This summer, St. Cloud State University’s College of Science & Engineering has sent two SCSU students, Ali Almanasif and  Peter Ojambo, to India. The students are completing an internship at JK Cement Company. The internships were arranged through the JKLU-SCSU Internship Exchange program, a partnership between SCSU and a university in India. The partnership creates internship abroad opportunities for students from both institutions. We are tracking the students’ progress here on the COSE International Programs blog. Check back periodically to hear more about their experiences abroad.

Ali’s Experience in India, Journal Entry 1:

In my first week in India, two things stood out to me: the traffic and the level of poverty. Here are my thoughts on each issue.

I.  Traffic

Traffic in India is something that would be very interesting for anyone who has never been out of USA. Can Americans even imagine driving on I-94 with no speed limit, no seatbelt, no side mirror, and driving the opposite direction to make a U-turn at the nearest exit? Apparently, this is how they drive in India. However, in this overpopulated country of 1.2 billion people and with such reckless driving, it seems like there is not one single accident all day long and night. They have a unique tool used to tell you about any direction that a driver might want to take – and that is the horn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II.  Poverty

I had never thought that I would come across such a difficult life as the one that many Indian people have to live with every day and moment by moment. Poverty in India is defiantly the saddest phenomena that I have ever experienced. Poor people work for anything that would provide them money to eat in order to see the sun of the next morning, but not enough to have a safe place to stay. You might ask yourself a question: Where do they sleep? They sleep on the streets, train stations, underneath bridges, salvage yards, in tents, etc. Sadly, they are not just adults or young people in their 20s. In fact, the majority of them are kids in their early age between 4-12.