Welcome to India!

Whenever and wherever you travel to India, the first impact is always the same: sticky humidity, crowds, awful traffic (the indian rule for horns requires a separate post) and terrible poverty. But then you’ll see the women wearing sari, the men with colourful dots on their forehead meaning that they recently prayed in a temple, the stunning hindù temples, and colours everywhere: green palms, green banyan trees, green, yellow and red bananas, dark yellow mangoes, orange papayas, yellow pineapples, white jasmine flowers, red hibiscus.. wow!

You will notice that even in extreme poverty, people have a dignified aura around them, which I always find fascinating. You’ll see that little girls holding their younger siblings wear golden earrings, and their mothers, who struggle every day to feed their families, always wear golden bangles and keep their hair tidy in elegant plaits.

The first days in India are a shock. I don’t know how other people reacted but me, I started wondering why was I so lucky to be born in a Western country, did I deserve all that I had, why had I never noticed how many amazing things I had around me, why I never thought of saying Thanks for everything I was given. And especially, why was I so lucky and not that young thin beggar on the street, with eyes like a deer and beautiful hair? Was I any better than her?

After a few days in India, I decided that these are questions without answer, just like Why am I alive, etc. I built a wall around me and stopped comparing myself with the people I saw around me. I decided that maybe I was born in a rich country to be able to travel to a developing country and do something to help. That is why I came back to India a second time, as a volunteer.