Wednesday 18 September 2013

One month

The first month of my new life has almost passed. As I am writing this, I am sitting somewhere in between wada four, the gym, the social centre, the pool and the parking lot and I'm happy. The sun is shining and I hear some people laughing in the background. There is no place I'd rather be than here, in MUWCI, in India.

I learned a lot this month. I learned a lot about other cultures, about other people, about the world and also about myself. One of the reasons why I came here is because I wanted to find myself in this multicultural (learning a lot about nations, states and identities, I think multicultural is a better word than international) place. I didn't find myself yet, that's a process that will probably take years, but I'm working on it. In this place, I have all what's needed to become who I want to be.

Though I still see new faces everyday and talk to new people everyday, I'm starting to know names and I'm starting to get real friends instead of only 'people I talked to a few times'. I'm having a great time with my roommate Indi, who's really an awesome girl (Indi, if you read this, I love you!) and we're having fun all the time, decorating our room or cleaning up or just doing everything that is not homework (:

MUWCI isn't as perfect as I thought it would be, but that doesn't make this place any worse for me. I think it's imperfections make this all so real, so interesting. I feel like I've been here for ages, we've done so many activities yet, I'm completely settled down and I feel good here, but on the other hand, I can't believe it's already one month since I arrived. It feels like this all started yesterday, or didn't even start, I still do not realise that I'm actually in India, in MUWCI. I wonder if I'll ever realise (how should we define realise?).

I started missing home and it's hard sometimes, but I always feel better after five minutes, because I know that this is where I should be and that missing people is not a bad thing. And for every tear, there's hundred smiles so that's completely fine (:

School is hard. Talking in English all day and listening to English all day is more difficult than I expected it to be. I need to concentrate a lot. But since this week, it's starting to get better, I'm starting to understand the classes and I hope that I will soon be able to speak more in class soon.

Last Friday, we celebrated the Ganesh festival (Ganesh is the "elephant-god"). We all got pink powder and then we could throw it at eachother and there was music and we were all dancing together with the staff, in a big pink cloud (: We walked down the hill and stopped regularly to dance and then it started to rain and that made everything even more fun. We walked to the nearby village, Khubavali, and there we celebrated with the local villagers before walking to the river. Once arrived at the river, the villagers let a statue of Ganesh in the river and they also jumped in the river theirselves. It was a really really nice day, I enjoyed it so much! I'll try to upload some pictures in a next post.

The dates of the Belgian infodays are fixed (check http://www.uwc.be/nl/students_parents/ for more info). If there's any interested people reading this, please let me know if you need any help or if you have any questions. This is an experience that I really recommend so just try (:

Love
Louise

 

Wednesday 11 September 2013

9/11

A short post because I think this is worth sharing.
Today, we had a class about 9/11, or better- the hidden 9/11.

On 9 september 1973, the US supported and was involved in the coup d'état in Chile by Augusto Pinochet, because the ruling president was socialistic and the US was afraid Chile would become communistic. In the 17 years that Pinochet ruled, about 3000 people were killed and 130.000 people were arrested. Yet, not a lot of people know about this 9/11.
'9/11 Chile' gives 32.800.000 results on Google, '9/11 US' gives 807.000.000 results.

Every year, 9/11 is a day of pain and silence, of compassion, with a lot of reporting in the media about this horrible day that changed the world. Don't get me wrong, I do think that the American 9/11 should be taken serious and we should not underestimate the effect it had and still has on many people's life, but isn't the relationship between the attention given to this drama and the attention given to other similar dramas a little unbalanced?

Please correct me if you think I'm wrong, this is just my opinion and I'm open for discussion about it. And again, today is a day of deep sorrow and my heart and mind is with those who lost someone on 9/11, now exactly 12 years ago.

May you all rest in peace.

Monday 9 September 2013

September

As september started, heads are shaved because of the lice on campus and piercings are appearing in everyones noses. The firstyears settled down on campus, rooms are decorated and the frogs chose their favourite place in the toilets. Routine starts to show up in my life again, don't know whether that's good or bad. I am happy here, so happy that it makes me sad to think that I'll have to leave this campus in two years. Haha.

I chose my trivenis. Trivenis are the activities you have to do here (Mahindra's answer to the IB's 'CAS'). There are four categories: action, creativity, campus service and community engagement. You have to take at least one of each category. As action, I chose breathing yoga (the highlight is on breathing). It's nice to relax one hour a week :). I also run down and up the hill every day, but that's not a triveni, I do it with a friend or on my own. The view is amazing and it's different everyday,  it makes me calm. As creativity, I'm going to learn how to play the tabla, an ancient Indian instrument. I didn't decide about my campus service yet, but as community engagement, I'll be going to the nearby village Khubavali and play there will the children, trying to learn them something. There are still some other trivenis I want to try out, there are over 90 trivenis so it's hard to choose! :)

This saturday, I went to Pune for the second time. I bought some stuff to make my room more home and less prison and it's nice to get a break of the cafetaria food sometimes, to go to McDonalds, that's the only thing that tastes exactly the same at home! Life here is cheap, but the people really try to make us, foreigners, pay a lot more! Luckily, there are some students who speak Hindi, they can help us.

I don't really know what to say, so I'll make a list of things that are cool here, or different, or maybe nice to know, or just worth saying :)

- Every classroom had it's own little garden.
- Dogs just walk in and out during class, or sleep next to you, it's all completely fine.
- We already have some classes outside now, but when monsoon is over, we'll be learning outside a lot!
- We can't close the door of our room anymore, so there's a free entrance for dogs, cats and other creatures!
- My English classroom is painted orange and all the desks and chairs are removed, so we're sitting on cushions, pretty cosy :)
- It's one big fairylight world, there are fairylights everywhere on campus.
- A lovely place on campus is the internet hill. After walking ten minutes to the top, you can see the whole valley, which makes me realize how small I am as a person. It's amazing at sunset.
- I have no more Belgian food left, so a parcel is always welcome ;)
- I don't have a coyear, but there's a girl from Luxembourg who is really nice so that's a good 'replacement'
- One bar of my precious Belgian côte d'or chocolate is 20 euros here :(
- This year, the 'satat' (satat = sustainability) project has started. The focus will be on reducing our water-usage.


That will be it for now!
This was also the last time that I updated on facebook, so if you want to know what's going on here, follow me by mail (the button should be somewhere on this page, on the right)
PS: If you want to, you can send me a letter, I love letters :) The adress is:
Louise Van Damme
Mahindra College
Village Khubavali
PO Paud
Taluka Mulshi
Pune 412 108
India


PSS: Let me know if you have any questions/... You can comment on this post :)