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
If You Want To Know More About INDIA You Have To Ride The Indian Train.
Yesterday was really good day, full with new experiences. We went to the train station at 10:00 pm, it actually looks very colorful from outside, we enter that station with exciting moments then we shocked by a lot of people waiting for their trips, we try to walk along the hallway to stay away from the people traffic, this hallway had polluted air and it was very hot inside.
We waited for an a hour , after that we entered the train, you can’t count the number of rooms in the train as they spread in a long trailers, in each room there were six beds can be opened and closed whatever you want. We put our stuff under the seats, then we move to our beds to make our new dreams by sleeping for 7 hours, waiting for reaching Ahmedabad. The service in the train was not bad and not good at the same time as the bathroom had a stinky smell as we felt comfortable while sleeping on beds.
Oh hey guys! look at this light coming from far place. Yeah it’s the sunrise and we reached Ahmedabad finally. Unfortunately we have to leave the train and leave the station to get our new hotel, we get our luggage and get ready to move forward. While we are going to exit the station we saw a lot of people looking for us like strangers and some of them try to sell us something like bananas, coffee and other things…in terms of my feelings when I get in the bus to the hotel, I felt so excited about the historical places that we are going to visit it in Ahmedabad as same as make the connection between my friends and me stronger like the family. 👭👬
On this extremely hot rainy day -14 July 2019, we went to the city of Mumbai and saw The Gateway of India which is located in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The place was fantastic with a lot of people around, a lot of them were looking at us and we felt really amazing but at the same time nervous too. The Gateway was huge and fantastic, which birds flying around in which it was really cute and made it look even more majestic.
Some facts about the Gateway:
The Gateway of India was built due to the Royal visit of King George and Queen Mary in the 1924. George Wittey had prepared a beautiful drawing of the Gateway of India, it was built memoriam of kings that came to see the first.
The Gateway of India has been prepared by a talented Man named George Wittey. He had been busy with this for a lot of years and had finally approved it the 31st March. The building was built in 1925 in yellow Kharodi basalt and concrete stone. The height of the building is 25,15 meters tall and its its 15 meters wide in size. The 24th December 1924 the Gateway of India have been opened to the public 24/7 everyday and doesn’t cost money for the people to have a sight view of the place, it’s a safe surrounding with a lot of police on duty.
The students really enjoyed it ,seeing the great fantastic views and spending time around people we didn’t know at all. It was raining too but the rain did not stop us from visiting places.
We enjoyed every moment and learnt a lot about Gateway of India.
Today my group and I learned about a program called Pratham, which helps those who are of age gain work skills and financial independence for their families. The program has many schools that offer guidance and education for an array of careers such as welding, health care, and beauty. On this day we went to one of the beauty schools for women students. After learning more about their family customs and how they strive to later have a career, I was shocked to hear how many of them struggled with support from their families in doing so. Where I am from, it usually expected to have plans after high school that involve you becoming independent, especially financially. The difference in India is that women are expected to instantly get married off and start families without having to be “the provider”. That caused many women to feel that they do not have value, and therefore some venture out to schools supported by Pratham to get an education to help them have careers that will let them finally feel that they are worthy in their household by being a second supporter. The struggles they faced in doing so made me feel grateful for the opportunities that I can consider a luxury in my country, and one day I hope that many countries eventually grant fair access to an education and job skills to all women worldwide, because not only does it grant dignity but as well as autonomy.
