The IBDP (International Baccalaureate Diploma Program), to receive
a certificate of successful completion of the program, one must also complete
something called CAS (Creativity, Action and Service). During CAS, a student
must clock 150 hours of creative work, active sports and any type of long-term
or short-term service. During CAS program in our school, we made a trip to a
small hamlet named Kamagere which is a hamlet town near Bangalore in Karnataka,
India. This would cover us a lot many hours of all the three requirements. The
trip started on 2nd October 2014 and continues as follows (day account):
Day 1:
This was going to
be an exciting trip I had thought the day before. I slept early that night to
get up early the next morning to go to the airport. My flight was at 5:45 in
the morning and I had to be at the airport by 3:45 to meet my friends and
teachers and finish the rest of the airport formalities together. Within 10
minutes of me reaching the airport, I left my father and my whole group
completed the formalities. By the time we completed, we were taken to our
airplane which was of Jet Airways. We sat inside waiting for the flight to
start for about 40 minutes and then finally it started. I had an awkward
feeling because it was flight travel for me after more than an year. We clicked
pictures, had some food and landed in Bangalore 5 minutes before time at 6:50.
We got down the plane, got refreshed, collected our bags and come out of the
airport.
Outside the
airport, our trip organizer from TLC was waiting for us with two buses. We were
quickly separated into two groups (for buses) and we were supposed to stay in
those bus groups the rest of the time. In the bus, my friends and I enjoyed
listening to music. Later, most of us slept to compensate the sleep we had lost
that night. Then, it was interesting. One of my seniors had brought Uno. We
played several games and enjoyed catching each other cheating and trying to
look at others’ cards. We then reached a place for eating breakfast. It was a
quiet place surrounded with greenery. We had breakfast and proceeded.
Later in the day,
we reached another place that was planned for visit. It was Gaganchukki falls
which came en route Bangalore to Kamagere. This place was filled with a number
of monkeys roaming around here and there - but we weren’t to meet them just
yet. We went to a nearby restaurant to have lunch. We enjoyed clicking pictures
and watching the waterfalls while we waited for the lunch to come. It was
almost normal food for me (I being a south-Indian) but several others had
problems getting used to the food that was to come in the next few days.
We had lunch and
watched the waterfall for some more time - it was graceful to watch and one of
the largest I had seen until then (it was steep and huge amounts of water
gushed out every second). After viewing it to our heart’s content, we left for
our final stop - the village.
We reached the
village at about 5:00 in the evening and first we went to the village school
where we were greeted warmly by the village school children. They enjoyed
talking to us and we enjoyed their enthusiastic nature. We made new friends in
the first few minutes after we reached there. We had tea and then left for our
accommodation by walk. It was about 750m to 1000m walk to our place of
accommodation. When we reached there, I had the BIGGEST OF SHOCKS - it was the
first and the last too - but it was horrifying. Almost my whole suitcase was
wet. It was a painful work to remove all the wet clothes from inside and put
them to dry. But then, I somehow managed to do so. By the time I did it, it was
dark and time for our dinner. We had similar food to the afternoon and I
especially enjoyed it. I ate my food, changed into track pants and went
upstairs to the roof of the 2-storey building.
I then realized
another problem - there were hundreds of insects sizing from the smallest ants
to large cockroaches and crickets. Well to say, I have entomophobia - so it was
another problem I was to have throughout the trip. We got to know later that we
were to sleep on the first floor with the girls inside and the boys outside in
the balcony. We went upstairs and arranged our bedding. It was a tough work for
me because I have dust allergy too (I had to put some extra layers of bedding
to prevent the dust from the mattress to come to me).
Night was most
horrifying with insects crawling all around me and there was no fan. The second
problem was solved soon. We got a standing fan with us while sleeping. But that
night was annoying to everyone, not because of the same problems that I had but
because of what I was doing to solve my problems. I was continuously switching
on the torch to check for insects (my strategy was that if I do not find an
insect for 5-10 minutes then I would sleep) - this was not only irritating to
others but even hectic for me. I finally slept and that was the end of our
first day…
Day 2:
I woke up on my
mattress at about 5:45 due to my alarm wondering where am I but just then I
remember and I could feel the freshness of the village. Today we were going to
start our CAS work but before that obviously we have to get ready (brushing,
bath). I was surprised to know that the boys were going to bathe behind a
building over there in open area! That day, I was the first one to wake up. I
wanted to experience such a bath. It was uncomfortable at first but later I
started enjoying it a lot.
After getting
ready I went back and sat down eating some of the snacks I had taken there from
Pune while waiting for my friends to get ready. Soon, we were called for tea
and breakfast. The food was tasty - South Indian food tastes good, surprisingly
many of my friends also liked the food a lot. The trip was very enjoyable until
now but we hadn’t gone to the village for enjoying but for a cause. Our CAS
work was to start now.
