From Canada to Kannada

Good morning!  My journey to Southern India has officially begun!  I am currently blogging from a McDonald's in the Frankfurt, Germany airport.

I left Toronto yesterday evening and had an 8-hour flight to Frankfurt, and after a 4-hour layover, I'll be on the final stretch to India - I have a 9-hour flight to Bangalore, India this afternoon.  Once I arrive in Bangalore, I will meet with some of my group members (from Cornell) and we will travel to Mysore together.  Here, we will check into our living quarters where we will stay while we attend classes at the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) hospital.  For the next two weeks, I will be taking courses in the morning that pertain to Indian culture, gender roles, history and the health care system, with afternoon courses in Kannada (the primarily spoken local language) and yoga.  Weeks 3-8 is the time period that I am most looking forward to, though.  I have been assigned a global service learning project in a rural 10-bed primary care hospital in Kenchanahalli, which is a large tribal village.  Here, my assignment is to help SVYM in delivering traditional Indian medicine, called Ayurvedic medicine, to the tribal peoples.  This is going to be a phenomenal opportunity to learn a lot and to truly witness "real India" by having the ability to interact with many people and, hopefully, to experience the culture of the tribal people.

SVYM is a large healthcare and education organization in India.  They have done remarkable work over the past 20 years to increase access to health care for all who need it - especially tribal people and people in lower castes - as well as encouraging education for empowerment - particularly for women and tribal children.  The core of the organization is based on the teachings of Swami Vivekananda, who was a compassionate Hindu Swami in the 19th century. (A Swami is to Hinduism as a Priest is to Catholicism).  His teachings go beyond religious ideals and focus on how to be a "good person" - one who is considerate and loving towards others, regardless of their current situation in life.

One of my favourite Swami Vivekananda quotations that I have found is this: "We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.  If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act."  This spoke to me in terms of what I will be doing during my time in India this summer and what I hope to achieve.  I know that I am not there to fix every problem - it's simply not possible for me to do - but I am going to be there to gain cultural perspective, to learn and to help (and hopefully to teach) wherever I am able.  In order to get the most out of this opportunity of a life time, I must be open-minded.  I must recognize that things are going to be very different - the sights, sounds, smells will be unlike anything I have ever experienced before.  And yet, I welcome the challenge, welcome the opportunity to stretch myself, and even welcome the opportunity to be made a little uncomfortable - this state will bring learning and personal growth... and I am so excited for it!

In Kannada, "hogi baruthini" essentially means "I will go, and I will come back" and "namaskara" means "greetings."  So yesterday, I said "hogi baruthini" to Ontario, and early tomorrow morning I will have the ability to say "namaskara" to Karnataka (the state in India where I will be)!