Waverly Dolaman (USA)
28-Day Cultural Tour in Bangalore, India, 2006.

I had an amazing time on my recent volunteer trip to India. Below please find my responses to the volunteer questionnaire.

Pretrip Guide
The pre-trip guide was extremely helpful. The most useful part of the guide was the packing list because it covered all of the important things to bring. W

Program Outline
While some of the activities of the program were conducted in a different order than listed on the website, the website outlined the entire program accurately.

Project Coordinator
The local project coordinator was great! She answered all of our questions and conducted a daily morning meeting to go over the activities for the day.

Sightseeing
A large component of the cultural tour included visits to sightseeing sites in South India. The most enjoyable places that I visited were Hampi and Mamallapuram. Hampi had amazing ruins and Mamallapuram was great because I went to the beach and did some shopping.

Do you believe the experience of volunteering abroad changed you in any way? Would you volunteer again?
Volunteering abroad gave me a greater understanding of India. The conversations and one-on-one interactions that I had with people provided me with firsthand insight that I could not get from any book. I have a great sense of accomplishment after completing my volunteer project and truly believe that the people I helped appreciated my efforts. Finally, volunteering made me extremely grateful for all the gifts that I have been given in life and reminded me of how lucky I am. I would certainly volunteer abroad again with Cosmic because it is a great way to gain exposure to another culture while helping those who are less fortune.