Jan 4

Today was my second day in India but it feels like I have been here a week! I woke up before my alarm again and today the tiredness has really caught up with me. Between all of the pollution and the time difference and the crazy driving (I get car sick easily) I don’t feel really well today. I got up and struggled again to get ready quickly because everything is different. Here we cannot flush toilet paper we have to throw it in the trashcan and my shower is a spicket with low water pressure and there is no curtain which separates it from the rest of the bathroom so showers are cold and difficult. Also, I cannot drink the water here which means I must remember not to brush my teeth in it and I have to use bottled water to wash my hands before putting contacts in too. Everything here seems different, but it is also thrilling to be here in New Delhi.


Today I visited the NGO Mobile Creches which I will be working with. There are 20 volunteers here and we were assigned to NGOs in pairs. There are 3 locations of this organization that CCS works with so the five other volunteers and I who are working with Mobile Creches visited all 3 sites today. First we went to the main headquarters (Raja Bazaar) which is where I will be working and met with the human resources leader who told us about the organization. Essentially they open up centers at construction sites to take care of children from 0-12 years of age between 9am to 5pm because many times parents will both have to work during the day and will bring children along and leave them among the rubble and dirt while they work because they have no place to take them. This organization feeds them and teaches them to improve their cognitive level. Many of the children are neglected or treated poorly so showing love to them is very important.

At the first site I was surprised by the building. There is no heating system and the door was left open though it is very cold outside. It is tradition for Indians to take off their shoes inside so all of the children were barefoot on the cold concrete floor; only a few had socks. They were so precious and happy. We couldn’t understand their Hindi but it was clear that they were very excited to see us. Though we spoke different languages it was still possible to interact. They were so full of energy and excitement it was contagious. It was really just one room with 3 divisions where different age groups were separated. I will be working with children from 3 to 7. My partner Jackie (from CT) and I will have to come up with our own lessons and activities. This is exciting but the difficult part is we have to communicate with the teachers who speak VERY little English! This is truly going to be difficult. Hopefully I can take pictures to post later of the facilities but they advise not to bring a camera at first. The building is one that children would never be kept in, in the US.

The other centers were worse. The second site was further into the city on another construction site and was a very tiny tin shack, maybe 5 feet by 5 feet. Only the two volunteers at that site were allowed in because it was so small so I did not see it. The last one, however, was similar though much bigger. Still tiny by US standards, it is a room with 3 divisions. It has a very dirty floor where sometimes up to 96 children come. It was also a metal shack without heating. The playground is a patch of dirt. The children here looked like they hadn’t been bathed in quite some time and the facilities were not as clean as the first site where I will be working. Though it is not much, it was decorated with artwork from the children which made it bright and cute.

Between this and driving all around the city today I am getting a view of India and I must say at the moment I cannot describe it to you. I can’t formulate into words what I am seeing or what I think about it. I am processing a lot of shock. There are people everywhere. Every foot along the road there are people living, selling, walking, working and doing a number of other things. There are just people everywhere! India has 1/6 of the world’s population and New Delhi, the capital, is a very populated city. It is very loud and very dirty.

Tomorrow I will begin my first official day at work. It will be a day of observation and beginning to get ideas for activities. I am anxious because I do not yet know how to approach this, especially since the children do not know English, but I am also excited. After working a few days to get the gist of how it works I will be meeting with the staff to ask questions for my research. I am in the process of coming up with questions.



**A quick note: I will be very busy here and have unstable internet access plus there is a 10 ½ hour time difference here so do not pay attention to the date on the blog site but at the date at the top of each blog. The date it is posted may not match up with the day in the US. If there is a day where I do not have internet access I will type up my blog on a word document then add it the next day.