Bangalangalore

In between the two weeks of summer camp, my group and I took a weekend trip to Bangalore. It was an interesting trip....

We ended up taking a 12 hour non-ac bus ride through Friday night into early morning Saturday. Can I just tell you how much you should not do that? I think what was so terrible about it was that I felt like ripping off all of my clothes if there was ever a second where there wasn't a slight breeze wafting over my body. And that happened pretty often. And then when it came to sleep I wasn't able to recline my seat all the way because the dude behind me had his child on his lap. Fortunately for me, I am small in size so I was mostly able to curl up like a kitty in my seat, but it wasn't ideal. Oh, and if you had to potty you had to wait until the bus made a stop, and there were no guarantees of it being where there was a restroom. Luckily I woke up when they were refueling, so I was able to take advantage of my first paper towel-less squatter toilet. It was just like peeing in nature. nbd.

Bangalore was a beautiful city. If you weren't aware, it's the city where all the over-the-phone jobs are outsourced. And it's known to be the technologies center of India. Anyways, it was a very clean city with lots of trees and fresh air. Or at least more fresh than Hyderabad. When we arrived we found ourselves in one of the most ridiculously crowded bus stations I've ever seen. It was basically busses on busses on busses all lined up next to each other. Weaving through them was kind of nerve wracking as I nearly got squished by one or two of them.

For the rest of the day we cruised the city, hit up the pool at my hotel (where about 11 dudes across the way were staring at us from their balconies), rode the metro, and finished the night off with some TGI Fridays (where every night is a  bumpin techno dance music Friday).

The next day was our last day in Bangalore so we wanted to do something kewl. And that kewl thing was driving out to see Mysore Palace where we were to ride elephants and camels and enjoy a fancy tour of the palace. It was a three hour drive out so we had to leave early to make out 8 o'clock bus back to Hyderabad. We left around 9:30 but got there a little later than we expected due to a flat tyre.

The palace grounds were pretty cool.  I can’t give any interesting facts about the place, but it was a beautiful. I actually got in cheaper than the rest of my team because I was Indian. I've never used my brown skin to my advantage before so that was cool. But we rode elephants and camels, and it turns out that the bathrooms cost money to use! I guess that's what most places do....It was fun riding the elephant though. The dude that was giving us the ride let us sit on it’s head to take pictures for a lovely fee of 50 rupees. That’s like a dollar…..so we did. The texture of the skin is such a weird thing. I don’t know why I was expecting something relatively soft, but that was not the case. It’s skin was tough and it’s hair stiff. Such an impressive animal.

After the elephant ride we hit up the camels which was neat (kinda like ridding a horse) and then we cruised what was cruisable of the palace. So much gold and beautiful architecture. It was so different compared to Blenheim Palace (I visited there when I was in England)….but kinda blows my mind know that people live in places like that.

 

Anyways, It was getting late after we toured the palace and we didn’t want to miss our buss back home, so we took off. On the way home our driver randomly pulled over deciding that that was the perfect time to fix the tire that had blown out earlier that day. It was pretty frustrating because we didn’t know what he was doing until he got the process going so we sat there for a good 30-40 minutes waiting on him. It nearly made us miss our bus which was insanely stressful. Just trying to figure out where we even really needed to be for the bus was ridiculous.

That’s just the way things go here in India. You never really know what to expect. Like how when we boarded the bus, we found out that two busses were combined into one because one of them went out of service. So some people didn’t have seats and slept on the floor. By God’s grace most of my team, except my country director Ben, had a seat. It was nutso. But the ride home was fine as I was actually able to get some good sleep....All was well for Meera in the land of India.

 All is well for Meera in the land of India. And that's all for Bangalore.

!!Summer Camp!!

The past two weeks have been real great. I mentioned in my last post that I was going to be running a summer camp for kids in the slums. Last Thursday was actually my last day with them. In addition to that, I participated in a program called GLOW for teenage girls as well as took a weekend vacation to Bangalaore, visited the Gandhi Hospital, etc. I will post separately about Bangalore and the hospital so you can check those out.

SO...the summer camp was kinda crazy. I initially planned on working with a group of about sixty 5-11 year olds and had every day planned out before we began. I was to give them notebooks which we would review the ABC's, math, colors, and English. We were gonna dance our pants off, play some games, eat some treats, and be awesome. Most of those things happened, but everything was not as I expected.

