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Jack Swartzentruber

Jack Swartzentruber is passionate about economic justice, philosophy, and music. He has been involved in music his entire life, playing piano, upright bass and guitar as well as being a singer. He also has participated in political activism and service projects in Philadelphia with groups such as Broad Street Ministries and Philly Socialists, as well as in West Virginia helping to repair homes with the Appalachia Service Project. His goals for the year are to become fluent in Hindi and develop a close relationship with his host community and cohort. He really likes this quote by Ursula Le Guin: You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.

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Holi

May 29, 2019

The Indian celebration of Holi was one of the best ways for me to end my experience in Hyderabad. Known as the festival of color, Holi signals the beginning of spring and for many represents an opportunity to let loose and be social with anyone one meets. The most well-known part of the festival, “playing...

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Ganesh Chaturthi

May 22, 2019

At the very beginning of my experience in India, I was lucky enough to experience the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, a ten-day long festival celebrating the birth of the elephant god Ganesh. During this festival, thousands of people throughout our city paint and adorn small clay statues of the god, and proceed to parade them...

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My Hindi Journey

March 26, 2019

My Hindi Journey One of my goals when I set out for India was to learn a language. I believed that language and culture are linked at their core, and that it is often difficult to understand one without the other. So, I wanted to make learning Hindi a central part of my experience here....

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Coincidences

March 20, 2019

[image: f793543d-319c-4b49-9900-11480ddb6ab2 (1).JPG] Sometimes, life presents us with coincidences and connections that almost seem unbelievable. At the beginning of my time in India, my host mom told me that she was going to take a three-week trip to the United States and Canada, both to see family and for work purposes (she works for an...

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A Day in Hyderabad

March 20, 2019

A Day in Hyderabad Here’s a quick snapshot of an average day of my life in Hyderabad. 7:00 am Every day I wake up at 7 am to do my morning chores. Usually my job is to walk over to the hibiscus tree nearby to our house and pick the flowers that my family uses...

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Learning By Letting Go

December 6, 2018

It’s been nearly one hundred days since I’ve been living in India, and I find that the more time I spend here the harder it is for me to write about it. I think there are a couple reasons for this, but it primarily stems from the fact that every time I think I’ve gained...

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First Blog

August 25, 2018

As the last one of my graduating friends to leave this summer, I’ve had the pleasure (or burden) of saying good-bye to all of them individually. While painful, going through so many farewells has given me the opportunity to reflect on the changes occuring in my life. Primarily, it has forced me to realize just...

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