Preparation

At the end of July I attended a training course on the Isle of Coll in preparation for my year overseas. After a stressful journey to Oban, which involved me missing my connection in Glasgow and a 3 hour taxi journey, followed by a devastatingly early ferry the next morning, the other volunteers and myself arrived on Coll in a state of exhaustion. The five days of training consisted of endless talks on safety, health, culture shock, insurance, teaching and so much more. Everything that we needed to know was covered. I met my lovely partner for the year, Holly Fraser, along with the other girls that are going to India and the volunteers for Thailand, Senegal and two for China. Everyone was so nice and although it was an exhausting week it was also so much fun!

I promised myself I would start my packing as soon as I got home after training. Of course this did not happen. The panic began to set in a week before leaving when I realised I only had a small fraction of the items on the list provided by Project Trust. Thank goodness my mum took it upon herself to purchase the 25 pairs of pants it was recommended we take. If all else failed, at least I had the pants. So after many trips into Inverness I finally got everything I needed to take and packed my bag which amazingly only weighs 13kg!

The last few days have been an emotional rollercoaster with lots of goodbyes and tears. It was so hard saying goodbye to people I'm used to seeing practically every day! My floods of tears in the car after leaving home were stopped only by reading Michael McIntyre's book which made me laugh out loud instead. So thank you Michael!

I'd just like to thank everyone who has supported me over the last year, my family and friends have all been amazing. To everyone who donated money to my fundraising, I can't thank you enough! Without all of you I wouldn't be flying out to India tomorrow!

Background Information

Many of you will already know what I am going to be doing in India, but some of you might have last spoken to me a few months ago when I was still going to South Africa. In May my country was changed from South Africa to India which was a massive shock at the time but now I am extremely excited to be going to India instead! I will be based at a hospital called the LV Prasad Eye Institute which is associated with the World Health Organization and provides treatment to people from all over India who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. Here I will be primarily teaching English to hospital staff but also helping out in a creche and a rehabilitation centre for blind children. Throughout the year I will also have the opportunity to travel around the country and hopefully visit some amazing places. I will keep this blog up to date with my progress as often as I can!