First Half of Orientation

***Written in 2015, published in 2026. So definitely a tad late***

Oh boy, this post is coming a tad late. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

On the 19^th a group of us got to attend a leadership lab. A woman who is friends with Sangam, wanted to run these sessions on leadership at Sangam, and in return for using our space, we get 5 free spaces for residents to participate. The session was a bit about healthy living, so it started with an hour and half of Bollywood dancing. Which was a ton of fun! Then we had a delicious sugar-free and low oil breakfast. (Side note: Indians love their sweets. If something isn’t spicy here, generally it’s really sweet.) Afterwards we learned about decision-making. Which had it’s interesting aspects, but wasn’t necessarily incredibly applicable to what I’m doing right now.

Afterwards Colleen took Liz and I on the Laxmi Road Tour. Which was phenomenal! The Ghanesh festival was in full swing, so it was incredibly busy and full of Ghanesh idols. They have these temporary temples set up so large groups of people can come and see an idol. We went through two of them. I really enjoyed it. There are a couple of songs and some chants that are sung/chanted in front of Ghanesh, and it just makes it such a great atmosphere. As part of the Laxmi Road Tour we went to the Sari shop we take participants and I bought a sari. We also wandered through many shops and I bought a Punjabi. Which is a set that includes a dress, pants and a scarf. For both the sari and the Punjabi, they come just as fabric and you need to take them to a tailor. For the Punjabi we just found a tailor shop in Laxmi Road that would take an hour, but for the saris, we brought them back for the Sangam sari tailor. Cate (the deputy world center manager for programming) and Katrine joined us for dinner. We had a great meal and then took the public bus home. Which is a great adventure. All the writing on the buses, and at the bus stops is in Marati. so it’s easiest to just ask someone which bus is the one you want. On the bus, there is a conductor who comes around and you pay based on how long you are on the bus. The buses don’t stop for long, but our whole bus seemed to know where we were going, so they told us when to get ready to get off.

The next day Liz and I had an overnight at a community partner. We went to Maher, which stands for Mothers Home. It is a group that runs many houses and programs for destitute women and children, disabled women and elderly men. When we arrived they were holding their annual Ghanesh Festival, so the children from all the houses had come together to perform skits, and dances on specific topics. Each house had been assigned a different topic, such as addiction, social media use, and suicide. Despite it all being in Marati it was very interesting. They were all incredibly happy children, who were healthy and well loved. There were quite a few amazing dancers in the groups. We had dinner with the staff team and met a young man who had been living at Maher for 17 years. He was working on his MBA, had fantastic English and was very well traveled. He’d been on dancing tours with Maher to Europe, the UK and the USA. In the morning we got to work with a group of girls before they went to school. It was a group of 25 13-14 year olds, and we had them make flags. We brought examples of the Indian flag, the UK flag and the Canadian Flag for them to work from. I was very impressed by their attention to detail. They all started with pencils, insisted on using rulers for all the straight lines, and when they were done, they squared off their flags, as I had given them roughly half a piece of paper to work with. They were very friendly, and they were all interested in engaging with us. We also got a tour of the production facilities they had on the site we were at. They have facilities so they can teach women skills that they can use to earn an income and support themselves. They make candles, cards, and bags. The artistry is amazing. Our rickshaw was late picking us up, so I ended up playing with a 4-year-old girl for a good hour. We played with a ball almost as big as her, an empty tape case that she imagined as a phone or camera, and she drew Mehendi on me in pen. I’m pretty glad she didn’t have access to actually Mehendi, because the pen washed off in a couple of hours. 

On the 22^nd of September Liz, Katrine, Jenna and I had the day off. We went out for brunch at a café. I had a smoothie and broccoli soup. It was pretty good. In the afternoon Katrine, Liz and I went to Phoenix Mall, which is a Western style mall. It was interesting. Before entering some stores, I had to store my backpack, and then inside one of them we a security guard tailing us about 5 feet behind us. I thought it was pretty funny. We grabbed a bite to eat then went to a movie. We meant to go to a Bollywood movie, but the timing was better for a Marati movie, so we went to see Tu Hi Re. It was hilariously awful. (no, there weren’t any subtitles) It had strange sound effects accompanying every line delivered by the actors (ie, a dog barking, a horse whinnying, or a whistle). I was enjoying it, but Liz and Katrine were not, and I’m always down for getting to bed earlier, so we left at the intermission. When we got back Sailee told us that that’s not really typical for movies here, but Marati movies are known to be not as good as Bollywood ones.

The next day we had a program team team-building outing. We went out into the countryside and went for a nature hike, did a Tarzan swing, zip-lining and rappelled down a waterfall. (or so it was described before we left) We had a blast, but it wasn’t as epic as it sounds. The Tarzan swing was over a 4 feet by 6 feet pool of water that was only waist deep. The zipline was 100m long, and we rappelled maybe 10m beside a waterfall. I had fun though, as the lower intensity was much more up my alley! We also played in the waterfall after rappelling. We had lunch then played team-building games in the rain. On the way home we drove up a ridge to get a good view. The drive made other girls feel a bit nauseous, so I wasn’t feeling fantastic for most of the ride home. I was feeling better by the time we got home, but was still really glad we ordered in instead of going out.

On the 24^th we started prepping for the upcoming event. So lots of little tasks, like tidying and writing people’s names on things. In the evening we had a Living at Sangam Social. We played capture the flag! I had lots of fun, despite my team losing. The other team had hidden their flag in an area with limited access. The next day we continued prep for the event, but in the morning we had the Water Tower Climb.

The Water Tower we have has a ladder that leads to the roof. The climb has more strenuous than I thought it would be, but definitely worth it. Not only was the view great, but the bird watching was pretty amazing. I definitely need to go up another morning and just sit up there for half an hour. After breakfast Liz, Katrine and I did our introduction video. In the video we are walking around the neighbourhood across the street from Sangam. Many of the local staff live there. In the evening Uzma (our receptionist) led a Zumba class.