I've decided to take a break from work as I know it and put my skills to test in a completely new place! I'm off to Chennai to volunteer at a community project funded by the Heritage Foundation of Madras. My combination of nerves and excitement are sending me crazy so I've started to make lists of everything I need to do in the next fortnight... rabies jab, tick, photocopy passport, tick, get someone to feed the fish while I'm away, I'm working on that one!I keep trying to imagine my first few days but I know that nothing's going to prepare me for the culture shock..

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, Chennai , India

This first week has been a real shock to all the senses, and I don't think that there's a single think that I could easily compare to being at home. India is crazy, everywhere you look there are different pictures to take and major contrasts,  Everything is really colorful, and most of it covered in a layer of dust and dirt (including me most of the time!) It's Saturday and today I decided to explore a bit by foot and venture into a few places that I wouldn't pass easily in the back of a rickshaw.&

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, Chennai , India

I'm now half way through my placement as Volunteer in India as Cultural Activity Planner and I can't believe how fast it's whizzing by. When I think over the last three weeks it seems like I have packed such a lot in, made new friends, try new things and learnt a lot about life here in India. Chennai, as I expected from reading the guide books is a place where people come for a purpose like studying or working (all the Brits seem to be training to be call centre staff and all the Europeans are from engineering and airline companies!) there are very few tourists here and I think my experiences of this city will be really different compared to a place like Delhi.

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, Chennai , India