We're here!
on Jana Gana Mana (India), 01/Dec/2010 08:42, 34 days ago
Good flight from Heathrow (slighty delayed) and arrived in the early hours of Tues morning. We were met as planned at the airport and taken to the Indian Social Institute - our home for the next few days and received a VSO "goodie bag" - mosi net, pillow, towel etc - all very useful. We managed to get some sleep - but are going to have to get used to the near continual dog barking!Tues afternon we were collected (along with Tim - our fellow "late arriving" vol) to the VSO programme office - where we received very warm welcome and met up with the other 5 vols - currently undergoing their In-County training, They had had a fruitful morning learning cooking Indian food - and we enjoyed the fruits of their labours! Our In-County training is going to be curtailed from the usual 3 weeks to just 1 week - as we will start our placements next week and join the next cycle of I.C training in March. Later, we all then went to the official finale of aNational Trust(no, not the organisation that looks after old halls!!) campaign - which some VSO volunteers have been working on - including flag waving, a government minister, film cameras, dancing and high tea on the lawn! Had a walk in the evening to find some food - the whole city feels quite overwhelming at the moment, but I guess that is to be expected - but I also feel that their is a lot of support for us all.We met with the doctor this morning for a briefing and have just had "home cooked" lunch at the VSO office to be followed with details of our work placements this afternoon........... with plans afoot for a volunteer day trip to "the Taj" on Saturday.Good news - apparently our long term accomodation is sorted - on the metro line - between our placments, even better news - metro has a "women only" carriage - with pink seats!!!!