We sat down in a
circle to discuss the importance of the cause, our expectancies of the trip and
how we felt about the previous day. Then, getting to the point, we started
discussing about the plan for the day - we were going to visit the Silk reeling
factory, the house of a family to know their problems, and also the village school
to know from the children what problems they are having at home that is giving
problems in their study. Later, we started discussing about what we should do
and what we should not do when we are interacting with the village people. This
discussion was boring but I felt it is a must to keep us in our limits. We were
separated into three teams and were to be taken to three different families.
When we reached
the outside of the village colony, we got down of our jeep and started walking.
Our first stop was a silk reeling factory. We saw several silkworm cocoons that
were being processed in the small factory with quite unhygienic conditions. We
saw the whole process from the boiling of the cocoons to the re-reeling of the
silk. We could see lack of sanitation inside the factory premises. We also got
to know that these factories belonged to the upper caste people and were run by
the lower caste people which common in almost all parts of India.
Then we were taken
for a walk to the house where we would talk to the family residing there. But
technically when we were there, there was not a complete family over there -
only the mother was there. We had a village person who could speak both English
and Kannada there to translate our conversation. We came to know about the
sanitation, financial/economical and educational problems that the family
faced. The good news was that the house did not have any family problems. Then
we proceeded back to our accommodation where we had our lunch but I did not
like it much due to the fact that the rotis were soaked. Still, due to the fact
that I have to eat, I ate my lunch.
Later, we were
driven to the village school to talk to the school children. Here, we got to know
a whole lot new set of problems such as parents not staying together, fathers
drinking, family quarrels and neighbours quarreling. We came to know that the
family we previously had visited was a different case where there were no
family quarrels. Later, we had tea and had some time playing with the school
children still in the school to talk to us. We learnt a new set of games - the
traditional village type - gulli danda, hopscotch and the top. None of us did
well in these games - they were too unknown to us. Then we had tea in the
school premises and left walking back to our accommodation.
We had some free
time to freshen up and then we were called for dinner. The dinner wasn’t that
great because the puris where hard. I ate it and then went up to our sleeping
place to arrange my bed. Soon, everyone was there to arrange their beds. After
arranging, we went up to the roof to sit and enjoy our freetime. Meanwhile, our
visual art teacher (who came along with us for the trip) offered us some ghost
stories. Many of us including me instantly said yes (the rest went away). We
had some time getting scared and then we went back to our sleeping area, did
some time-pass and prepared to sleep. I did the same routine like the previous
day due to my fear of insects and then had a sound sleep ending a second hectic
day.
Day 3:
Again, I was woken
up by my alarm in the morning at 5:45. Today, along with me, several others got
up. We got up and got ready - the same routine again with the bath in an open
area and brushing. By the time I returned, several others had got up. I took
out another snack from my bag and started eating. I had never thought that a
person could be hungry so early in the morning. Then, we were called for
breakfast. Today was my favourite food - idlis! I ate to my heart’s content
because I wasn’t eating very well the previous days.
We assembled in
the main hall in a circle where our luggage was. We were to discuss our
previous day’s findings with the sir over there. We did some activities - some
were fun and some were boring. These enhanced partially our understanding and
analysis of what we had collected in the form of data. We understood the issues
well and narrowed down on some topics. We were going to perform skits the next
day so that we could try to make a change. For these skits, we narrowed down to
4 topics where two were similar. So, we made three groups to do the skits - one
did alcoholism and quarrels, second was sanitation and ours was on casteism.
After this, we had our lunch. The rotis were a bit soaked again but I didn’t
mind. I was very hungry and ate heartily.
In the morning
itself, we had come to know that we were going to go on a rally along with the
village school children to try and make a change. We were going to go through the
village lanes so that even if the next day some people couldn’t attend our
skit, at least there would be some impact through the rally. So, we had to
prepare some placard boards out of the charts, sketch pens and wooden pieces we
had been given. At the same time, we had to prepare three slogans in our team.
These slogans were the ones to be recited for the impact on the people. But, we
didn’t write them on the placards yet because we knew that almost all of the
villagers won’t be able to understand English. So, we took them to the village
school a bit early. There was a girl who helped us translate it into Kannada
and wrote it for us on the placards.
Now, we were all
set for the rally. A while before we were to start off for the rally, the
village head, school head and some teachers were present. The teachers quickly
assembled the school children and our co-ordinators also gave us our positions
for the rally. Soon after, the village head inaugurated our rally and we began.
At major junctions in the village, we stopped, attracted the villagers’
attention with drums and said our slogans loudly. The first few times, only the
village children said them but later we followed them. It was great sight to
see the enthusiasm of the school kids for making a change in their own village,
the audience was also eager to know what our intentions were which was a great
thing.
Soon (we didn’t
even know how time went by), we were back in the school premises where we
stayed for a while, played with the children, drank tea and were going back to
the accommodation when we came to know that there might be drunkards on the way
walking so it wouldn’t be safe. So we walked fast and reached our accommodation
safely. This night on us students' request, we were going to have a campfire
behind our accommodation building. At about 9:00 at night, we had our campfire.
