New Arrival

Hello all! Welcome to my new blog. There are many reasons that
I have decided to create this blog but most of all I have created
it so that all of you back home will be able to be with me in my adventures across India! I arrived a little over a week ago in Madurai after more than 48 hours of travel with an overnight stop in Mumbai and after more than a week I am still in the process of settling in.

While in Mumbai I had the great pleasure of meeting with the General Secretary of the Bombay YMCA and some of the other staff all of whom where extremely hospitable and welcomed me back anytime (an offer which I am sure I will take advantage of). Being one of the largest YMCA organization in India, there are a huge number of programs at the Bombay YMCA which I hope to be able to be a part of.

After spending the night in Mumbai I hopped a two hour flight to Madurai, my home for the next six months. Arriving around 11 am at the tiny airport in Madurai, I was greeted with open arms by the General Secretary of the Madurai YMCA Rev. Suyambu and one of the leading women in the Madurai YMCA, Shamila. They informed me that for the first week or so that I will be in Madurai I will be staying at the YMCA International Guest House, a beautiful air conditioned hotel/hostel spitting distance from the wonderful Meenakshi Temple - the trademark temple of Madurai.

The city itself is wonderful. It's amazing how much of the traditional culture has been preserved and is evident in everyday life. With very little international development taking place in this southern temple city the people have retained an amazing amount of their ancient culture including the ancient language of Tamil which is spoken almost exclusively throughout the city. I hope to learn some Tamil in the upcoming months.

The weather is, well, hot. Very hot. Apparently I chose an interesting time to visit southern India. Everyday since I have been here the temperature has been more than 34 degrees Celsius or about 94 degrees Fahrenheit and humid and it is only going to get hotter. Also, thanks to good ol' climate change last year there was no "monsoon season" which typically comes in late July and August. Instead, the only rain that the city got was in October. Only time will tell what the weather will be like this year.

For the past few days I have been meeting with Suyambu and Shamila to discuss the programs that I will be involved in and it has been a wonderful experience. In the first days I was in Madurai I joined some other German volunteers to see their project they have been working on with the school for the mentally challenged. The school offers a chance at a basic education for children ages 3 to 18 suffering from all types of mental handicaps who would otherwise never have a chance at any form of education. Today I had the opportunity to visit the school for hearing impaired children run by the Y. Put simply, it was an amazing experience. The children were incredibly bright and wonderful to be around. In the coming days I will spend some time observing the other programs such as the school for orphaned boys, an afternoon study center for slum children, a rural outreach education program in an outlying village of Madurai, and finally I will be working to develop camp programs with the other staff here at the Y.

More to come soon... but until then here are a few pictures to hold you over.