As I was walking into the office on Thursday 21st December to bid farewell to colleagues I was feeling a huge mixture of emotions. I was hugely proud and happy to be heading to a new Zimbabwe but sad that my six months in Bengaluru had come to an end. Bengaluru has been one hell of a journey, one that I am so pleased I had the confidence to do (I can feel tears in my eyes as I write this). There is no exaggeration when I say the past six months have been life-changing. Since arriving in Bengaluru I have tried so many things that I never thought I’d do:

Living in a new city is one. I had spent the previous 26 years of my life living in Zimbabwe and apart from the few trips out of Zimbabwe I had never been to Asia in my life. So from day one, I was experiencing something new. I have now fallen in love with the place and I already really miss it.

Going on a night out (and then several more). Prior to coming to Bengaluru, I was reluctant to go out clubbing because I didn’t think it was my sort of thing. But, from day one of my stay here I was thrown into a hectic 2 weeks of non-stop partying and I loved it! And so throughout the majority of my six months, you’d see me down at the Monkey Bar on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and having a good sing-a-long at Aarbor on a Tuesday.

Becoming a global fellow.

Before moving to Bengaluru I was quite shy. But, since starting my fellowship where I was thrown into socialising from day one, my confidence has massively grown. So much so that I taught Zimbabwe dance moves which involved talking to huge groups of people at once (crazy right?!). But I loved it! I was involved meeting with businesses and working with them to solve problems. If I showed my CV to the teachers at my old school they would never believe it was mine!

Travelling.

In September my housemate John and I went inter-railing across the city. Pre-fellowship me never had the ambition to try new things and I would never have had the confidence to try out new things. But, being in Bengaluru changed this. In particular, mingling with new people and learning about their experiences gave me a new outlook on life. I started to see that I needed to live my life to the fullest and put myself out there. And so I did. Starting in Koramangala we traveled across 12 localities, seeing loads of incredible sights along the way, meeting people from all over the city and making some pretty awesome memories. My intra-city experience was most definitely the best of my life in Bengaluru.

So I have tried some pretty awesome things since starting my fellowship and I have massively changed as a person, becoming much more confident, independent and ambitious. And whilst at times it was a challenge (writing monthly blogs was far from an easy task and there were certainly times where I was knocked down by disappointing performance at work or arguments with housemates), the good times definitely outweighed the bad. It’s safe to say I am leaving Bengaluru with many amazing memories, great experiences, and friends for life. Here are a few more pictures from my time in Bengaluru

I would like to say a huge thank you to the team at Citizen Matters for making my time here so fantastic. I’d especially like to thank the staff at Idex for all they have done for me over the past 6 months. You have not only taught me loads of new and interesting things and helped me to secure a future career but you have also inspired me to do well in life and allowed me to realise my potential. My time here really has been wonderful and I hope everybody hoping to start in the near future a fellowship, have an incredible time there as I did. Goodbye Bengaluru!