Traveling to Pune allowed me to get a better idea of what I am passionate about. Before my trip, I never considered myself exploring teaching professionally. However, after meeting and spending a week with the wonderful Vision International children, I have realized that a career in education abroad, may be something I am interested in. Every student that I met was warm, intelligent and kind. Interacting with and seeing the glow on these students faces everyday made me want to stay in Pune forever! Moving forward, the Puranik Foundation has provided me with an additional world view and I am forever grateful for it. I now better understand why Mark Twain said that, "travel is fatal to prejudice, bigatry and narrow mindedness". It is impossible to connect with the people of a land and leave unchanged. Thank-you, Puranik Foundation!
What was the most surprising thing you saw or did?
Being in India also made me reconsider how I use the word ‘normal’. The definition of the word normal is “the usual, average, or typical state or condition”. During my travel, oftentimes I found that my peers and I would use 'normal' to differentiate American and Indian perspectives. (Of course, the American way was the normal way.) “Normal food , normal bathrooms , normal showers” , etc. The preconceptions we made about traditional Indian customs and ways of life had been so ignorant--in the purest sense. We did not know and did not know that we did not know.
