Orientation in Pune

The second week after I arrived in Mumbai was spent in Pune, a city three hours away. Orientation was awesome.

What made it awesome was the people. There were two other volunteers from America. Torren from California and Shikta from Seattle. Toren's dad is from Trinidad and he had recently visited there so we talked alot about how things in India are similar to Trinidad. That was awesome. Shikta is originally from Nepal. She laughs at everything.

[me, torren, milind, shikta]

Saurabh and Milind were our orientation coordinators. They are awesome. They have both spent many years of their life doing social work and are very knowledgeable about social work in India. I suppose that was the purpose of the orientation, to get us familiar with the climate and culture of social work in India.

Saurabh is actually a researcher at Tata Insitute of Social Science, a prestigious school. He's in his mid-twenties and spends all of his time working for the organization. He's soft spoken and has a cool way of going about things. He brought us breakfast every morning and did morning yoga with us.[saurabh]

The best thing about Milind is that he whistles when he drives his motorcycle. Hahah, thats not the best thing but its great. Milind is already married and works. He works for Sewa International part time and he has a great sense of humor.

They were both with us pretty much every day and took us to different project sites like an after school activity for poor boys, the slums, a women's self help group (they save money for their family). I felt really honored to be in the presence of the impoverished. I have never faced such difficulty in my own life. I commend them for their ability to live through such adversity.