Dharwad

June 20, 2009

Back on the Bus

Today we had a meeting at KIMS College in Dharwad, the “sister city” of Hubli. The bus ride was about 45 minutes long so I brought along my i-pod and hit play on my “Bus Ride to Tel Aviv” playlist from last year when I lived in Israel. I lived in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, for three months last year, and the bus into town took up to 40 minutes. I commuted at least twice a week and always brought my i-pod with me.

Today, the tunes flowing into my ears made me nostalgic of my year in Israel. I remember countless bus rides that took me across the country, from one body of water to another or from one city to the next. I learned to love these bus rides and took advantage of enjoying the constantly changing scenery out my window. Today, I kept my eyes glued to the side of the road liked I learned to do last year. I was absorbing all that I was seeing and through that, learning about the area in which I currently live. I watched as we went through little slum areas into blank green fields, past fruit stands and tailoring shops. My ear buds kept the cacophony of horns and whistles from the city out of my ears and allowed me to peacefully enjoy 45 minutes of India.

Dharwad is beautiful. There are more trees and less trash than in Hubli. As we walked through part of the 700 acres (!) of the KIMS college campus, we were happy to see large clean buildings, a myriad of tree species, and trash cans (public trash cans are sadly hard to find in this country). Out of the forty or so college students we presented to, we successfully recruited seventeen volunteers and three Volunteer Leaders to teach our health and sanitation curriculum at a primary school during the coming year. Getting twenty volunteers to sign up is fabulous news because we were only expecting about ten! Volunteering in India is not popular like it is in America; it’s not a resume builder here. This is quite unfortunate because there are so many people in India who need help. Because we were only expecting ten, we might have to find a second primary school in the Dharwad area for the college students to teach at, which is definitely not bad news!

I had a great Saturday and am looking forward to my one day off per week – Sunday Funday baby!