Going to india

The date is 1. feb and the time is 03.45. The alarmclock goes off in my room and the sweet (?) melody of lady gaga wakes me up. Without really thinking I get up and get ready to go, the last few days has been a mix of goodbye-dinners, partying and some desperate hours of packing. The idea of packing everything in the last second never seem so good when the last second actually is there. Especially when the backpack, passport and laptop somehow all have gone missing few hours before departure time.

The backpack was discovered under the stairs, the passport on top of the closet in the bathroom, and the computer in my brother house, about 2 hours drive away. When am I suppose to learn to organize my life?

Tho I might not be a good short time planner, my long-term planning for this year has been quite good. In march last  year I was trying to plan what to do for the next year..I did not know what I wanted, but travelling was my main goal. If I could squeeze in some studying as well that would defiantly make me feel better. I felt like this was my chance to do exactly what I wanted, I had nothing that was standing in my way to go explore the world.

Some hours on the internet, a few phone calls and some consulting later I found myself with quite a tight schedule for the following year;

1 sep – 15 dec, Cape town, South Africa

4 jan – 16 jan, Sund folkcollege, Indreøy, Nord-Trøndelag, Norway

20 jan – 30 jan, Peacekorps course, Fredrikstad, Norway

1 feb – 12 may, all over, India

Before this I had some really intense months with working, more or less day and night, and together with loan and scholarship from the Norwegian government I was able to go. The months in Cape town and around the Southern parts of Africa deserves its own post, so I will get back to that, hopefully in not to long!

This blog will mainly be about India and what I experience here. Sund folkcollege, together with the support from the Norwegian peacekorps arranges an exchange with Christ college in Bangalore, India. We will mainly be working together with CSA, centre for social action, a volunteer student organization working with different kind of social projects and NGO`s around in India. Women empowerment, street theater and working with kids in the slum are some of the important areas the students are taking responsibility for.

It takes us almost 24 hours to get to Bangalore, and it was a quite tired, but excited gang that was picked up by Blossom, former Sund student and now the peacekorps coordinator on Christ. Local time was 0630, and already it was people and cars everywhere.

I have to say, I do not consider myself as a very hysterical person, but the mix of elements on the streets here in Bangalore are quite terrifying. And very fascinating. Cars, trucks, rickshaws, mopeds, bicycles, people, dogs, tractors, buses, cows and many more elements I don’t even know the name of all go together in these streets. Go together might not be the right word though. Imagine a dance floor with people in all ages all going crazy at once. But in a miracoules way, this chaos somehow work. I now takes us about ten minutes to cross the street  (the dogs use about 2 minutes, the locals maybe 3)

“Us” is Astrid, Magnus, Bente and me.  On her way is Ingrid, our last roommate.

The first few days we have been looking, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling all the unusual but very much likable things around us. Visiting shopping malls, Christ college and touring around Bangalore. The local youths we have met so far have all been fun, nice and I am looking forward to be hanging out with them some more!

Today I walked all by my self from the house to the mall. About 30 min. I was quite proud when I got there, I even managed to cross the street! I almost fell over in front of a alot of people, but tried to stumble my way up again and recover with dignity, laughing to myself ( the backside of being white is that people notice you, and for someone as clumsy as me, this can lead to some imbarrasing episodes). My general impression is that people are really nice and helpful, and I feel quite safe most of the time.

The next few days are going to be spent with the photoclass from Sund, more Norwegian volunteers, and a lot of Indian volunteers on a camp for children in Hoskote(?), about 1 hour from Bangalore – I cant wait!

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