HPU #AfricansInShimla
I have been toying around with starting this blog series for almost a year now. See in the last couple of weeks I have been picking up such great material unintentionally so. I have been a student of HPU for a year pursuing my MSc degree with the Biosciences Department. It is an extremely small university with very limited resources regardless of being a Grade 1 university according to Indian standards. So the first question I get asked is why the hell did I not stay in ZAR, I was already a student of one of the best, University of Pretoria. Couple of reasons really. 1. I have been a student of Tuks for 6 whole years, see I am one of those people that took double the time to complete their degree. I am not going to blame this on anyone really, there was a year or two where I was not interested in anything academic. I took on an adventure once and lived in Namibia for year, which is a whole other blog posts of its own. 2. I have always wanted to be a research scientist, though the first time I said it out loud I was not aware it is such a journey. Given that I had already “wasted” so much time trying to complete my degree, I figured I can jump into MSc and skip the Honours year. And lastly, I wanted to study abroad and of all the scholarships I applied to ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations) was the first to reply. And since I had been here before, I knew I could easily take on the culture shock and thrive in pursuit of my MSc, and plus the scholarship is good.
And so here I am, one year into the program and the Himachal lifestyle. It is has been one amazing experience, I mean sure there are some hard days where home sickness prevails and results in tears, but then I boil a cup of water and prepare the South African rooibos tea with rusks and move on. Everything is better with Rooibos!! My goal with this series is to share my experiences as an African student in India, which means I will write about the education system, what it is like being African in Shimla, the culture shocks, the awesome moments and of course the tough days too. I will also be sharing stories of other African students that are living here. My university-HPU has a couple of Afghani students but as far as I know I am the only African student they got. However, one nearby university has over 200 African students, mostly from the West region. I am super excited to hear and share their stories. Let us explore my first month and the visit to Manali in the next post. Stay tuned #AfricanInIndia #MatIndiaSeries
Took these few days after I arrived while visiting a nearby Art Gallery. Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed inside the gallery, but man the art! Obviously I fell in love with the stone sculptures, few days in and I had already made such cool friends 🙂
matshidisolp 