It begins with a suitcase

Welcome to my India blog! Today is the day before the big (long) flight. It's time to pack the tooth brush, take one last hot shower, and eat the American food that I may miss while I am gone. I am excited and a bit bewildered.  I thought I'd take a minute to give a brief introduction to where I am going and what I will be doing.

For the next three months, I will be residing in the small village of Vadhu Budruk near Pune, India. From what I have heard, Pune is about five hours from Mumbai if you are driving without traffic. (Mumbai was formally known as Bombay, for those of you who did not know.) I will be staying and volunteering with the Maher Project. Maher, which translates as "mother's home", is a project for destitute women and children. They have helped more than 1,300 women since 1997 that would otherwise have faced a very bleak future of murder, starvation, or suicide. They offer a variety of services including shelter, legal aid, counseling, education, health care, and skill training. Maher is an interfaith community that honors all religions and does not recognize the caste system. I will be helping by doing anything I can, including tutoring English to some of the students.
For more information on Maher, there is a very in depth website with stories, photos, and even products you can buy that help support their efforts.

Please check it out:

http://www.maherashram.org/

This blog will be my raw experiences of India, should you want to follow them. I am not pretending to be a great writer and you will have to put up with grammar errors (my greatest fear at this point is that the students that I will be tutoring will pick up my bad habits). I will be an American in a new culture and may offend. I may cuss. I may cry. I will bring up subjects like the glorious Indian toilet. Prepare yourself and rest assured that all the smells of India will not transfer through the computer. All cautions aside, I must say that I am more than thrilled to have an opportunity this great. I await some marvelous adventures with an open heart, a suit case, and a few rolls of toilet paper.