Incredible India, that’s what they say. Well, they are right! My two month lasting internship in Hyderabad (India) and my one month of travelling through India proved them right. Did I have a culture shock? Yes, but I enjoyed it. With a reliable AIESEC network behind me, I felt strong enough to handle it and could fully enjoy the beautiful culture of India. Staying at a home-stay with an AIESEC member’s family the first week, was one of the experiences I will never ever forget. Whilst I had still difficulties getting used to everything that is different (climate, food, traffic, people, noises, all the animals on the streets, ...), there was this lovely family trying to make me as comfortable as possible. Because my internship hadn’t started yet and the AIESECer I was staying with had to go to university for some hours a day, I felt bored from time to time. The family was very concerned and didn’t want me to go out on my own and of course I didn’t want them to be worried about me, so I only went out when I was in company of Rohit, my AIESEC home-stay.
After that first week I moved in with the president of AIESEC Hyderabad, living in his own flat with two other trainees. This was a completely different experience: the young Indian students showed us their vibrant lifestyle with all facets. A great and unique thing was that I was living with a local AIESECer, who had a lot friends over all the time and gave me and the two other girls living in the flat the opportunity to get in touch with a lot young Indian people in a short time. I feel like I really lived in India through this great new friends I made and the celebrations (traditional and modern) they invited me and the other interns to. It is nice to have the feeling that I have Indian friends now. Of course we also had regularly contact with all other AIESEC interns living in flats together. Thursdays were always karaoke-nights at our favourite pub, 10 Downing Street. And in weekend all of us, international interns and local Indian AIESECers would go out into one of the few clubs, having the best time! We had a blast, partied a lot, but also had interesting conversations about differences and equalities between cultures. In my experiences, the members of AIESEC Hyderabad are very interested in all different cultures and doing a great job in making you feel at home.
After settling down, my internship started. I was working at a NGO called Kurmaguda Academy for Relief and Education (KARE), situated in the Muslim neighbourhood Kurmaguda in Hyderabad. The NGO exists of a school which offers free education for underprivileged children, job training for women (e.g. chocolate making, perfume making) and free medical care. So far education is not for free in India, that is why underprivileged children are stuck in a vicious circle: their parents have no money to send them to school, so the children don’t get education and have no chance to get a job good enough to enable them to escape from living in a slum. Therefore dedicated residents of the neighbourhood decided that this should change and founded the school whilst working in their own businesses fulltime. Having no experience with running a school couldn’t stop them from trying to improve future chances of a good life for the kids. It really moved me to see all the passion those people had for the work they were doing. My job was to evaluate the education and organisation of the school, teach English and leadership skills and try to set up associations with other school to establish exchange of material and experience. In fact, my job description started with only teaching, but the passion of the founder of the school made me want to do more so I picked up some other duties as well.
Working at the school was challenging. The teachers speak only basic English, some of them can’t speak English at all. The children were not used to my method of teaching and found it difficult to understand me. They are also used to being hit when they behave naughty, a thing I would never do. So even though they were very sweet and kind to me, making them sit still and listen to me was very hard. It may sound as if I found it very difficult to work at the school. But even with all the communication problems, one look or touch can say so much more than words. Everybody was so happy that I came to work at the school, that they welcomed me very warmly. I was on my own the first three weeks at the school and what scared me at first, turned out to be the thing I was most thankful for at last: the fact that I was on my own made it very easy for my shy and young colleges to approach me and everyone wanted to take care of me.
My personal goal for the whole experience was to be open-minded, friendly, and initiating contact. The people I met whilst being in India made this so very easy for me and gave me the most wonderful experiences. This whole experience made me so much stronger. I know now that I can handle myself in a totally different culture then I am used to and do this not only travelling, but also whilst working. It also made me realize that people all over the world may seem so different, but are also quit equal in basic concepts and want the same things from life, the simple things like living happily in good health with your loved ones, in their own ways. I sincerely hope a lot of people who read this will feel inspired to go abroad and will be thankful that they have the opportunity to do so. Of course there were also some inconveniences. For example, the members of AIESEC being students who can be very busy from time to time had sometimes difficulties to house all the interns. Therefore we had to sleep with 8 people in a apartment with three rooms sometimes. Another thing is that a lot of us interns had to wait for our internships to start for a few days or maybe even a week. Also it can be annoying to find out that even people you don’t expect it from, are after your money. But hey, that’s the adventure! Be prepared for the unprepared! Also don’t be too demanding (but demanding enough to make sure that you have the standards to enjoy your time in the other country) and read a lot about the country you are going to, without letting some well mend advices scare you and without lessening your initiative in talking to the real people over there in your new home. I can honestly say, I would always do this over again. Even now I have been back for two months already, I almost daily think back to India. After a short time of 3 months, I left India crying... Never expected myself to be this emotional about my departure, but the feeling of leaving newly made friends for a unknown time, really hit me hard. So my last advice: be prepared to fall in love with a new country!
