There are three people here in India who are responsible for everything we get to do. Vasudeva, Kavitha, and Rama Krishna lead us fearlessly through the sensory overload that is India. I would never have made it past arriving at the airport in Delhi without them. They are amazing and I am so glad that they work with CIEE.
Vasuji (Vasu is short for Vasudeva and ji is a term of respect in Hindi) is the Resident Director of CIEE in Hyderabad. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology and has been a practicing sociologist in the past – we had an excellent conversation about sociological theories over dinner one night. Vasu is a very caring, thoughtful, reflective, and soft-spoken man. He never loses his calm, even when all of us students are careening out of control with worry and stress because nothing is going the way we thought it would. He is teaching a non-credit course on self-awareness, critical thinking, and meditation that I can’t wait to take. Vasu always listens extremely closely to what you say and asks genuine questions that make you 
feel important and understood. He also enjoys coming up with funny ways to tell us important things – see the picture where he is using a puppet to tell us about health issues for us in India. I feel that I will learn a lot from Vasu over the next 4 months. Vasu also works kind of as the Indian equivalent of adult male friend that I've grown used to having due to hanging out with Steve & the Colgate Hockey coaches so much during the school year.
Vasu’s family is also amazing. His wife is gorgeous and extremely hospitable. They have two children – an 11 year old son and an 8 year old daughter. Ardjun, his son, and I had a wonderful conversation last night. He is very inquisitive; he asked me all about my favorite places, cars, computer games, hobbies, books, animals, etc. He also gave me a quiz about Harry Potter, which I am pleased to report I aced. At the end of our conversation he invited me to be his friend and shook my hand to make it official. Vasu’s daughter is a shy, little pixy. She is very cute. She helped me pick out my desert at the restaurant last night – she told me I could have a brownie and a piece of chocolate cake because that is what she was having.
Kavithaji organizes practically everything for CIEE in Hyderabad. She is a little stressed out right now because she is getting married in 22 days! We get to go to her wedding, which I am wicked excited about. While she works for CIEE, Kavitha is also a Political Science Ph.D. student at the University of Hyderabad. This is helpful because she knows many of our professors personally and is able to help us get in touch with them. I love watching Kavitha while she interacts with our bus drivers, ticket men, security guards, restaurant staff, etc. because in a society that is so dominantly patriarchal, it is awesome to see such a tiny little woman be the kind of boss that makes everyone around her snap to attention. Kavitha is innocent and smiley. She loves to ask us questions and enjoys when we teach her Spanish. Kavitha makes us laugh because she some of us by names that she thinks are ours, but really aren’t. For example, of the four boys in our group, two are named Andrew. One of them, she calls Sheppard – which is his last name. The other Andrew she calls A. Hesh, which we think is her pronunciation of H, because his last name is Hart. It is very endearing. Kavitha knows how to get things done, which in India – a country where getting anything done is a minor miracle – is extremely helpful. I’m glad she’s working for us.
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Rama Krishna is like the CIEE assistant. He is named after two Hindu gods, Ram and Krishna – this is relatively funny because the CIEE secretary is named Krishna Ram. (Note: Last names come first and first names come last in the traditional writing of Hindu names.) Krishna is 22 and a Political Science Masters student at the University. He is the most adorable Indian man ever. He does all the grunt work for us. Kavitha orders him around, he’ll disappear for awhile, and when he comes back he’ll have bought us all bananas or something like that. Also, our first few days on campus he herded us around everywhere – he was like a walking map. Basically, my entire knowledge of this campus comes from Krishna. Krishna is always smiling. Since he is basically the same age as us, he loves hanging out with us. We taught him how to play Hearts on the train and he loved it. He asks lots of questions and explains many different aspects of India to us. Indians tilt their head from side to side to show their agreement, Ram Krishna does this very often and in the most adorable way ever. We all love Rama Krishna and are very happy that he helps out with CIEE.
Vasuji (Vasu is short for Vasudeva and ji is a term of respect in Hindi) is the Resident Director of CIEE in Hyderabad. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology and has been a practicing sociologist in the past – we had an excellent conversation about sociological theories over dinner one night. Vasu is a very caring, thoughtful, reflective, and soft-spoken man. He never loses his calm, even when all of us students are careening out of control with worry and stress because nothing is going the way we thought it would. He is teaching a non-credit course on self-awareness, critical thinking, and meditation that I can’t wait to take. Vasu always listens extremely closely to what you say and asks genuine questions that make you 
feel important and understood. He also enjoys coming up with funny ways to tell us important things – see the picture where he is using a puppet to tell us about health issues for us in India. I feel that I will learn a lot from Vasu over the next 4 months. Vasu also works kind of as the Indian equivalent of adult male friend that I've grown used to having due to hanging out with Steve & the Colgate Hockey coaches so much during the school year.Vasu’s family is also amazing. His wife is gorgeous and extremely hospitable. They have two children – an 11 year old son and an 8 year old daughter. Ardjun, his son, and I had a wonderful conversation last night. He is very inquisitive; he asked me all about my favorite places, cars, computer games, hobbies, books, animals, etc. He also gave me a quiz about Harry Potter, which I am pleased to report I aced. At the end of our conversation he invited me to be his friend and shook my hand to make it official. Vasu’s daughter is a shy, little pixy. She is very cute. She helped me pick out my desert at the restaurant last night – she told me I could have a brownie and a piece of chocolate cake because that is what she was having.
Kavithaji organizes practically everything for CIEE in Hyderabad. She is a little stressed out right now because she is getting married in 22 days! We get to go to her wedding, which I am wicked excited about. While she works for CIEE, Kavitha is also a Political Science Ph.D. student at the University of Hyderabad. This is helpful because she knows many of our professors personally and is able to help us get in touch with them. I love watching Kavitha while she interacts with our bus drivers, ticket men, security guards, restaurant staff, etc. because in a society that is so dominantly patriarchal, it is awesome to see such a tiny little woman be the kind of boss that makes everyone around her snap to attention. Kavitha is innocent and smiley. She loves to ask us questions and enjoys when we teach her Spanish. Kavitha makes us laugh because she some of us by names that she thinks are ours, but really aren’t. For example, of the four boys in our group, two are named Andrew. One of them, she calls Sheppard – which is his last name. The other Andrew she calls A. Hesh, which we think is her pronunciation of H, because his last name is Hart. It is very endearing. Kavitha knows how to get things done, which in India – a country where getting anything done is a minor miracle – is extremely helpful. I’m glad she’s working for us.
.jpg)
Rama Krishna is like the CIEE assistant. He is named after two Hindu gods, Ram and Krishna – this is relatively funny because the CIEE secretary is named Krishna Ram. (Note: Last names come first and first names come last in the traditional writing of Hindu names.) Krishna is 22 and a Political Science Masters student at the University. He is the most adorable Indian man ever. He does all the grunt work for us. Kavitha orders him around, he’ll disappear for awhile, and when he comes back he’ll have bought us all bananas or something like that. Also, our first few days on campus he herded us around everywhere – he was like a walking map. Basically, my entire knowledge of this campus comes from Krishna. Krishna is always smiling. Since he is basically the same age as us, he loves hanging out with us. We taught him how to play Hearts on the train and he loved it. He asks lots of questions and explains many different aspects of India to us. Indians tilt their head from side to side to show their agreement, Ram Krishna does this very often and in the most adorable way ever. We all love Rama Krishna and are very happy that he helps out with CIEE. 
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