Lessons from India

Be Patient
The bus will probably not leave on time. Someone will probably push in front of you in line. As long as you realise you are HERE, you are ALIVE, and it's good to be these things, you won't worry too much. I've learnt to take things little steps at a time and to appreciate each moment before I stress about the next few.

Be Kind
First impressions are sometimes very, very wrong. Everyone has problems, issues and worries. It would be better for everyone to give people a break every now and again. Oh, that person just shoved you and didn't apologize? It's cool, they might be having a bad day. If you called them out on it, they may feel worse.

People are good
We got stranded because our taxi (rickshaw) stalled in the middle of our ride home. It was pouring and we didn't know which way or how far we had left to go. We asked for help, and without us knowing, the people we had asked had flagged down a rickshaw for us, and the driver didn't try to over charge us!
Passengers on the bus made sure we got off at our station by going out of their way to make sure we knew in advance. People have helped us rent mopeds, buy ice-creams, negociate rickshaw rides, buy phone numbers, etc etc. I think there's more people helping us than trying to rip us off.

People have amazing stories
Having been to an International conference in India with 450 delegates, I got to talk to quite a few people. I've talked to someone from Russia who has visited over 45 countries, someone who got into Columbia but wasn't allowed to leave due to family reasons; talked to a girl from Romania that has started her own company. Just talking to the two people in front of us on the bus, I learnt a lot about working in India and travelling. It's easy to generalise and ignore people, but it's so much more interesting to talk to them! :)

Don't be scared to take time for yourself.
This is especially important when you live in a place that seems to have no privacy, too many people that notice (and point at) you, and when you sleep in a room with 50 other girls. I try to take some alone time to just sit and read every morning, otherwise I feel trapped and stressed the rest of the day.


That's all I have time to write about for now. I'm also learning that it's nice to get on the internet frequently and talk to friends from back home, but it's more important to live in the moment and make new friends :)