I am writing this post after having been in India for five days. I arrived on Saturday, it’s Thursday as I’m writing this, in Mumbai early that morning. After a nap I had my first meal in India which was amazing. Then I went out looking for rupees and quickly was able to exchange some cash. Finally I went shopping for clothes for my teaching role at the school in Delhi that I will be teaching at for four weeks.

I was only in Mumbai for a day before I left for New Delhi. Mumbai seemed very modern and much more clean than I was expecting. I think that because I’m used to visiting sports events or popular tourist locations with throngs of people India’s large population doesn’t seem as bad as I thought. Upon landing one of the coordinators at the organization I’m volunteering with picked me up and drove me from New Delhi Airport to Faridabad. That was an experience. This is when I first saw cows standing in the middle of a highway, everywhere, while motorists with no rules to follow swerve and maneuver like maniacs honking twenty times a minute. Monkeys and dogs were roaming the streets amidst the people sitting on the highway for no apparent reason other than bidding their time. “The very air you breathe is a toxic fume” said Boromir about Mordor and the air in Delhi was nearly there with pollution.

Finally after arriving in Faridabad I began my training the next day. I then spent the next three days doing what I came here to do which is slum teaching. Everyday a coordinator drops me off at a school adjacent to the slum and I teach the kids English for roughly 3 to 4 hours. I tend to mix in Hindi to help translate the meaning. I can also teach them math, I’ve been doing a little counting with them up to 50.

I’m only 3 days in and there’s roughly three and a half weeks left so a lot more information in blog form to come.