My first post from India

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Americans are rich and spoiled. Spoiled not in the fact that we are preppy rich white people, but in the fact that many of us have so much and have never witnessed firsthand the poverty that most of the world lives in. We are spoiled because many Americans have never seen real poverty and therefore do not have to live with the guilt of wealth.

I am a spoiled white American. I am sitting in a bed in Delhi India shrouded by a mosquito net. The dogs down below roam the streets around the apartment, barking and fighting; starkly contrasting the peace of the bedroom I will be spending my night in. The whistle of the night guard sounds regularly occasionally bursting into a shrill caustic series of sharp notes. Honking penetrates the remainder of the quietness as I type this during one of the all to common power outages that affect mother India.

Wow, I am in India for the next 5 months. The one question that has been penetrating most of my thoughts today (18 hours in a plane, and 8 hours in Chicago O’Hair airport) is this, “Why am I going to India? What can I do here that would make any differences?” I know the answers to these questions, but breathing the thick Indian air dampens my hope.

But a note on the very bright side! I just traveled to the other side of the world! The adventures are endless! Sarah’s family is the greatest and Noel is so sweet to let me stay in his room while I’m in Delhi. The India markets and malls await me tomorrow and the food is fabulous!

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