Journey To USA

It was Tuesday, 16th August 2005 - the day that I have been waiting for so long. Well, I was about to travel to USA for the first time in my life. Its not that I have never seen any foreign country before but yet there was lot of excitement. This journey was my first longest ever and I was the first one from my family to come to USA. It was indeed a proud moment. I was really happy as I was going for good into a new world.

Moving along the line at check-in counter, I faced a small trouble. I was asked by my friend to accommodate some of her stuff in my carry over luggage. I decided to help her but unfortunately could not open my luggage. Gosh! I had forgotten my combination. This was the first time such situation had occurred. I became worried as to how would I retrieve my immigration documents upon reaching USA.

So after almost 16-18 hours of journey to Chicago via London, I reached the Chicago airport immigration. I had mentioned the problem to the officer who was managing the queue and giving instructions. The officer immediately guided me to two other officers and the problem was taken care of. While this matter was being resolved, I helped an Indian couple (who were almost my parent's age). Actually, they were having a hard time in understanding the officer's conversation. The officer requested me to help them understand the matter. Thus, in a way, I acted as a translator and helped the couple. I was really happy and felt how good it is to be a "polyglot".

A Memorable experience with Habitat!

Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit organization that builds homes for low-income families with the help of volunteers in the community. I always had a wonderful experience working with the organization and I will be sharing one of my most beautiful memorable time in serving the community.

The first time I decided to work for habitat was during my "Service Learning Group Project" for business communication course. It was an activity required to complete the course successfully. It always have been a wonderful experience working with habitat. I had never thought that I would be building homes in USA, especially, being a finance major. But somethings are meant to be done at a particular time.

It was a first time experience and honestly, I was a bit nervous. But then, there is always a first time in life for everything. The nervousness was because it was a completely new environment and I was not sure of what will I be doing. But all this fear went off when I reached the site. There were lot of individuals and other groups present here who have not worked in a construction environment before. Habitat does require volunteers but one need not be a skilled professional to carry out the tasks on site. One good thing about working with habitat is that nobody feels aloof. Its like working within a huge family, with a set of individuals from different backgrounds, cultures and skills - all working towards an objective of providing a basic need to an individual or a family who cannot afford enough money to have a shelter.

I feel really blessed and lucky to be able to provide a helping hand for a good cause. I really enjoy working with so many wonderful people at habitat and it would be my pleasure to work for habitat again and again. In the end, I would encourage all of you who is reading my blog to definitely experience this feeling and feel PROUD for acting in the interests of the society.