About India

Mumbai is on the west coast of India along the Arabian Sea- just under the "hump'' part.  Pakistan borders it to the northwest(yellow) Did you ever think I would live this close to the Pakistan border??  Bangladesh(green) is actually in the middle of India. India has 1.2 billion people and has 16% of the world population on 2.42% of the world's land mass. 

Mumbai ----------------------------------->

About India's people

820 million people are Hindus.

120 million people are Muslims

80 million people are Budhists

25 million people are Christians

20 million people are Sikhs

4 million people are Jains

Hindi is the official language, but each state has its own main language and many languages are spoken throughout the country.   English is the business language so I should be able to find English speakers in most places.

Mumbai is in the state of Maharashtra.  There are over 19 million people in mumbai. About 30,000 people live per 2.5 square miles.  In comparison New York city has a density of 2,050 per 2.5 square miles. So Mumbai is considerably more crowded than New York city!!!  yikes!!!

Dharavi slum - one of the worst/largest slums in the world.  It is 1/2 a square mile with ONE MILLION PEOPLE LIVING THERE.   It is what "Slumdog Millionaire" is based on.  From what I have read, it functions like a very crowded city.  There are businesses, churches and schools.  I talked to a substitute at my school this year whose daughter did some work there and was never bothered - the people are hardworking and nice.  This is not far a all from where I will live. 

 

Monsoons and Squat toilets

Monsoon season is from June to September.  It rains.  A lot.  Apparently it rains so hard that it shuts down the transportation system.

I like to walk around as much as possible and run errands on foot, but that might have to wait until after Monsoon season.  That is a lot of water.

 One thing that people always ask about is

the bathroom situation.  Squat toilets are

common and toilet paper is NOT common!   

 Most Indians use their left hand and water

 to clean themselves.  That is why the left

 hand is considered unclean and it is

disrespectful to eat with the left hand,

handle money with the left had etc. 

 I had no idea how to use a squat toilet so
I looked it up on the internet! 

You can seriously find infomation on ANYTHING on the web :)  This is how you are supposed to squat and it is way harder than it looks.  I am old and have lupus joints. My friends at school laughed as I practiced. It

 is really hard to get down that far.  I also
seriously considered bringing a funnel so I don't
pee on my clothes. HA! They sell disposable and reusable funnels at camping supply stores to help women pee in the woods.  I didn't get any, but I may wish I had :)

These two things are completely out of my realm of experience and other people count these as reasons not to go to India go, but I am just trying to see everything as part of the adventure.

Quite a Process

Getting a job overseas and preparing to move overseas is a huge process!

There are tons of private international schools all over the world.  They are all independently operated so I signed up with Search Associates.  SA organizes job fairs so they can match teachers with schools.  You turn in all your infomation to them and schools can look at it so you don't have to fill out dozens of applications.  I signed up to attend a job fair in Boston the first week of February.  I was one of the fortunate applicants who had phone and skype interviews with schools before the fair.  I had three schools that were pretty much guaranteed to offer me a job.

During the whole process I kept saying things like "I'm game to go pretty much anywhere, but India isn't high on my list and I'd probably turn a school down for that reason."  God had different plans!  I interviewed with the middle school principal several times and the high school principal once and I just really think I will fit in at the school. 

Once I was hired, I told my current principal that I wouldn't officially resign until I had my Visa in hand.  I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly because with the way US schoosl are cutting teachers I was afraid once I gave up my job, I wouldn't get it back!  It took four weeks to get my Visa.  The day I got it, I resigned.  Kind of sad - been with this district for 11 years.  I just got my medical stuff and vaccines finished this week.  I couldn't sell my house so I am renting it out.  I signed up with a property management company to deal with getting renters etc.  I was allowed to take 600 pounds of stuff that fin into 6.2 cubic meters.  Not a lot of stuff!  The shippers came this week so that is one more thing I can cross of the list. This week I am dealing with more banking stuff and paperwork.  Fun!

People always ask if I am scared.  About going to India?  no way!  It is an adventure!  That paperwork is going to get screwed up and something might go badly with bills or something??  yes, a little nervous about that!  Being on a plane for 19 hours? definitely scared about that!

Once I get this living overseas thing down, it will make it a lot easier to move to the next country!

Five weeks to Mumbai

A lot of people have been asking me the same questions about international teaching so I thought I'd try to adress some of them here!

I love to travel and see new places and this seems to be a good way to experience different cultures long term.  I applied to work at schools with the Department of Defense about 18 months ago and that didn't work out so this year I interviewed with private schools.  Two schools in china were interested in hiring me but I chose to accept the job in Mumbai, India for several reasons.
1. The school is amazing!  Lots of great opportunies for me there.
2. India is a democracy so I'll have access to facebook, skype etc.
3. The school provides furnished housing so I don't have to worry about paying bills with a housing allowance, finding an apartment etc.
4. There are a lot of English speaking people in India.

I will be working at the American School of Bombay.   It is an international school with students and teachers from all over the world.  The school year is similar to here.  School starts Aug 9th for the kids and ends June 3rd or so.  We get a week off in October, three weeks off at Christmas, and a week for spring break in April.  I'm hoping to get a lot of opportunity to travel while I'm there!

This is all I got to take with me.
I have sold or will sell almost everything I own. My dad is coming to Houston on July 20th and we are going to drive up to Illinois with some things that I can't take with me, but want to keep.  I will be leaving Illinois July 25th to fly to New York. All of the new teachers are flying from Newark on the 26th. It is coming up fast!

The school sent this book to help prepare us for what we may encounter.
I will try to post some of the more interesting details about the process  :)