Leaders: Davis and Alex
Today was
our first morning in Heranjulu. The roosters clucked and the cows mooed. Our host families made us delicious
breakfasts of dosa— a rice pancake of sorts -- and chutney. The children of the families left for school
at 8:00 a.m., and we walked to Krishna’s house to convene as a group. We started the day with a few fun activities
to get our hearts pumpin’ and blood flowin’. We (Alex and Davis, the leaders of the day) presented the day’s schedule and
challenged the group to learn more about themselves and someone else. Once the morning meeting was over we headed
to the school to begin our work on the stage, which we are building, and to
spend time with the students.
We divided
into three groups and conquered. Our
tasks included moving dirt and moving more dirt. We used the advanced bucket method to move it
from the pile to the stage and saw all of our work go to shame when a huge
bulldozer came and did our hours’ work in 15 minutes. But nevertheless it was a great experience
and our summer bodies are certainly coming along nicely. Watch out world!
All jokes aside our first day with the
children was full of laughter and glee as we threw it back to the days of Duck
Duck Goose. The children loved it and
taught us some of their own games. We realized that even though we barely speak
Kannada, we all know the universal language of dance and laughter. It was interesting to see that the
environment of the kindergarten classroom was very similar to back home.
After this grueling morning we returned to
our homestays for lunch. Some of us ate
and took naps while the others spent time journaling and exploring the woods. These relaxing three hours were
followed up by some very aggressive rounds of ninja— hiyah! Our spinning and splicing through the air was
met by confused laughter from the villagers who are probably still trying to
figure out us weird Americans. Then we
sat down for a reflective, introspective conversation about who we
admire— who knows, it could have been you…
It was a great group bonding experience as everyone came out of their
shell and shared the stories that help define who they are. Alex said— Oops! You really thought we were
gonna tell ya? What happens in India stays in India. It was a wonderful experience to share
together and hopefully we learn even more personal stories soon. We were so enthralled by our peers’ stories
that when we looked out we realized the sun had fallen and the moon had risen—
it was dark.
Monday is the day to worship Shiva, and to our delight we were invited to join the
villagers in a ceremony at the local temple.
We danced and clanged bells to the rhythm of Heranjalu. Eventually the boys of the group joined the
men and children of the village in dance and song as the girls watched from the
side. A simple step and kick turned into
an hour’s worth of jumping, twisting, rolling, and sweating. While the boys looked exhausted and confused,
it was a spiritual experience like no other and a nice welcome to the Hindu
religion. When the ritual was over we
walked back home and the day was over. We fell asleep with smiles on our faces.
