Getting Oriented

Vanakkam everyone! Our second day in India has been going great so far! We’re a little more accustomed to the weather and the jet lag seems to be wearing off!

Our main focus for today was an orientation with our NGO partner, CASA! The day began with some delicious breakfast at our hotel before we headed out to the local YMCA. There, we finally met Florina, the Chief Zonal Officer for CASA’s southern region, who has been communicating with us and helping us out from the very beginning!

During the orientation, we learned a little bit more about the history of CASA, as well as a thorough orientation about Indian culture, and a more in depth look at how our project would be impacting the Narikuravar community. We talked a lot about how the completion of these homes would give the Narikuravar more stability, a better quality of life, as well as giving their children access to education. We learned a lot from Florina, Poul and Juliana and made sure to introduce them to some of our culture too! Such as some hip English phrases like “I’m down” and “that’s sick” which definitely made for some confusion and a lot of laughs! In return, we learned some Tamil words from a common greeting, Vanakkam, meaning Hello and how to say, “What starts here changes the world” in Tamil!

The orientation was definitely very helpful and will be a huge help for us when we get to Dharapuram. After the Orientation, our cultural advisor, Juliana, showed us around Chennai where we experienced the intense traffic traveling to St. Thomas Mount, the beach, and another mall to eat!

Tonight, we are setting out on an 8 hour train ride to our project location in Dharapuram. The next time we post on here, we’ll be posting from Dharapuram and will be beginning to work on our project!