Adam in India!

Hello again!

I know, I know. Two updates in under a week is a little much for this blog to handle. However, I think that I'll be able to update a little more regularly now, since there is to be no more hard labour in my life for the time being (lots of work, yes, but none of it quite as physically taxing, I hope). Also, this post is kind of a 'part two' of the last one, since I'm really in the same position as I was when I wrote the last one.

The difference is that while that one looked back at the summer, this one will look forward to the year that is about to happen.

I'm about to leave on a ten-month placement to Dharmapuri, India with Puvidham Rural Development Trust. This is a part of my university international development studies co-op program, where students undertake a work placement for their 4th year. As with many of my colleagues, I will get on the plane on September 4th not knowing what will happen, or what exactly my job will entail. I'm worried, but I know that that is part of the experience, so that's okay.

What I do know comes mostly from Puvidham's website (www.puvidham.org) and a series of excellent e-mails that I exchanged with Meenakshi, the organization's co-founder and the founder of the school. I learned that Puvidham is an organization that integrates a commitment to sustainable agriculture and community development with a passion for teaching. They operate a school on their farm, in which the young children from the surrounding community come to study for the first few years of their schooling. Some children live in a hostel, also on the farm, because their parents often travel into the cities looking for work.

Since my coming to Puvidham is a bit of an experiment, for them as much as for me, I don't know exactly where I'll fit in. So, rather than go into much detail about my job there, I'll update this blog regularly with information about what I've been doing so that you can discover Puvidham, and Dharmapuri, with me over the coming months. I look forward to it!