Namaste!
We spent two adventurous days exploring the capital city of India, Delhi, where we were introduced to Indian culture, cuisine, and history. We spent the first day walking around the beautiful Lodi Gardens, charmingly filled with plants, a lake, and multiple Indian architectural masterpieces from the Lodi Dynasty. A wonderful orientation ceremony welcoming and getting to know the group filled up the morning schedule before we went to lunch at a delicious Bombay-Irani restaurant in the Khan Market. After filling up on new dishes, we walked through the Khan Market to FabIndia for our first Indian shopping experience. We spent the afternoon having a great time trying on different traditional forms of Indian attire, enhanced with all the colors and patterns that embody India. Some students tried on sarees and some kurtas, and everyone left the store with a new piece of customary Indian clothing to begin the program. It was one of our first cultural lessons about the country as we learned about many of the different styles worn throughout India. Next we explored Humayun’s Tomb, a magnificent piece of architecture from the Mughal Empire before heading to try our first South Indian cuisine for dinner at Naivedyan.
Our second day started with the famous Qutub Minar—the tallest brick structure in the world. All of our students were super excited to spend another day learning about the cultural heritage of India. We tried Indian Fusion for lunch at Cafe Lota before spending some time wandering around the galleries of the National Crafts Museum. Next we went to Dilli Haat, a large marketplace comprised of the crafts, clothing, and jewelry from all the different states of India, where our students had a fabulous time shopping. After having a delicious dinner at Cafe Tonino in the colonial heart of the city, Connaught Place, we went to the Old Delhi Railway station where we embarked on our first Indian train journey to Rajasthan.
Today we arrived well and safe in our host village of Kotri after a long 13-hour train ride. It was an incredible journey from Delhi for everyone. We were welcomed into our village home by our host with local musicians, garlands, tilak, and jaggery as a welcoming ceremony. We then had our delicious Indian lunch and rested for the afternoon. In the evening we went for a village walk to understand our village and its communities that live in harmony together. People greeted us with smiles and kids were running up to us to say hello. All the students are overwhelmed by the affection of the village community and are excited to start their community service and independent projects tomorrow. We ended the night with beautiful and powerful group activities that facilitated deeper group bonding.
— Lauren & Neerav
