A Down and Up First Couple of Weeks in Mumbai
Looking back on the first couple of weeks of my stay and work in Mumbai, I am pretty satisfied. However, there was definitely a period during the first two weeks, when I seriously doubted several aspects of my trip to the city. First, within the first two days of arriving, I had to grapple with a simple fact that I had not quite digested despite the preparation I had undertaken. I was going to be here for TWO months. That amount of time and the harshness of that realization were exacerbated by the fact that I was in a completely different environment, with only one person I knew, having to get by in a language (Hindi) in which I was not completely proficient. The second aspect of doubt was the work I would be doing here. My project, as planned, involved teaching at a school and helping elementary school children sharpen their math and English skills. Specifically, my partner (Donnie Allison) and I would be volunteers in the classroom, running mini workshops to complement the children’s primary education. We would be working through an NGO called the Akanksha Foundation, which works exclusively with less privileged children, many of whom reside in slum areas. This was the plan…
However, my first week was quite different than expected. The contact through whom I’d made most of my preparations, Purvi Vora, encouraged us to attend the education convention intended for the organization’s employed teachers. So for the first week, we attended this convention, which consisted of a series of workshops, many which were not remotely applicable to volunteers such as us. But some were extremely useful in helping me truly understand the demographic with which we were working and tailoring my mind to specific strategies and ideas that would be effective with this group of children. Yet I was still anxious to actually see and interact with these children.
We were told to report to the main office the Monday morning following the convention. Obviously, we were under the impression that we’d be assigned to a specific classroom or location at this point. However, when we met with the president of the organization, she envisioned a radically different role for us, at least over the next two weeks. She wanted us to revamp the organization’s website, revising certain pages and updating information. As far as I was concerned, this was ridiculous. We had come several thousand miles to a foreign country to… update a website? Despite my internal outrage, I acquiesced and for the next 8 days diligently worked on the website. Yet, we made it clear that our long term plan was to work with the children (aka doing work that actually demanded our presence in the nation).
But for the last three days, we’ve been working at the “office” in the morning and then at an education center with the children in the afternoon. These afternoons, however, have been absolutely fantastic, making up for the rather mundane and disappointing first couple of weeks of work. In my next entry, I will discuss precisely the beauty of the classroom, our work with the children, and how this has completely changed my perspective on my trip to India. However, I first wanted to chronicle the expectations, doubts, and disappointments of my first two weeks (however trivial they may be) before I turn my attention to how promising and positive the outlook is right now.