India ~ Week One

Wow! I've been in India for almost a week. I was going to update my blog once a week but a few people have been asking about my time here so I’ll blog now starting with the flight over.

My flight from Toronto to Frankfurt was delayed an hour and a half, which meant I would have about 10 minutes to make my connection in Frankfurt. When I got on the flight in Toronto they had no room for my carry on so I had to check it planeside and they were having it tagged to Bangalore. When I realized how late my flight was going to be I realized none of my luggage would make the connection. I wasn’t very impressed with them for making me check my carry on suitcase as I hadn’t put any clean clothes in my backpack! When we got to Frankfurt a whole bunch of us had to rush through the airport to make our connecting flights. There were three flights that were delayed because of our delay in Toronto. So here we all are rushing through the airport only to realize we had to go through security to get to our gate. No idea why there is a security check in the middle of the departure part of the airport! But anyways, we all made the flight and it was long and boring. I dozed and watched movies on both flights. I got to Bangalore at 2am and none of my luggage came through at the baggage claim. I knew it was going to happen but I was really tired and didn’t want to deal with the hassle. But I filled out a form to say that my luggage was missing and I got 4000 rupees (about $70 Canadian) to buy toiletries while I waited for my luggage. That 4000 could last me over a month here as there isn’t much I need to buy! So after all that hassle I went and found Ron and Lilo waiting for me at passenger pickup.We went back to their place and I spent the next four days trying to adjust to a new timezone and climate. I haven't adjusted to either of them yet! I went shopping with Lilo on Tuesday afternoon to buy some clothes for here but they need to be tailored so I can't wear them yet. For the four days I spent at Ron and Lilo's Ron was on the phone multiple times every day trying to locate my suitcases for me. The first two came Wednesday morning and had apparently been on my flight with me and just didn't make it to baggage claim. And the third one, my carry on, made it Friday morning. On Saturday the three of us and two of their grand daughters drove to Kollegal Girl's Home (KGH) and I was given a  tour of the property. There are 5 dorms where the 64 girls at the home stay. Three of the volunteers here are dorm mothers. Then there is a school that most of the girls go to along with over 700 children from the surrounding area. About 12 of the girls are home-schooled and there are 3 young girls - likely aged 3, 4, and 5, in the kindergarten program. I'm going to be helping with the home-school and teaching computers to the older ones. I'm not sure what I got myself into! 

My next blogs won't be as long as this one! And if there are grammatical errors I'm sorry, I have been averaging 4 hours of solid sleep a night and have been up for about 20 hours today...

And I just realized I repeated my previous post. Sorry about that. I'm too tired to go back and edit this one at the moment.