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We are happy to share
the experience we had with our project and street children: Last sunday
we made a wonderful trip with the children, we rented a private bus,
went to Gingee fort which is 40 k.m away from Tiruvannamalai and after
that to Pondicherry and Auroville, as an one day trip.
We, 41 children (aged between 4 and 15) and 7 volunteers, rented a bus
for the trip, started at 8.30 in the morning and did Pradakshina first,
then to Gingee fort, on the way we had breakfast "idlis and chutney".
While we were eating many monkeys came to us and also had the rest food,
they were friendly and gentle, did not want to bite us, only interested
in the food. Then we all started to climb the hill, took about 45
minutes, the children were very fast and energetic. I was the last one
walking/climbing and was watching that all the children are going in
front of me and nobody left behind.
It was a nice exercise and we had a wonderful view from the top to the
town and the fields around and the old style construction, stones, king
and ministers meeting places, etc., like a history lesson.
Next we came down and started to Auroville. In the bus we played the
Indian film songs video then the children started to dance and sing... i
was surprised how much the small children already give much interest to
the film music and so much they knew.
We came to the pony farm in Auroville, one of our friend, Beau, who was
working there took us to show the horses and let the children touch the
horses and explained little about the horses, they had one pony four
months old, that was so cute. The children could not ride them, but had
lot of fun to see and touch the horses.
Then we had lunch in Auroville, we took our food with us, prepared in
Tiruvannamalai for all of us so that we did not need to go to the
restaurant. we put some mats on the ground, sit together and served
ourselves. After lunch we went to Pondicherry to the Museum, it was very
interesting, they have displayed things from the 18th and 19th century,
coins of the world, sculpture gallery, Bronze gallery, transport
gallery, etc.
After the Museum we all had vanilla and strawberry ice cream, that was
delicious. I heard from one child, Sakthivel (8 years), saying that he
never had an ice cream, he did not know how an ice cream tastes. (can
you imagine this?) When i asked him if he wants an ice cream, he said
"No", then i asked him, if you have never had an ice cream how can you
say no? ... But now he knows what is an ice cream and the taste, he
wants to say "Yes" if we ask him again.
Then we went to Gandhi statue and to the Beach (in the city area) and
many children asked me what is this, they have never seen so much water,
what are the white things coming again and again (waves), etc... It was
unbelievable, they all wanted to get in. There were many local tourists
and not so much space to swim or run around, also they had lots of
stones at the beach, so we took them to Auroville beach where there were
not so many people and they were playing, swimming. Expect 5 children
all others went to swim and got fully wet, had great time and so much
fun. it is our lifetime experience for all of us.
We had to call the children many times to come out of the water, it was
not easy to get them out... we had so much fun that we have decided to
come again to the beach with the children to have wonderful happy time
together.
We thank you all so much for all your support and contribution for this
trip and made the children happy and gave us the life time experience.
We also thank to all our friends and volunteers who helped so much and
look after the children in the tour, special thanks to Mr. K. R.
Vadivelu (Trustee, Ananda Social and Educational Trust), my wife Beate,
Thiyagu, Ms. Jaya, Mr. Sathish, Master R. Raghu, Beau, the bus driver,
co-driver, Rajavel and Ramesh, the best cook Suresh, who prepared our
breakfast and lunch.
That was our first tour with the children on the 8th October 2006.
We are sending light and love from Arunachala - Kumar, Beate and all the
Children. |
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