Off to the City of Djinns

Wow, I can't believe it's been 6 months since I last wrote in this blog...and it took someone to comment on it to get me back to it.

Oh, the shame!

Time is nearly upon me to do what I've been planning to do for the past 18 months and finally leave the UK to volunteer abroad. I leave on the 16th of April and I'll be spending 5.5 months in Delhi working for an environmental charity, and then a further 3-4 months travelling back to the UK very slowly indeed.

For anyone wanting to do something similar - esp in India - let me offer the following truth nuggets:

1. Buy a guidebook of where you want to go asap. The Delhi Rough Guide had a page with the details of NGOs you can volunteer with. This would've saved me paying an admin fee to an Intermediary company to organise a placement had I bought the Guide several months ago. Hell, I didn't even buy it: it was a gift from some friends. I was planning to go out there, get a map and find out the rest for myself.
   
   Green in more ways than one, methinks. :)
   
   
2. Contrary to what airlines advise, book your flights before you get your visa to India. Indian visas start the day you get them, not the day you enter the country.
   
   
3. The Indian consulates will very, very rarely pick up the phone should you try to call them prior to your trip. The only one that I could get through to easily was the one in Northern Ireland.
   

As for what I've learnt while I've been volunteering in the UK, all I can say is that it hasn't been what I expected. I thought it would be an amazing, fantastic experience with absolutely no downers and I'd make tonnes of friends. However, there were downers and I didn't make a loads of mates. The truth of the matter is that, like with so many good things, a few do a lot of the work, and they probably do a lot of it in isolation from each other.

Most of what I did for Olive was at home on my own or in the shop on my own. I experienced similar working with the Just Change team. But out of it, you learn to be self-reliant and run with your own ideas, which is something you may find hard to find in a regular job. You also meet some truly good and genuine people. Olive have even just made me a director of the Coop, for which I am truly unworthy, but very grateful. :)

But one aspect which I truly love about the past 6 months is that it has smashed the programming I was subjected to on the employment treadmill. The axiom that there can be no gaps in your CV, you have to work in a job you don't like because you have no epxerience in anything else, and you can't just leave after a few months because no-one will want you.

At the end of the day, it's all bollocks. If you want it hard enough, you will find a way. It will mean sacrifice, but by stepping out of your old, narrow comfort zone you might just find a vastly larger one.

I have to confess that my next entry might be an eternity away, but if you read this and want to find out how I'm getting on in India or wherever then you can find me on www.offexploring.com under BigTone.

So for now, I leave you and wish you the best of luck. Whatever you want from life, go for it. The results might not be what you expect - hell, you might not even like them. But you can always try something else. And when you look back on your life, it's far better to say "I did" than "I didn't".

To think otherwise will fool no-one, not even you.