Keeping up w/ Current Events

As we near southern India, the recent Kashmir earthquake calamity is on everyone's minds. Even though the crisis is thousands of miles away from Chennai (Madras), philanthropic requests are mounting. How can we help? The internet keeps track of current events for us while Global Studies enlightens us on India's political secularism, Hindi nationalism and the Muslim separatists. Our brains are boiling over with information about each country we visit. Naturally, staying in a country you already know so much about, even for a few days, promotes a sense of benevolence and compassion for it's people. Not all students feel this way; a quarter are here to party and 2 lone Bush supporters pray for our souls every night. The rest of us are overwhelming thankful for this opportunity and skip partying and pool nights to internalize how the trip is impacting our view of the world. India will be a cultural shock unlike Venezuela, Brazil and South Africa. Reading the NY Times, listening to NPR or watching PBS could never prepare anyone for a place like India. The faculty know this. There's no way of sanitizing the truth when it's right in front of your face. We arrive October 19th.