Off to the South!

Tomorrow morning, I will be taking a trip to visit the southern part of India. I'll be working for a week at an organization called the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement in a rural town called Saragur, outside the Mysore/Bangalore cities. It originally started in 1984 with a handful of doctors longing to serve the poor with their medical background, and has since expanded its vision to include initiatives such as: community development, water and sanitation, and education. I'm particularly excited to visit this organization because I think it will give me a view of public health from the lens of implementation. Here at PHFI, it is primarily an academic institution - we do research, teach people about public health, and look into the issues that need to be addressed. This organization is addressing those very issues in a rural area where the people are in need. It should be exciting indeed.

I'll be waking up four hours before my 10 o'clock and putting my money that there will be a taxi waiting around my street to take me to the domestic airport here in Delhi (there's one for international and one for domestic). Hopefully, if all goes well, I won't lose my bag (I have to check it in because of my contact solution - they don't sell much of it here) and I'll be walking the streets of Bangalore by 1pm. From there, I'll be hoping on a 3,330 rupee taxi through Mysore and eventually hit Saragur by 6:30pm (hopefully). Hopefully all will go smoothly! I'm excited to eat dosas once I get there - they are one of the staple south Indian foods!


They look really hard to make to me - but apparently they are common to eat for every meal.