felt like me and my flight were the only people in the entire airport. It was actually kind of creepy. Customs were infinitely easier than England's (they didn't ask any questions) but that airport is terribly unorganized. After I grabbed my check in, I ended up running into a massive mass of people waiting to get their boarding passes. For some reason one of the employees came and talked to me and two dudes next to me asking for our previous boarding passes. He left and came back with our new ones and told us to leave our check-ins in the corner next to a bunch of carts. We were kind of sketched out but he sent us off with somewhat assuring words and a head bobble.
From that point I spent an uneasy, tiring hour and a half going through about 3 luggage scans, a bus ride packed with men whom I was determined were after my goods, a confusing scram of figuring out where my next gate was, and then another security check where they decided to take 30 minutes to find a beancy pocket knife I had stupidly put in my carry on. Oh, and I was stressed out about my luggage being taken care of in such an unexpected manner. I was so tired and stressed and ready to be done with traveling by the time I got on my final flight for Hyderabad.
Once I landed in the airport, I found that my luggage had been put onto the plane, and my country directors were there to pick me up. I was soooooooooooooo relieved. At that point I knew I was safe and didn't have to worry about anything….not my safety, my luggage, catching a flight, or communication barriers (accents are quite thick here). I don't think they realized how glad I was to see them.
The ride back to our apartment only lasted about 40 minutes. When we got to our apartment I met my group but was dead tired and hardly talked to them. I took a 3 hour nap while they went to church and that helped a lot. I could have slept for 10 more but I knew that would mess me up with jet lag. Basically in one week I experienced 2 drastically different time changes. I went from a 8 hour difference to an 11 and a half hour difference from Utah time. It's pretty nutzos.
Anyways, I have now been in India for over a week. I arrived safely on the 19th after a crazy trip from London, and have loved it since. Temperatures have reached over 113 F, but it honestly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's kind of like Georgia weather if you've ever been. It can be scary though; the other day about 50 people died from heat stroke. So I just gotta make sure I'm drinking enough water.
Speaking of water, we are only supposed to drink "mineral" water, or what some some call bottled water. Can't trust tap water here. Can't trust street food either. Or stepping in puddles. I guess I'll just go off on a few the differences here.
I suppose the first thing I really experienced was the traffic. It's absolutely bizonk over here. There are no rules whatsoever. Once again, we are driving on the left side of the road, but cars/busses/autos->(3 wheeled taxis) are weaving in and out, crossing through massive sections of oncoming traffic while people are crossing to the other side. I thought London was bad, but India is way crazier. I thought we were going to hit someone for sure.
Funny enough, I haven't seen one crash. If I do, I think it will involve a motorcyclist. They pop up out of nowhere and weave in an out of traffic. I've seen some close calls with people trying to cross the street, but you just have to be smart about that. I've gotten pretty good with crossing the streets. If you just see autos and cyclists, you can cross and they will go around you if necessary. Busses and cars are traveling much faster than the others so you have to be careful with them. I know my mom would be freaking out if she saw me crossing the traffic that is normal for me to cross now.
Anyways, this city is pretty awesome. It's dirty and filled with smog, but it is so interesting and different. I can already feel myself adapting to everything that's been so foreign to me. Soon enough it's going to be Utah that's the foreign place. And I'll definitely miss the dirt cheap delicious Indian food here…..Lemme just say that if you like Indian food, you'll love India. I know that sounds really dumb, but I never thought of actually eating indian food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It can get kind of overwhelming.
We're really lucky over here because everyday breakfast and dinner is prepared for us at our apartment complex. And our place is really nice too. We have AC and are working on getting wifi set up too. Setting up internet here has actually been a good learning experience of how Indians work. We have been told every day that we would get internet the next day. To this day we do not have internet. People here work completely on their own time. Basically time doesn't mean anything. If they say something will be available in 10 minutes, they mean an hour or even later. It all just depends, and it can get pretty frustrating. But it's just one of the things we have to get used to.
So last week we met with partners that we would be working on projects with. On Tuesday we met with a group named SAPID and it's founder Dr. Meera (yes her name is Meera) as well as a few others. Last years HELP team worked with them as they built 12 bore wells in areas that had very poor access to clean water. HELP also ran a 2 week summer camp that helped kids in the slums stay out of trouble during their summer vacation and reviewed the ABC's, English, math, etc. Fortunately for me, I will be getting to run that summer camp :D
In addition to personally communicating and working with SAPID, I will soon be meeting and working with the M.V. Foundation. This is a group that provides academic counseling as many schools lack the ability to provide it themselves. I'll be working with them as they will be providing applicants from across India for a scholarship to UVU. And guess how much UVU has given us?…….JUST 35,000 DOLLARS…nbd. I'm soooo stoked to work on the application process with my team. It's such an amazing opportunity, one that I'll probably never get again.
Sooooo things are going quite swell here. I'll try to keep you better updated with all the junk that's going on :) BYE
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