Day 4
The team was woken up in the morning by the blissful sound of nothing… Nearly everyone had a full night’s sleep and didn’t wake up until breakfast time. The morning was started with cereal and toasts- fuel for a big day! The fourth day was the final day where everyone participated in the three activities (either a gentle cycle around Silvepura, visiting the local market or gardening.) Gardening involved planting seeds, replanting tomatoes, digging up soil and making jam out of a bitter fruit known as Rosella. The gardening team also discovered that strawberries could not be grown in India because the climate is too hot. Again the weather was beautiful and everyone participated fully in the activities. In the afternoon, we planned to visit the city of Bangalore but beforehand, we had some free time. Most people used their time to tidy their room and sort out the annex before our trip to Bangalore. The team began their journey and their first stop on the way to the city was to a department store called ‘Fab!India’ where good value products were sold, for example, pottery, clothing, jewellery and spices. After our one-shop-stop, we continued on the bus further into Bangalore, to the market where we stopped and had something for lunch. The group split up into two and either went to a traditional Indian restaurant or some wanted to try something very familiar… pizza! After our meals, the students joined up again and all went around the market together. We visited a wide variety of shops, from traditional Indian shops to music shops of all different genres. The streets were incredibly busy and the city was filled with the sound of people shouting and engines rustling. The girls wanted to buy some form of Indian clothing- most bought either a tunic or a sari. After that, the group visited a henna shop, where many of the students decided to get henna on either their feet or hands. The henna artists were very efficient and everybody’s henna was completed within 3 minutes! We explored a few other shops before heading back to the bus and beginning our journey back to ‘The Land’. The bus ride lasted for just under an hour and we came back to find our Indian dinner ready to eat. A busy day ended with a power cut and everybody had to get their torches out.
Written by Phoebe
Day 6
We were woken up at six by drums as this had now become part of our daily routine. Then we made our way down to breakfast at eight to find a lack of toast due to our daily eight o’clock power cut. After breakfast, we headed down to Sita school to continue work on the playground. We had a day of tying ropes and digging paths ahead of us. We finished the majority of the playground to the point where you could to see the difference we were making and the children we beginning to show their smiles. For lunch, we had our daily dose of vegetable curry and rice and trekked back to the school and started tie dye with the children. A lot of us ended up half human, half Shrek with more dye on our hands than on our t shirts. We stopped off at the shop back home and had another dose of curry and rice, settled down in our house and waited for the eight o’clock power cut to end.
Written by: Holly Irving and Inés Antunes
Day 7
We woke up with a start to the sweet sound of the Christian Church singing prayers at five o’clock in the morning. We had breakfast and made a quick start to finishing the playground. We finished the obstacle course, but the zip wire still needs work. After lunch, we hung the tie dye t-shirts we made the previous day out on the line and let them dry. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing with the children, continuing with the puppets for the Bale Mane girls and waiting for our eight o’clock power cut to end.
Written by: Inés Antunes
Day 8
it was a very slow start this morning, although we had a little taste of home from our amazing breakfast team of the day cooking fried eggs for breakfast with heinz tomato sauce.It was lazy walk up to the school as we had finished all of the playground the day before and only phil finished the zip wire. All the morning was spent doing all different crafts with the children, then stayed for their weekly show and tell. Everyone got their tie-dye t-shirts and group photos were taken. After that we had another lazy walk back to the land we were staying on and during the afternoon different small groups and then sorted out our bonfire.
Written by: Ellie and Shannon.