Pre-Departure: Nerves, Excitement and Expectations

This summer I'll be working in Ujire, India (near Bangalore) for two months. The organisation that I'm working with is called SELCO. They are a profit making enterprise set up to target energy provision for poor Indian communities and won an Ashden Award for their work in 2007 (http://www.ashdenawards.org/finalists_2007).

I'll be working on a number of projects including:
1. Household cookstoves which reduce levels of indoor smoke, a big killer due to respiratory problems
2. Small scale wind turbines to backup solar electricity provision
3. Evaporative cooling of houses.

The nerves and excitement are building as I start to finalise my flights, visa's and plans. The opportunity to not only live in a completely different culture but to work within it and to hopefully have some impact on peoples quality of life is undescribable.

In addition to the excitement is an inevitable sense of fear of not meeting expectations which I think is inevitable on any such project. I'm fresh out of uni with little practical experience. Sometimes I ask what I can give to a company who are already doing a fantastic job.

What reassures me is that this feeling is natural to all people on such projects and in many other walks of life. Graduates who start a new job in the UK have the same fears but quickly mould to the task and so can I.

I think this will be the most challenging thing I've ever done but also the most rewarding and inspiring.

I can't wait to start!!!