My first few days...by Kirstyx

A hot, humid and misty Kochi airport awaited me when I landed. I arrived with not a Rupee on me so was pointed towards the wooden Thomas Cook stand inside the airport where I found a cool looking Indian man with a wooden drawer full of Rupees.

A man called Richard greeted me with GVI sign outside the airport. It had obviously been raining a lot as the ground was wet and the air was damp. My journey to the GVI house was a good introduction to the Indian roads….they certainly love to use their horns here. Richard played me Backstreet Boys and Lionel Ritchie from his phone as we negotiated the traffic of Kochi, crossing two bridges, and passing through many villages. It was a good way to get to know the Indian landscape of Kerala, and the scenery.

By the time I arrived to the GVI house in Fort Kochi, it was well and truly raining. Ridhi, the programme coordinator braved the weather to help me in with my bag. I met one of the other volunteers, Georgi, straight away and she settled me in with a cuppa!

I spend the next few hours getting to know the house and going through a few bits with Ridhi. A few of the others girls were out at the Orphanage doing an activity morning so I didn’t meet them until they got home. So I got in a quick nap, as I was so tired – a side effect from waiting at Mumbai airport for 6 hours for my connecting flight.

Once I’d met all the girls and Leti, our other Programme coordinator, we took a walk in to the town and had some lunch at a local place they all loved. I was introduced to ‘lime water’ – a refreshment that I was soon to be well acquainted with. We had a stroll around and a browse in some local shops – I quickly felt like I’d been here for days already as everyone was so friendly.

We had dinner at home on that first night, and waited for the other new volunteer to arrive, who had a later flight. Ami, who was also to become my roommate, arrived at about 10pm. I was glad of some company in my room with me.

Ridhi and Leti gave Ami and me our training on the Sunday, and we went through all the necessary health and safety/risk assessment stuff. Later that night we went to see the fishing nets by the river, it had been a beautiful day and an amazing sunset was in store for us that evening. We were not disappointed.

We headed to a local restaurant for our ‘welcome dinner’ with all the volunteers, Ridhi, Leti and Steve; the field manager for all GVI projects, who was visiting that weekend. We had a lovely dinner, but I didn’t feel well so went back to the house. The change in food affects everyone at some point!

As there were local elections on in our village, there wasn’t any school on the Monday as they were using the school as a polling station. So we took advantage of this and had a huge brunch in the house together….complete with French toast and eggs. We took a walk to the Jewish quarter later that day and saw the synagogue – it was lovely. Although we spent more time in the local shops and market than in the synagogue.

That evening we went to see a Kathakali dance show, which was….an experience! It’s a very unusual form of dance, very unique to Kerala. Even though it disturbed me quite a lot, because it was so weird, it was worth seeing. After that delightful treat, we all met for dinner as it was Steve’s last night with us. He talked about loads of the other GVI projects all over the world which was really interesting, and I think it’s safe to say that every one of us wanted to sign up to another project afterwards!

We headed to bed very shortly after that, I was shattered, and my first day of teaching awaited me the next day….

My first few days...by Kirstyx