India.

I am going to India sept-oct. Why. I am leading a trip. I want to share my experience as a social documentary photographer and overall humanitarianism with a few other people. The trip is small and pre-screened on purpose. I led a tour a few years back with an awesome photographer Phil Borges and built a school in Takaungu, Kenya for his organization Bridges To Understanding. You can read about it in the Kenya journals archive on this blog.

I've been to India as a backpacker in 1998. My traveling companion didn't like it there, left after 2 weeks (also had a full-time job to get back to). I fell in love with India, and stayed. "Are you sure?" he asked. There were tears in my eyes, I remember feeling very stiff, and scared, "Yes" I said firmly. So I stayed. He flew out of (then) Bombay, and I stayed, backpacked and traveled on 2nd class trains down to Travendruaim, flew over to Bod Gaya and Varanassi, went to Delhi from there and flew home, 2 months later with about $58 left (time to go home). Back then we could change our flights around with a little negotiation and backshish.

India has different meaning to me now. It is booming. It seems 'young' in a sense that there is enthusiasm for this boom, inspiration, hope, goals, dreams. This, mixed with amazing, ancient culture, quirky personality and sense of humor sounds like a great adventure.

I have this great opportunity to be in India, work, photograph, lead a tour, create a ton of content and get paid. Huh. I'd be crazy not to.

So stay tuned. I will be blogging while I am there, uploading content, describing what is like for an American woman to go there and give a few things a shot in India today.