Experience: Joyce, Inda

With AIESEC I went to Kolkata, India to do an internship. At first, I was hired by Balcos Exports which is an exports company. My function was dealing with international customers and participating at several tradeshows around the world. Soon after I started I had to end this internship since it was not safe for me to work for this company. It turned out that the situation of this company was bad. Moreover, the company was chased by several customers for money and the CEO thought it was a good idea to give my personal contact information without my knowledge. This resulted in me getting phone calls day and night from customers chasing me for money. Together with some other
reasons I saw no other way then to end this internship. After being in touch with the Dutch Embassy in Delhi and the Indian Agency in The Hague it was decided that I could do another internship in India without returning back to The Netherlands. I got hired at Kariwala Industries Ltd which is an export company in bags: promotional, beach, and fashion bags. I was working in the merchandising department as a management trainee for three months. I was in charge of one order of a jute shopper of Ben & Jerry. Think about sending samples, providing feedback to the factory, making sure the factory has the required materials, prepare the export documentation and so on. Moreover, I did some work for companies such as Carrefour and Walmart. This related to making photo offers, sending samples and so on. 

The last part of the job was sending proactive bag proposals to potential customers in Spain.
The working culture in India is a little different than what we are used to. Everything goes at a much slower rate. There were many times I was very bored waiting to do something. In the beginning I showed a lot of initiative by asking every time I had nothing to do if there was something I could do. The thing is that Indian people freak out when you ask those questions. They find it really hard to say no or anything like that so basically when there is no job for you at that moment you keep quiet. For me that was really hard. Since part of my job was to send proactive bag proposals to customers in Spain, I

extended that to Europe so I could do a little more. Moreover, I was the only trainee in this company at that moment, but they had previous interns via AIESEC before. This also means that the language spoken in the office is Bengali although the official language in the office is English. I can only say that you get used to it, but it is not always nice to only hear a language you do not know, since you miss out on all the conversations.

As you read I had some major issues in the beginning and I appreciated the help of AIESEC Tilburg so that I could do another internship in Kolkata, India. I am not so enthusiastic about AIESEC Kolkata though. I had some serious issues with them regarding the fact that they wanted me to pay for quitting the first internship while they should have screened this company. Moreover, I met many other interns and they faced similar situations: some had to do illegal practices, some were threatened like me, others thought they were matched but on arrival there was no job for them and so on. Furthermore, I and the other interns faced situations in the house we were staying in that someone of AIESEC Kolkata would show up unexpectedly and trying to steal what they like. This resulted in the fact that we had to lock our closets for AIESEC Kolkata which is really ridiculous in my opinion.

The culture of India is off course very different. A lot is going on in the streets. There are many people and there is a lot of trash. Moreover, always someone is watching you wherever you are. Especially, in the beginning this can be a bit frustrating because we are not so used to people staring all the time or clicking pictures and so on. Kolkata itself does not have many cultural highlights to visit; you basically need one or two days. Places to go to are for example: Victorial Memorial, Kali Temple, Birla Mandir, St. Pauls Cathedral, and Mother Theresa House. Moreover, the best place to go shopping is new market.

What you should not do in this culture as a girl is dress inappropriately. This means that your shoulders should be covered and that you should not wear skirts or dresses. When you read the travel information about this country they tell you that as long as you wear dresses and skirts until your knee it is fine, but trust me that when you wear those clothes the men will stare even more. It off course depends on how uncomfortable you feel, but in a country like this it is best to avoid this kind of attention from men. To give an idea that you really have to be careful is that even when I was fully covered I got followed to the house I was staying in several times.
Finally, what you see in this culture is a big gap between the poor and the rich. It is easily to see the difference since the rich are very fat and the poor very thin. There is no such thing as doing sports in India and eating and gaining weight is to show how good you are doing financially. Hinduism is the religion most people follow. Many festivals are there according to that religion. Moreover, most people are vegetarian. This means that when you order a dish with chicken the amount of chicken you get is very little. But the vegetarian dishes are very nice so you will not miss the meat as much.
What I learned is that I am able to adapt to a totally different culture. Moreover, I learned to be much more flexible. I lived 5 months in India of which 2,5 months were without water. AIESEC Kolkata did provide us jars with water, so the only possibility to shower is with a bucket. Moreover, you can only flush the toilet with those jars, you cannot wash your clothes, clean, cook, or do the dishes. This is a big change of what I was used to but when you have to deal with it is not even that bad. The stay definitely changed me. Indian people lie about everything, it is in their culture which can be a bit frustrating, but for me it was good, because I always see the good in people and by living in this culture you become less naïf. When I compare my expectations to the real experience I am disappointed with the internships AIESEC Kolkata provides. 9 out of 10 are bad internships just because they are collecting money instead of screening the companies. This is something I really did not expect. Still I am happy that I did a second internship since the second company is a very good company. Off course, you know when you go to India that everything goes at a slower rate and that often you have nothing to do, but that was also my expectation.

For future participants wanting to go to Kolkata, India, please keep in mind that AIESEC Kolkata already lies to you when you are still in the Netherlands. Therefore, try to figure out as much of the company from them keeping in mind that it may not be true. Secondly, I would advise you to only accept 3-6 months internships. If you like the internship you can extend your stay, but it is more difficult to get out of one. Thirdly, keep in mind that on arrival you may have no place to stay or they will tell you to sleep on the floor or share a single bed. Moreover, they promise you things like closets, TV, cooking things, hot water, which is probably not in the house they put you in. Finally, I never regretted going to Kolkata, India, because you learn a lot about yourself, but internship wise be careful and prepare yourself.