After that first week I moved in with the president of AIESEC Hyderabad, living in his own flat with two other trainees. This was a completely different experience: the young Indian students showed us their vibrant lifestyle with all facets. A great and unique thing was that I was living with a local AIESECer, who had a lot friends over all the time and gave me and the two other girls living in the flat the opportunity to get in touch with a lot young Indian people in a short time. I feel like I really lived in India through this great new friends I made and the celebrations (traditional and modern) they invited me and the other interns to. It is nice to have the feeling that I have Indian friends now. Of course we also had regularly contact with all other AIESEC interns living in flats together. Thursdays were always karaoke-nights at our favourite pub, 10 Downing Street. And in weekend all of us, international interns and local Indian AIESECers would go out into one of the few clubs, having the best time! We had a blast, partied a lot, but also had interesting conversations about differences and equalities between cultures. In my experiences, the members of AIESEC Hyderabad are very interested in all different cultures and doing a great job in making you feel at home.
After settling down, my internship started. I was working at a NGO called Kurmaguda Academy for Relief and Education (KARE), situated in the Muslim neighbourhood Kurmaguda in Hyderabad. The NGO exists of a school which offers free education for underprivileged children, job training for women (e.g. chocolate making, perfume making) and free medical care. So far education is not for free in India, that is why underprivileged children are stuck in a vicious circle: their parents have no money to send them to school, so the children don’t get education and have no chance to get a job good enough to enable them to escape from living in a slum. Therefore dedicated residents of the neighbourhood decided that this should change and founded the school whilst working in their own businesses fulltime. Having no experience with running a school couldn’t stop them from trying to improve future chances of a good life for the kids. It really moved me to see all the passion those people had for the work they were doing. My job was to evaluate the education and organisation of the school, teach English and leadership skills and try to set up associations with other school to establish exchange of material and experience. In fact, my job description started with only teaching, but the passion of the founder of the school made me want to do more so I picked up some other duties as well.
Working at the school was challenging. The teachers speak only basic English, some of them can’t speak English at all. The children were not used to my method of teaching and found it difficult to understand me. They are also used to being hit when they behave naughty, a thing I would never do. So even though they were very sweet and kind to me, making them sit still and listen to me was very hard. It may sound as if I found it very difficult to work at the school. But even with all the communication problems, one look or touch can say so much more than words. Everybody was so happy that I came to work at the school, that they welcomed me very warmly. I was on my own the first three weeks at the school and what scared me at first, turned out to be the thing I was most thankful for at last: the fact that I was on my own made it very easy for my shy and young colleges to approach me and everyone wanted to take care of me.
My personal goal for the whole experience was to be open-minded, friendly, and initiating contact. The people I met whilst being in India made this so very easy for me and gave me the most wonderful experiences. This whole experience made me so much stronger. I know now that I can handle myself in a totally different culture then I am used to and do this not only travelling, but also whilst working. It also made me realize that people all over the world may seem so different, but are also quit equal in basic concepts and want the same things from life, the simple things like living happily in good health with your loved ones, in their own ways. I sincerely hope a lot of people who read this will feel inspired to go abroad and will be thankful that they have the opportunity to do so. Of course there were also some inconveniences. For example, the members of AIESEC being students who can be very busy from time to time had sometimes difficulties to house all the interns. Therefore we had to sleep with 8 people in a apartment with three rooms sometimes. Another thing is that a lot of us interns had to wait for our internships to start for a few days or maybe even a week. Also it can be annoying to find out that even people you don’t expect it from, are after your money. But hey, that’s the adventure! Be prepared for the unprepared! Also don’t be too demanding (but demanding enough to make sure that you have the standards to enjoy your time in the other country) and read a lot about the country you are going to, without letting some well mend advices scare you and without lessening your initiative in talking to the real people over there in your new home. I can honestly say, I would always do this over again. Even now I have been back for two months already, I almost daily think back to India. After a short time of 3 months, I left India crying... Never expected myself to be this emotional about my departure, but the feeling of leaving newly made friends for a unknown time, really hit me hard. So my last advice: be prepared to fall in love with a new country!
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