My development internship was with an organization called Kalakar Trust, which takes care of slum children in New Delhi. The Trust was founded to protect the artistic skills of street artists who moved from Rajasthan to Delhi during the past half a century. In order to preserve their skills and enable them to sell these talents Kalakar Trusts provides education and health care to the slum colony where these people live. My role was to teach the children English.
The people at the school were very cooperative and kind. I found integration in the working culture of the school fairly easy, even though I was told that I was basically the first one out of many volunteers who had really managed to become a part of the school. At the time of teaching, there were no other trainees at the school.
The local AIESEC in New Delhi was not all too popular among trainees, to put it mildly. Suspicions about money, integrity and professionalism were more than once discussed. Actually, during my first week a massive fight was just going on as the trainee house had just been without running water for two weeks, and that in August when temperatures easily top 40 degrees Celsius. However, I must say that, even though I have witnessed questionable behavior from the AIESEC LC, I have personally not encountered any problems.
The cultures in India are so very different from what we are used to, so that one finds himself completely in a different world. Especially in New Delhi, the massive capital, life is pretty tough and it takes some time to figure out how to deal with a variety of issues. Just to name some; the daily struggle of bargaining a decent price for the auto rickshaw requires some skill and it is only after some weeks that you have mastered this. Dealing with the ever present bureaucracy demands a lot of patience and preparation. Being folded into a bus with so many people around you that you can hardly see any daylight through the mass of bodies are you may also require some getting used to. And of course the ever present variety of cows, dogs, monkeys and the like makes the streets look slightly different from what we are used to here in the Netherlands.
India however is a beautiful country to visit and to live in. Life is full of colours, scents, people, and surprises and the kind of person who is open and eager for new perspectives will without any doubt enjoy life on this subcontinent. The country allows all religions to be practiced freely, something that only adds to the wide range of different people and cultures.
On a personal level I don’t think my stay has really changed me, though it added a lot of insights and perspectives. This is because I had already lived for a longer time in another country and culture before, which prepared me to some extend to changes in my environment. However, if a long stay in India is your first experience abroad it may come as quite a shock.
Every extraordinary experience contributes to your general perception of the world and certain issues, and India has in this respect certainly done its job. You see and you act according to the situations you encounter, and hence breathe to the fullest extend the culture, but it may take years to fully comprehend what this has done to you and your personal development.
I certainly recommend New Delhi as a place for a traineeship (but you need to be flexible). It’s vast and ugly, pollution is terrible, the heat is sometimes unbearable, the food makes many people sick, monkeys may enter your house to steal things to eat, you lose your bag on a train or your watch on a bus, but it shapes you and in the end you will love it all.
Teun van Vlerken
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