Lesson Learned.

Okay people! What’s the number one thing that we all should know when traveling to a foreign country?? I’ll give you a hint: You can't go home with out it...

DING! DING! DING!

If you answered “Always have your passport” then you will go very far in this world.

Me on the other hand...

Last Thursday, as I got ready to leave for work I did my every-couple-days check in on my passport. Now, I know that a passport is like the holy grail so I like to keep it in a super secret, safe spot: under my mattress. Who would ever think to look there, right? Flip the mattress, there it is, easy as pie. Well, this day I noticed that there was something different, something that wasn't there before. It was a sticker on the front of my passport. That's odd, I thought. I grabbed it, sat on the bed, and when I opened the booklet I saw all these stamps that said I have been to the Bahamas and Singapore, which I never have. I shouted a particular curse word that was definitely appropriate and then saw that the picture that was supposed to be me, was in fact a younger, much lighter woman!

Thankfully, as it turned out, it was the other intern, Kourtney, that arrived in Mumbai the same day as me. She and I attended orientation the following day and a staff member made copies of our passports. When he handed them back to us individually, we did not think to check them and put them away safely in our bags.

What's funny is that Kourtney and I did not look at our passport for quite some time. I left that day after orientation, and she stayed for over a week in Mumbai before heading to her work site in Rajasthan. When I finally contacted her via Facebook, she said that she realized the mistake when she was already on the train headed up north. I figured as much since I hadn't heard from her, and when I saw her passport I knew that she had already gone the day before.

Luckily, I am headed to Rajasthan after completing my internship in Maharashtra. I will be at the same site, Educate Girls, that she is currently at. And thankfully, she will still be there and not need her passport prior to that. What an odd circumstance. It seems almost pointless that the universe would decide to throw this at us since we will easily be able to exchange them.

If anything, I will never forget to always make sure that I have MY passport. Until I get it back, I will continue to guard this passport as though it were...well, somebody else's passport.