Info on Sangam

Since most of you don't know much about Girl Guides I thought I would give you a little information to understand what I'm doing here, where I'm living, and who I'm living/working with
I am living right now at Sangam, the Girl Guide World Centre in Pune, India. The centre acts as a campground for any groups who want to use the space, a conference centre for our events and for any outside organizations, and a hotel/hostel for independent guests who want to stay for a day or a week or longer.
I am one of three Programme Assistants and our job is to help facilitate the 7 - 12 day events we hold for Guiding participants from around the world. During the monsoon season while I am here we will be holding 7 events:
Essence of India
Holistic Living
Ambassadors for Children
Education for All
Action in the Community
Community Action Project
Feasts and Festivals
Each event has a different focus and we will run sessions, invite keynotes, take tours, visit community partners, etc. based on the event. We try to keep a number of things common so all participants get to experience the culture and understand our area, so we will take them on a neighbourhood walk, go for dinner at an indian family's home, go shopping for saris/punjabi suits, etc. learn how to tie a sari, get mehendi (henna) done, etc.

The past 2 weeks has been my training and they had all of us experience all of those sessions, and it was lots of fun. We had a crash course of life in India!
The people I'm working with here aka my Sangam Family are:
Sally - the World Centre Manager - from Australia
Darshana - Deputy World Centre Manager - from India - Mumbai
CL - Programme Manager - from USA
Mary T - Event Administrator - from Ireland
Minakshi - Administration - from India
Aruna - Manages the domestic staff - from India
and then I believe 8-10 women on our domestic staff team, and 8-10 men on our grounds team. This includes our day and night watchmen who take care of us.
It's been a lot of fun working with the local staff because they're so sweet, and understanding when we have questions about things. The other day I was sick and the next day Mangesh our night watchman made a point of asking me how I was doing - when I didnt even realise he knew I had been sick. They are all very sweet and incredibly good to us. I'm still getting used to being so well taken care of...you feel a little guilty having people do so much for you, but during events we would never have the time to take care of those things!
Then there are the fabulous volunteers:
ME - aka Creen Machine :)
Christa - Programme Assistant - USA
Anna - Programme Assistant - UK
Virginia - Assistant Programme Manager - Brazil

So in a nutshell thats the way we work here, I will try to post an event schedule when we start next week so you get an idea of how the days are...and I will post pictures of the centre when the computers start working with me and upload my pictures! :)