The first day of summer camp I planned to get my group of 60 kids put into groups where we would give them their notebooks and decorate them. When I showed up however, there about 70-80 kids ranging from the age of baby to 15. I was totally thrown off and had to readjust my schedule completely. Besides not being able to directly communicate with the kids, (they speak Telugu but we had some translators) it was hard/sad because I couldn't give notebooks to all of the kids...even the babies wanted one. So instead of handing them out to specific kids, we danced and played games like duck-duck-goose and down by the banks. The kids went bizonk over duck duck goose. They were all pointing to themselves because they wanted to be the goose so they could get up so they could giggle as they ran. There were almost a few head on collisions with  the other groups playing around us. It was such and interesting fun day, and I realized that from that point on, things were going to be quite different in the sense that I had no idea what to expect. Ever.

The following days after the first two got better. We were able to bring order the children, though there was a wild child or 4 that refused to comply with most instructions we gave. But we learned to go with the flow. Some days fewer kids showed up, allowing us to pay more attention to each child, while on others we found that the ability to sit still and focus replaced the urge of being rambunctious hooligan children, or vice versa.

The kids were really awesome. I've never interacted with a group of kids like them. Not just because they're Indian and could hardly understand English, but because they came from living conditions unlike any that I've been around before. Some lived in small one room cement houses, but others lived in little shacks and tents. The roads were dirt and most of the children walked around in their bare feet around garbage and nasty puddles. Not to mention all the turds lying around. So many turds. I even saw a child pooping off the side of the road as we took the bus to the slums.

It was hard seeing this because I felt like they were my little cousins and I want so much more for them. Things are very different here, but as lame and cheesy as this sounds, I really have been able to appreciate what kind of life my family and I have back home so much more.

Soooooooo overall summer camp was pretty awesome. It was stressful but rewarding all the same. I came to love the children as they listened ande leardn what we had come to teach them. They were sooo precious.

 

 

Arriving In INDIA

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

That One Time I Went To London

Hey guys! Sorry it's taken me so long to get my first post up.  I have so much to talk about since I left on the 13th. I suppose I'll start from the beginning and try to sum up all my experiences since then. But before I begin I'm going to throw out a little disclaimer....I don't have access to the internet very often, so I'm throwing this all out at once. It may not be pretty, but I'm trying to get as much down as I can. 

Soooooo I left Monday the 13th for London. It was a really awesome day because one of my car's axels broke about an hour before I had to leave for the airport, and I still had a few errands to run. We managed to get to the airport with about 40 minutes to spare so I was able to take a break from stressing out and just hang with the fam. 

While I was at the airport I ran into another girl who was heading to Uganda through HELP, and she happened to have the same flight as me to LA. That was awesome because we hung out during our layover in LA and I think that kinda helped me from kinda freaking out about traveling on my own (I had felt anxious about traveling on my own).

 When I think back to feeling stressed about traveling on my own I kinda laugh about it cause I went through a weird experience when I had a transfer at the Mumbai airport…but I'll get to that later.

Anyways, the flight to London was long. Over the 10 hour flight, I probably slept a total of an hour spread across a 5 hour period of trying to sleep. For the remaining six hours of my flight I talked to the dude sitting next to me and tried watching a movie on a tv that kept turning off. It ruined my life. 

When I finally landed in London (wooooo!) I had to go through customs. It was nuts. Every question they asked me felt like they were accusing me of some crime even though they were all simple questions like, 'Who are you staying with?' and 'Where are you stay?'. Every answer I gave felt like the wrong one and it all built up to the point that I was sorta freakin out like I wasn't going to get into the country. It was funny because  my sister Neena told me that it was scary for her because she felt like every answer she gave  was wrong but I thought she was exaggerating. 

                                           Neena…you were completely right.

 When they finally let me through, I let out a I'veneverfreakingbeensoscaredofsomeone laugh as I walked away. 

***Before I continue, you should probably know that I've never met any of my family on my mum's side besides her sister +  kids and my Nani and Nana (grandparents). So it was a pretty big deal that I was going to be meeting a bunch of the fam in London.

So after I got through customs,  I cruised for the exit and found my uncle holding up a sign with my name on it. I didn't know exactly how to react to him because he didn't seem super stoked to see me or anything, but I decided to go in for a hug none the less. It was awesome because he didn't hug me back or anything..it was kind of a bummer, but I didn't think twice about it. I guess it helped ease some of the awkwardness of not knowing quite what to say when he teased me about how I packed my house into my carry on. From that point on we were just sassy and frank with each other. It was cute.

