I Have Arrived in India!

Welcome to my blog! I have created this website so that everyone back home will be able to share my experiences with me while I am in India. For about ten months, I will be volunteering with three other Stonehill alums as a teacher at the Holy Cross School in the city of Agartala, located in the northeast region of India. This school has approximately 3,500 students ranging from nursery school to 12^th grade. We are not sure which subjects we will be teaching as of now and we also will have the opportunity to teach at a school located in one of the tribal villages. More details on the teaching aspect of this adventure are soon to come!

As for my journey to India... after a one hour flight from Boston to JFK, a fourteen hour flight from JFK to New Dehli, a two hour flight from New Dehli to Kolkata, and a one hour flight from Kolkata to Agartala... I have finally made it! Three nights ago, when arriving in Kolkata, we were greeted at the airport by Father Joe Paul, the Vice Principle of the Holy Cross School, and his friend who lives in Kolkata, Manish. Manish is a business man in the city of Kolkata and provides the Holy Cross School with all of their needed supplies. He has a guest apartment that he graciously offered Aja, Ben, Ellen, and myself to stay in for that night. The ride from the airport to the apartment was something that I will never forget. There is nothing that I could have ever done throughout my life in America that would have prepared myself for what I saw in Kolkata during that drive. This city is one of the most densely populated and underprivileged urban areas in the entire world. I could not even begin to brainstorm ideas on how to fix the poverty that exists in Kolkata. Homeless individuals and families sleeping on the streets, the smell of raw sewage, the never-ending mounds of garbage apparent everywhere, stray and sickly animals roaming the city, and crumbling buildings are only a few of the many devastating characteristics of Kolkata that I witnessed. However, since the four of us were not in Kolkata for very long, we do plan to visit once again because amid all of the poverty in Kolkata, exists world famous and wonderful sightseeing spots. So, there will be more blogs regarding Kolkata in the near future...

The next morning, Manish and Father Joe Paul arrived with some breakfast and we were soon on our way to the airport to head to Agartala, our home for the next ten months! We hit some intense Kolkata traffic, but made our flight just in time. In order to fly to Agartala, one must fly through the country of Bangladesh, which was very interesting. Immediately, we all noticed how green, lush, and rural this area was, which is quite the opposite of Kolkata. We soon landed and Father Joe Paul drove us down the road to our cottages, which are directly next door to the school . They are very simple, but extremely comfortable and welcoming. We sure are living with nature here in Agartala. It is common to have cows, goats, and dogs frequently roaming the yard and the largest insects that I have ever seen crawling and flying around our cottages. I'm slowly learning to not let the bugs bother me... but it may take some time. Along with Aja, I live in the Moreau Cottage, and just a few steps across the patio lives Ben and Ellen in the Andre Cottage. We each have our own room and bathroom and we also have a common living room and a kitchen. We even have a cat named, Jax, who was anxiously awaiting our arrival and was one of the pets of the former volunteers. We had lunch with some of the Holy Cross Fathers who were extremely kind and immediately made us feel comfortable at the Holy Cross School. After lunch, we met with our cook, Mokta, who is such a sweet lady and makes great meals as well!

Yesterday, we had the morning and afternoon to ourselves and met some of the children who live in the area and attend the Holy Cross School. They all speak English very well, even those who are only in Grade 2. They taught us how to play a fun Indian board game and we also played some American card games with them. One of the students promised to come over to our cottage soon to give us our first Bengali and Hindi language lessons! Later in the day, Father Emmanuel took us to meet some of the nuns who teach in the school, the Bishop of Agartala who lives down the road, and into meet the residents of the girls' dormitory. This hostel, the Indian term for dormitory, is for the students who live in tribal villages and would have to commute much too far on a daily basis; therefore, they live on campus year round. The girls sang us a welcoming song and gave each of us a flower in honor of yesterday's holiday, Friendship Day. This holiday apparently originated in the US, but none of us had ever heard of it until now! I look forward to teaching and tutoring the girls in the hostel because they were all extremely enthusiastic and excited to be at the Holy Cross School.

We then returned to our cottages, and thankfully, the electricity had finally returned after having been off for the entire day due to maintenance. The heat here is something that will definitely take some getting used to and without electric fans, we basically melt. I'm pretty confident that in these past couple of days, I have already sweat out my entire body weight. At this point in the year, it is about 95 degrees and humid everyday. Since we arrived in the heart of monsoon season, I was expecting it be raining all day, everyday. However, we have been told that July has not had too much rain, which is uncommon for the area. We are praying for some rain to come soon because it would definitely cool down the temperature!

This morning, we walked around campus and visited the nursery school. They were the most adorable children and I cannot wait to spend morning sessions with them from time to time. Later today, the four of us are going out in Agartala with Father Joe Paul and a couple of the teachers to buy basic necessities and our Indian apparel. Aja, Ellen, and I are very excited to purchase our first saris, our uniform while teaching at school!

More blogs to come and facebook pictures to be uploaded soon!

Skype me! User Name: mmullen87