Yesterday I went to the YMCA boys home (for streetchildren) and vocational training center... Augustinho Fernandes, a rotarian from my club were so nice to show us the place. I had been talking about it with Janina and Trevor, two other inbounds, and they were interested and came along!



These children (all boys in the age of 4-18 yrs) were so excited, at the first place, a boy danced for us, and we got a big group photo with all 25 boys. In the vocational training center, which houses 65 boys, the smallest ones started putting oil in their hair and coming it to look nice for our photos...




It was really great seeing what work the YMCA does for these children, and I think that all three of us were really keen on coming back to do some voluntary work...

Inbound orientation

Soo... Just a short post ... I went to the inbound orientation last sunday, so great to meet everybody! got to use my french a bit :) and made some friends: a couple of us (Severin and Caspar from Germany and Janina from New HApshire, USA) met up yesterday and went for lunch!

Yesterday I changed hostfamily for 8-10 days, now I live with Arun, Jyoti and Prajwal Chaudhari :) and the day before yesterday we made Chicken Biryani, I think thats my favourite indian dish so far!!! Today I went with Jyoti (hostmom) to the medical center where she works as a dentist. A nurse called Nilima showed me around, and I took some photos.

Next sunday Im having a couple of inbounds over for lunch at my host fam's place...

In a couple of hours we'll be going to my hostdad's sisters place, because her son has his birthday... I gotta get ready!


-Maria

News

So a short update:
Yesterday I took the train to Bandra to meet up with some in-, out- and rebounds. It was really nice to finally meet someone besides Christian and Neha... We went walking on Carter road and shot a bunch of pics with the indian and the danish flag (I dont have them, but once theyre on facebook they will somehow find their way to the blog :)) Then we went to mcDonalds for lunch (just needed somethin non-veg and non-indian)...

Then when I got home I had to go to the rotary meeting. My 3rd host mom came and told me that she'll pick me up monday around noon, and then Ill live with them for 8-10 days because thay cannot host me at the end of the year. A rotarian came over and invited me to come and see the YMCA-boyshome and vocational training - So ill probably go there in the upcoming week, I think it will be really interesting to see the work that is done for the street children...

Today is the inbound orientation, it will be great to meet all the inbounds (all14) in Mumbai !

-Maria

one 10th of my stay is now completed!

Now Im back again, we passed the first month, my host sis (Janhavi) has left India and gone to Denmark and I have gotten through my one-month-crisis (although; to call is a crisis might be to overstate it just a tiny bit)... I knew when coming here, that there would be more rules than I was used to in Denmark. But when I was not allowed to travel alone for 7 stations by train to meet with some other inbounds, outbounds and rebounds. I felt as though I was being treated like a kid. Luckily we sorted things out. My host mom took me to the station during peak hours to show me what it could be like. Seeing that, I were able to see that there might be some sense to their restrictions, and we made a deal that I could go if it was out of peak hours.


2nd class in the Ladies compartment during peak hours (7pm)

And yesterday I actually went, by train, alone, all the way to churchgate (a one hour journey) and then to my college to pick up another sigature needed for the FRRO registration (have lost all respect for anything that has anything to do with the bureaucracy that going on there)... And I met up with Stuti, one of Janhavis friends from the college. We went for ice cream, and she followed me to the station where i took the train to Goregaon and a rickshaw home.

Stuff...

Yesterday I spoke to my mother on Skype for the first time in three weeks. She told me that she had just recieved a letter saying that she is accepted at the University of Copenhagen at Psychology, so congrats to my cool mom (and credits to her for having the courage!)... I am also very curios to hear how its going at home, because today is the day that Erica (the american inbound) will arrive in Copenhagen to live with my family!

Back to India: I am getting sort of restless, really wish that college would start soon so I could meet some other people my age (beside Janhavi, Neha and Christian)... But its still nice to have a good amount of time to get used to everything!

The weather is still rainy, and i would like to see the sun sometime soon. Within the last three weeks I have lost every hint of a tan I had when I left Denmark (who would have thought I'd go pale in India?!)... Although I think that in October (one of the two hottest months in India) I'll look back at these days, wishing It could go back to being cloudy! :)




I still love it here, weather and all!
Take care <3
Maria

bureaucracy and a pair of shorts.

So now I'm back in English.
Today we were very busy, left the house around 7.45 to avoid the worst traffic jams(not with much luck if you ask me!)... It was raining heavily all morning(and when I say heavily, I mean HEAVILY!!!). First we went to the danish consulate, no problems there.
The bureaucracy didn't start until we reached the police station. Hoping for the best, expecting the worst; we went into the station, The receptionist sent us to the 3rd floor where we had to wait for half an hour just to be informed of all the documents that were missing (apparently my passport, Visa, copies of both, guarantee form, school admissions, letter from Rotary, host families electric- and telephone bills, passport sized photo with red background and a perfectly filled out police form weren't enough!). But this receptionist wrote down my name, verifying that I had been there, and gave us till monday to get everything right, and then we could finally move on to the fun part of the day! :)

After this, Neha, Christian, Janhavi, uncle and I were all craving for some lunch, so we went for lunch in a small south indian restaurant (actually more like a cafeteria)... Great food!!! But you see: One car, 4 teenagers, one host father and a driver. How can that work? well, it can't really! But the smallest person (happens to be me) is to sit on top of the others. But when the smallest person (weight-wise) happens to be one of the biggest persons (height-wise) a problem occurs... This person (still me) has to bend her head more than what good is (consider that I under normal circumstances are just about 0,5 centimeters from touching the sealing with my head)... We drove to a mall wherein Christian were dragged around in all the girlie shops advising Neha and Janhavi about what would be fashionable in Denmark... I bought a nice pair of shorts (not that short though)...

Finally we went up to the food court and split two slices of pizza, 4 hot wings, a portion of fries and two sodas (all for Rs. 410 = 51,25 kr.)... And I owed christian Rs 100 from a bet we had last week, so he got himself a two scoop chocolate icecone :) and then he was happy!