Welcome to MUWCI...

When you're woken up at 6:30 AM to wrestle in the mud and rain.

When your classroom turns orange overnight.

When you climb a hill and feel like you're in a picture book.

When frogs invade your laundry.

When a Norwegian makes a Mexican burrito out of Indian chapati, rice and dal and explains it all in English.

When it's normal to do homework on the roof. Or in a tree.

When you're happy to find time to sleep anywhere.
Anywhere.

When sunsets look like this:

...and these guys are your teachers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBJ0btv85kg

That's when you know. 

There's only one place you can be.

MUWCI has now been my home for exactly 23 days.

Integration week kicked off with seven amazing, crazy days of 200 new people, new faces, new names, various activities, discussions, lots of mud, lots of laughter, lots of getting lost and not much sleep!

The first and second year shows were a magical opportunity for students from all around the world to share their talents, interests, and cultures. The richness and diversity of the student body here made the overall show as colourful and exciting as it was.

A homestay in this first week saw us submerged into rural Maharashtran life. Although for one night only, it was an experience we'll hold onto for years to come. We were taken down the valley into local villages, where families welcomed us into their homes, showed us their village and introduced us to several aspects of the lives and culture. Although at first the language barrier was an obstacle (their English being limited, and my Hindi/Marathi being non-existent), after a while we worked it out. Kids are kids anywhere, after all. Kids play, they laugh, they sing and dance. And that's what we did, as well as them showing us the village, the temple, the rice fields, the mango trees, the river and the animals.

From the tiny fraction I have seen, I still find India an enchanting place. The city of Pune was introduced to us last week, and although very different from the rural areas surrounding MUWCI, I also can't wait to get to know it better.

Paud, the nearest town, is still undiscovered to me for the most part. We did go down one evening for dinner, music and chill-time, which was a lot of fun, but otherwise I haven't yet explored it.

Anyway, that's a brief summary of some of the highlights of what's been happening here for the last few weeks. (There's more, but I'm becoming increasingly conscious of the fact that this is turning into a very long and probably boring by now post, so I'll leave it there for now!)

I have come across several other blogs from muwci students, which I'd like to share with you. So expect that soon.

Anyway, thanks for reading, see you soon :)

Maria xXx