A Day of Random Occurrences: Walchandnagar to Mumbai

Written on 24th of May

It was our last day at Walchandnagar. We were packing and waiting for our last meal, when the scream “Ekkk Gecko!”—was heard coming from the bathroom and out came Nadine running. True to the SWE spirit of watching out for one another, within minutes there was five of us trying to catch the gecko. At 5 inches long, this particular gecko was quite the monster. However with the help of a stick (used for the rockets activity), we were able to get the gecko out of the bathroom.

After the eventful start of the day, we proceeded on to the breakfast of delicious Indian pancakes (a hybrid of American pancakes and crepes) and preparing for a day of travel. It was weird getting prepared to leave Walchandnagar. We are definitely going to miss the small town which made us feel at home. The last four days was kind of surreal. It was a great experience for us to be able to interact with the students. It was unreal to be able to get the students excited about the activities we did, learn about engineering concepts and teamwork. The Principal dropped by while we were packing to say good bye. He was saying that the students were really sad to let us go and how they got all emotional after we left the school yesterday. It was kind of hard to believe that we made such an impact on the students in just four short days

SWE Ladies: On the bus to Pune from Walchandnagar

After saying our goodbyes to our extremely welcoming hosts, we started on our way to Pune which was 3 hours away via a Walchandnagar bus. Then came the exciting part of the day- Indian Trains! The train station in Pune was quite the experience. We were working to find the platform our train would arrive at while trying to get accustomed to the hustle and bustle of the train station. There were people from all walks of life trying to get to their train in a hurried manner. With some luck and a lot of staring at Hindi announcements, we were able to get to our train and on to our compartment. The train ride was quite fun as it allowed us to see India at its most native form as the train went through the rural India where we were able to see a combination of lush green farmlands and beautiful mountains.

On the train

Finally after five hours on the train, we arrived in the Mumbai CST train station. An interesting conversation followed as 11 girls who can’t speak Hindi and two taxi drivers tried to negotiate a ride back to the YWCA. We highly entertained the taxi drivers as we were trying to bargain with them. Finally agreeing on a price, we piled into two taxis, getting to know each other real close and personal as we 5 or 6 people squeezed in each taxi with our bags. He he he. Finally, at the YWCA, we had a quick dinner, joined the world of internet after 5 longs days and then after a long, long day—“BED”!