After preparing for a couple days before all the students arrived, the South Asian students presented on their cultures for the international students. You can read more here, and see a few student interviews here, beginning with Olga!
Monica
Mohammad
Rohini
Kultwisiso
Shilpi
Getting from Mumbai to Ahmedabad has been a tiring and wonderful adventure. Ahmedabad, unlike Mumbai, has a very hot and sunny weather. I enjoy sunny places like Ahmedabad because it brings me excitement and happiness. We are slowly learning about the history and influences that took place in Ahmedabad. A very interesting subject that I learned is about Mahatma Gandhi. He is an important figure in India because he led India to independence, civil rights, and freedom. All I know about him before was just his name and a picture of him. I never knew what he really did specifically for India. For what I see, he is a strong leader with determination and support for all of the people. Many people at that time had many restrictions and limitations of freedom. Their issues inspired him to take action to solve the problems that they suffered from. I am glad that I was able to learn a lot about him and his positive impacts for India.
After we learned about Gandhi, we will be learning about the Chhara Community, Casteism, Politics, Mental Health, Inclusiveness, LGBT-Queer, and The Green Straw in India. I am looking forward to learning more about these factors and how they affect individuals in India. I believe that I will have a better understanding and perspective of India rather than failing to perceive the information.
Today was the day we finally split up into three different hotels within our separate groups. Many were quite upset to leave friends they just started to strengthen bonds with, and I myself can say that I was not satisfied with the notion as well. After many hugs and dramatic cries the others were on their way to their new temporary homes as my group stayed behind. We instantly dived into our daily talks to discuss how we were feeling at the moment as well as how we’ve been adapting to our time here in Ahmedabad so far. We all fairly agreed that we didn’t know how we’d cope with not seeing our friends daily for the next six days.
Our leader Eli challenged us to explain why such a decision was made. We all went around expressing different perspectives on the situation and some stood out that made the separation more bearable through understanding. For one, smaller groups allowed everyone to have a chance to express their thoughts and feelings on our daily activities and have an outlet to explain their opinions on topics we discuss. Larger groups can drown out someone’s important thoughts, which wouldn’t be fair. Also, traveling in a small group makes students be able to engage within the culture of India and actually get a feel of the environment and be involved in what is happening outside. It’s harder to feel connected to Ahmedabad when you’re surrounded by several other people with conflicting cultures—it’ll seem more like a field trip than an experience. Overall, these insights made sense all while making me feel better about saying goodbye to my friends. On the bright side, I’ll see them soon and can strengthen the bonds I make to those within my group as well.
Stefani and Raj — two members of the group!
Once, in my childhood I learned and seen the pictures of the MAHATMA GANDHI and his SABARMATHI ASHRAM. Opportunity made me real to see and feel the emotions of the nation where GANDHI lived. As an Indian it’s really important to know that more about MAHATMA. It reminds me to share the things with my new friends in my group which they don’t know. The picture gallery in the ashram makes us to understand more clearly about him. I really came to know about the unknown facts about GANDHI. The presentation before going to the ashram made to so excited towards Gandhi. The ashram was at the banks of the river named SABARMATHI. The view is very cool to see.visited a book museum of Gandhi there were lots of book about Gandhi which was written by different authors. It was so amazing to see the all books and the hand crafted toys of Gandhi and charka makes me to buy them and I really like it. I am just want to tell thanks to Sridhar for the book of Gandhi presented by him.now I can tell that I can a lot about FATHER OF THE NATION. I love the trip and hangout with my new friend and it is important to me to know about the other people culture and traditions.
I like the Gujarati culture and the houses and the sculptures how they built. I like the people they always fond of animals by feeding them food. The people here is most connected to the animals. They have the bird feeding sheds too. One thing about yesterday is I love the Ahmedabad.
