Wednesday 26 June 2013

Typical English?

Like in most countries, in India gifts are a way of communicating respect, appreciation and friendship.

As such, we've been asked to take some little presents to give to our hosts and people we may meet during the programme. They should not be extravagant and ideally something typical of/representative for the country we come from.


So far I've excluded tea, alcohol and leather (all for obvious reasons :-) but have yet to have a brainwave as to what to take with me that would make a nice (as well as light, easily "packable" and typical) gift from the UK.


Any thoughts and ideas?

Friday 14 June 2013

Pre-work has started!


Together with Anton (from Slovakia), Claudia (from Mexico), Elyse & Emily (both from the US), Gica (from the Czech Republic), Katrin & Peter (both from Germany), Keith (from Canada), Malcolm (from Australia), and Paula (from Bazil), I'll be preparing for the time in India over the coming weeks, ready for our departure to Mumbai in August.

We have weekly meetings with Flavio (who went to Kalkutta last year as part of the CSC and is our team facilitator) & a comprehensive training calendar to give us a fighting chance to add some value to the communities of Jamnagar! It's all really interesting and so far we've learned about our own styles & cultural differences between our respective home-countries and India. We've also heard from teams who went to India as part of the CSC - am now really hoping for "European toilets" :-)

Watch this space for more news on how the pre-work goes & of course any hints and tips on do's and don'ts when in India are highly welcome!