At first, everyone was just gossiping but soon, everyone felt bored so they put
on music from the car speaker we were provided with and started dancing. Soon
most of them joined in including me and we all were dancing like crazy until we
were tired and called for dinner. After having dinner, we were sent up back to
our sleeping area. Here, we had a reflection session where we reflected on the
trip until that point of time. While doing our reflection, we had some fun
time. Soon, everyone was exhausted and I continued my daily routine of looking
for insects and slept tired…
Day 4:
I woke up to the
ring of my alarm at 5:45 in the morning like the previous two days. The freshness
in the morning in the village is just awesome. The village atmosphere is really
excellent. Today, I felt that having a bath was easier than the previous two
days. I had partially gotten used to it in two days! After getting ready, I
went and set my suitcase well. It was badly set since the last two days. Then I
had some snacks and waited for the remaining to get ready. When everyone was
ready, we were given our breakfast - Idlis again. I ate really well again - I
liked the idlis they served especially well. Today was going to be a hectic day
with lots of practicing so I ate well.
After we had our
breakfast, we assembled in the main hall again to discuss till where our skits’
scripts had progressed. We discussed what we had to for some more time in the
assembly hall and then the three groups went to different parts of the
accommodation to start practicing for the play. Our group had 7 people and our
play was such that all 7 people weren’t required. I was the child in the play
but didn’t have much of a role but the role I did had an impact. It showed that
children were inquisitive of why casteism is still so prevalent. So, later, I
became the drummer which gave special effects to the play due to ours being a
mime and required sounds.
Soon, it was lunch
time. After lunch, we continued our practice for our play. Soon, at around 5
o’clock in the evening, we went to the village school where we were supposed to
do the play in front of the school children and the elder villagers. There was
a huge ground where we played with the school children for a while and then
before we had to perform play, we arranged benches from the school classroom in
the school grounds. At around 7 o’clock enough villagers gathered for us to
start our performance. First the team of sanitation performed their play. Then
came our team, people had some response to the play that we did. They were
reacting to the problems that were being caused by casteism. After this play,
we drank tea and went back to our accommodation.
We ate our dinner
and then went and set up our beds. Everyone assembled over there to do the
reflection work for the day. After we completed our work, as it was the last
night in Kamagere for us, we stayed up almost until 2 o’clock in the night. We
enjoyed the night gossiping with our friends.
Day 5:
Today, I was
wondering why I was awaken early in the morning at 4 o’clock. I was awaken to
see the scene of an old film being re-performed by some of our classmates for
fun. It was awesome and all of were laughing a lot. Later, I became so wide
awake that when I came to know that we were going to go to the local Church, I
got ready early with another 6-7 people. We thought it is better we walk to the
Church as it will serve as some exercise to us. It was my first experience in
Church. The Church priest was speaking in the local language - Kannada.
Although we did not understand, we continued following the instructions. By the
time we were back to our accommodation, everyone was ready.
We ate our
breakfast, packed our suitcases and had a certificate distribution ceremony. I
got my certificate of completion. Now, we were ready for our departure from the
accommodation back to Bangalore. We enjoyed the bus journey hearing music,
playing small games such as uno and other cards. Some of us (including me)
dozed off in the back seats. We did not even notice that by the time we reached
Bangalore outskirts, it was already lunch time. We stopped at a place where
there was a pizza hut and also a KFC. People who desired non-vegetarian after
many meals of vegetarian in Kamagere went to KFC, others like me who were
vegetarian went to pizza hut.
After a hearty
meal, we were back in our buses. This is when we realized what is Bangalore
traffic. We were stuck for at least one and a half hours in traffic before we
reached our next destination that many of us preferred (definitely not me!) -
shopping in Bangalore’s famous shopping centre - MG road. We roamed in two
groups to go shop where we wished. We went to wood and craft shops and also to
antique shops. I did not have much money, so I bought two wooden eggs which I
had heard were for good luck. I gifted them later to my parents on return. We
reached back to our bus stop but some went missing! About 15-20 minutes we
found everyone and proceeded for our last stop - the airport.
In the bus, we did
a lot of enjoyment and had an indirect competition with the other bus. We were
enjoying to the fullest while the other bus was completely dozing off like lazy
people. But we reached the airport on time, completed the formalities and ate
something in the cafe over there - I ate a pastry… Soon, it was time for us to
leave. We boarded the aeroplane but was not on time due to excessive rains and
thunderstorms. We sat in the aeroplane with nothing to do. But when it started,
we had the scare of our life. It was like an action rollercoaster or to
describe it in our terms of fear, a “Broken wing plane!”. It was shaking so
badly when passing through the clouds. I was relieved only after the clouds
were over. We landed in Pune at around 12:00 at night. We collected our bags
and told bye to each other as it was the last time we would meet (although it
was just the next day in school). But, it was a different personality of
ourselves in that trip that we could never forget.
It was both a
learning (educational) and fun trip altogether and the following short clip
shows some of the moments and activities that we did during the trip:
-Suhas
10/10/14
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