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- Lisa •
- Inter-Exchange Summer Volunteer Program in India •
- Higher Education, Graduate Student
"...I thought it would be —Lisa |
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Higher education graduate student Lisa went abroad for the second time, participating in the Inter-Exchange summer volunteer program in India.
“I’m in school full-time probably for the last time in my life so I thought it would be a really great opportunity to take one of my summer breaks and do something really meaningful with it.”
Lisa worked alongside other volunteers in the small coastal town of Goa teaching numbers, letters, and conducting art projects with local preschoolers.
“It was definitely a challenge. We taught in pairs so I was placed with another volunteer on our program. But it was just an amazing experience. Just giving them the chance to be creative or the chance to learn some of the English alphabet was just amazing.”
One pupil in particular made a distinct impression.
“Nickool was so awesome he was just the sweetest little boy with big brown eyes and big ears and his little under bite so his little two front teeth stuck out and he was so sweet and really kind of made everything worth it. He would only draw backwards “b’s” no matter what we were doing in class that day, if we were working on letters or numbers or an art project all he wanted to do was draw backwards b’s. And he would just finish a line of writing and come up to you and tug on your sleeve until you paid him some attention and show you. He was so proud…it just had to warm your heart."
Daily Life
Lisa recalls one memorable day on a three-day group trek into the mountains east of Bombay.
“It was the monsoon so it was really rainy…which made trekking really interesting because the dirt path we were supposed to be following was then a mud path. It was awesome though. I definitely did not expect that, I had no idea what to expect but it was an experience I will never forget."
Throughout the program the volunteers shared a variety of accommodations from hotels to local village huts.
“Even when we were on our volunteer programs and living in hotels we were always accompanied with the Indian staff who would always just strike up conversations with us about India and the culture and their political issues and things like that. So it was a really great way to incorporate being with Westerners although we were from various different countries, but still getting that contact with the Indian population and being able to find out what is important to them at that time.”
While Hindi is the official national language, the English language has become one of the most commonly spoken languages in the professional world of India. There are around 407 living languages in India.
“We did some workshops on Hindi and Conkani, and Conkani was the local language. I tried as hard as I could.”
Language Lesson: Numasta = hello/goodbye, Shukriyaa = thank you
Last modified on November 21, 2008 |