Hey, I’m Lucky! I’m from Berkeley, California and am spending my Global Citizen year in India. Here’s a glimpse into my daily life in Pune. Enjoy!
1. Hit my alarm clock and wake up finally. Fried roti for breakfast, yay! Just kidding my stomach really can’t take fried foods in the morning, but I eat it anyways. And collect my tiffin, aka lunch. I try to speak some hindi with Anita Tai, our cook, leaving with a “Chalo bye! See you!”
2. I bike to school, dodging speedy rickshaws and stray dogs. Peep the kurta (aka man dress).
3. 8:20 am: I get to my apprenticeship, a primary school named Epiphany. I’m in the staff room trying to understand what the aunties are saying to me in Marathi. We all just laugh because of my broken Hindi. For lunch we teachers share our tiffin with one another and I taste their homemade sweets. After lunch, I continue trying to look useful or chill with the kids that get kicked out of class. After school I tutor Pratamesh in English and help an 8th grade student learn his ABC’s.
4. After tutoring I go out with the TFI fellows to get hella good Indian food at some cool spots. Sometimes we get my favorite Maharashtrian dish, Misal Paw!!
5. 5 pm: I bike to Udaan Trust – Samarth Project, an MSM, TG, and Hijra HIV Clinic. This is a really inspiring clinic that is part of the India HIV/AIDS Alliance. I chill with the clinic nurse and other project managers. I sit around taking pictures of each other, try to converse in both English and Marathi, watch them fill out medical forms in Hindi, and try to make them laugh.
6. OR I rock climb at a community recreation center where really amazing climbing kids go to rock climb who are training for the 2020 Olympics.
7. OR I go to Hindi class with fellow Global Citizen Year fellows! I can read Devanagari script!
8. End the day right with some pani puri street food!
9. 8:30 pm: I head home for dinner. I eat dinner at Parivar (means Family in Hindi/Marathi) with a community of dancers and singers from all over India and visiting foreign hippies from Portugal and Austria.
10. Sometimes after dinner I get cold coffee, a delicacy for the hip, young folk around here, with some of the artists, aka my besties.
11. Finally, I go to sleep whenever I want!