When we got to the car I had my first "I'm definitely not in the states anymore" experience as I tried getting into what I knew to be the passenger seat. Rookie mistake. My uncle made fun of me for it as I went around to the left side of the car. It was so bizarre sitting where the driver SHOULD be as we drove down the LEFT side of the road. 

Uncle driving on the wrong side of the road

The buildings and houses were all so much cooler than those back home, but I found myself distracted by the traffic. I felt like every lane merged into the other at random points and there were motorcycles/scooters zooming in-between all da cars. It made me nervous and I swear we almost got in like 10 crashes, but it was cool because people actually slowed and stopped before the light turned red, and there were a lot of sexy exotic cars + ones I've never heard of before.

When we pulled up to his house, Auntie Rama (his wife) was standing at the door to greet me. She's really a great woman and is a sister to my Nana. She took care of me like none other and made sure I was comfortable and was always willing to get or make me anything I wanted. That evening she fed me a delicious lamb currie dinner that I ate with my cousin Ashvin and Auntie Biane. Ashvin is Auntie Rama's son, and Auntie Biane is another one of my Nana's sisters. Later that night my cousin Aneela and Uncle Sham, who is Nana's brother, came over to visit as well. It was really cool because I felt as if I had known all of them for a while, and I immediately felt a love for them even though I had known some of them for only an hour. 

The next day Me and Ashvin hit the town. We took a train to Victoria where we caught the tube to Westminster. I saw the Eye of London from a distance and turned around to Big Ben and Parliament smacking me in the face. For a brief second I thought of V for Vendetta and how it was blown up in the movie, and then moved on to getting pictures of myself with it in the background. I felt like such a tourist. 

From there we headed over to Westminster Abbey. What an amazing building. The history of it all was mind blowing. It's basically graves on graves on graves of "royal" people. Some had awesome elaborate tombs while others we buried and noted on the ground you walked on. The quire and sacrarium were really cool too. I imagined all the past and future kings and queens of England walking through the quire and up to the coronation chair where they were then crowned as rulers of the preeple of England.. Ashvin made me walk down the quire as if I was about to become queen. I was stopped by a group of people standing in my way and I got really offended. But it was pretty significant to think that what I saw when I walked down the quire was what many of the kings and queens saw during their coronations well. 

From there we hit up Trafalgar Square, Picadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, Top Shop (I almost got the top of my ear pierced...too much money though), and Carnaby Street. Every where we visited was beautiful and surrounded by a ton of school groups from France, Germany, etc. It made me feel out of place. I only recognized a few people as Americans the entire trip, so at that point I really felt like a foreigner….Something that I'd never experienced before.

The next day me and Ashvin visited the Monument (where the Great Fire of London started) , the Tower of London followed by the Tower Bridge. The Tower of London was filled with  a butt ton of history and it was cool to see the crowns of past rulers. I found myself disgusted at the amount of power and money royalty had just from being born. OH! and the diamond that rests as the centerpiece of Queen Elizabeth's crown was stolen from India. Not cool England. Not cool. But I'm trying not to bore you with all the junk I have to say so I'll just note that the rest of the day consisted of visiting St. Paul's Cathederal, and walking across Millennium Bridge.

For my last and final day in England, me and Ashvin visited Blenheim Palace. We had to drive into the country side out past Oxford. It was the best way to end the trip. The palace was amazing….20 time cooler than Buckingham Palace. It was just like the mansions in  Pride and Prejudice, what with the long entrances and perfectly manicured massive lawns surrounded by forrest and shrubbery.

Currently the 11th Duke and Duchess of Marlborough live there, but as I walked through the palace I discovered that Winston Churchill was born and had lived there. That was neat. I walked through the room where he was born. They had his baby curls framed above the bed that he was born in. I never knew a boy child could have such long luscious locks.

After we cruised the palace, we hit up one of the garden paths. It took us to a waterfall that was pretty, but not mind blowing thanks to Utah's awesome outdoor features. But further down the path I found myself chasing a pheasant through a beautiful green pasture. It was so exciting. 

--Because I am lazy, I'm going to finish my spout about England by saying that the next morning I woke up and headed for the airport where I ran into a huge line for boarding passes. I was tstressed out because I thought I was going to miss my flight. Fortunately I didn't but ended up sitting behind a family with a child who whined thee most annoying whine for nearly 9 hours. I got little to no sleep before arriving in Mumbai where I was to catch a connecting flight to Hyderabad. It was odd though being on a plane with that many Indians. At that point I really started feeling like the foreigner as they announced things first in Hindi, and then in English….with an Indian accent. 

Thats all for London..