EWB pre-departure course

So I'm in North London at a massive countryside conference centre (which is also a huge Scout centre) for the week with all the other EWB placement volunteers. Arrived around 11am (but was already tired after only getting about 4 hours sleep!) and have been gradually meeting the other volunteers - there's quite a few (~25?).  Several are heading to South and East Africa and a bunch of us going to south and southeast Asia.  Traveled down with two others from Cambridge- Antoine, who is heading to Uganda for 3 months to work with RASD on a coffee demulcilager along with two others, and Priya who is heading to Peru for 6 months on her own. Really great to start meeting people who share similar interests and passions- so I'm looking forward to the rest of the week.

Where in the world all the EWB-UK volunteers are off to

I've finally met Seb, who will also be heading to India with me to work at the SELCO lab. He's going to be there for 5-6 months and will be heading out a week before me.

Which reminds me- my flights are booked! Leaving in late July, flying direct to Bengaluru (Bangalore). I'll return on the 4th November which leaves a bit of time to travel around a little- hopefully in Kerala if possible.

We have lots of activities and seminars this week from all sorts of interesting people. I'm really looking forward to a talk called "Big Picture: work on energy access" by someone from Practical Action consulting, and a session on "Working with communities" with a girl from the Institute of Development Studies.