Teaching in the local villages of Jaisalmer is challenging for a number of reasons, but I would like to discuss just 2 of them today. The first is the language barrier: P2 volunteers speak English with a few phrases from 'standard' Hindi, most project executives (Indian IDEX staff who work with volunteers) speak English and 'standard' Hindi, and the children speak limited 'standard' Hindi and a local dialect of their regional variety of Hindi - Rajasthani.

We arrived in India a couple of weeks ago and have already experienced so many new things. I want to give a good overview of what it is like starting out as a Platform2 volunteer in India, but will try not to go on for too long!