Skip to main content

Excursion to Kodai...


Seeing Kodai with Nath Uncle (Nanaji as the children fondly called him) was perfect! Nath Uncle did a lot of wonderful activities with us.... showed and shared with us his carpentry tools and passion.... taught us how to make maida glue.....reuse envelopes.... make sturdy boxes....recited urdu poetry for us... made meal time a jolly time ... often broke into a song (which the children enjoyed!)...took us boating..It turned out that he had planned many more things to do with us, but the six days was not enough :) We also walked a lot in and around Kodai with him... he's been there for more than 25 years now and knows almost every other person who crossed our paths....

We also met a lot of other wonderful people....friends of Nanaji......Harry Uncle who owns a restaurant called Tava treated all of us to a wonderful meal,where we ate as much paneer and srikhand as we could! :) ... Prasanna Uncle and Meenakshi aunty who run a little bakery called Daily Bread.....invited us for breakfast and stuffed us with cream rolls,sandwiches,pastry,pizza and hot chocolate...they also gave a tour of there small bakery where all the goodies were made !! We also visited a school run by Padmini Aunty and participated in the art class there and all the children played football together... Subramaniyam Uncle did pottery with us ....

On our walks, the the clouds opened up to magnificent views, we saw flowers in so many colours ,we walked through many farms and we ate radish flowers while we went through them. On these walks in and around Kodai Nanaji would talk about terrace farming and explain what a valley is ! :)

Apart from all these activities...the children did stitching with Roopa aunty....played mikado, carom, trees, collected wood, plucked brambles,sang songs, saw snakes and listened to stories before we went to bed!

We stayed with N in his beautiful house on the side of a hill.It is in the middle of a farm with pear and plum and peach trees. The plums were just ripening as we walked through.....In N's house Elsy akka cooked simple but yummy food for us and John anna took us around the garden and plucked fruits with us.

We also have to introduce another friend we made during our stay at Kodai.... Whitey.... the
pampered and hugely loved dog! :)



Roopa's sharing


It felt great to be able to share home and birth family with the Shibumi family, and the responses of the children were a delight to watch. When my father first saw them , he wondered aloud" They look very young, will they be able to stay away from home for so long?"

On the last day, the children were sorry the excursion was over so quickly.

Some of the learning was for us, seeing them in new situations.....when to intervene, when to just watch , and often Tanu and myself would exchange notes on our responses to a situation.

For the children I think it was a long time away from the familiarity of family and home....and it was amazing how easily they adjusted. On our return , as we sat on the Kodai road railway station eating our curd rice off banana leaves, co passengers curiously asked about our 'family'!

And personally, for me it was wonderful to have the house filled with laughter and noise.....my mother who was one of the most amazing teachers I knew was surely part of the celebration from wherever she has gone to!




















































Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 28, 2009 at 5:29 AM

    Hi Guys,

    Nice guys,it makes me to go to my childhood

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mask-making at School

The theatre workshop planned for Kiri on Tuesday could not happen because Saraswati, who was going to conduct it was ill. So we planned a half-day mask-making workshop using collected junk and natural material, to be followed by a film screening for the children. Angie and I were going to conduct the activities for the day. The mask making activity was something I had done in college and enjoyed tremendously, so I was very excited to do it with the kids, but of course there was no knowing how it would actually go! I started the day by showing the group photos of several different kinds of masks from different parts of the world and some junk art, just to get some juices flowing in the kids’ minds. They were quite enthralled and fascinated, and in hindsight it did feel like a useful presentation to have made. We then went out for a walk around school armed with plastic bags to collect interesting things from the roadside. Some of the children had chosen to pair up for the activity, ot
16 comments
Read more

Ladki pe ghoda

Mahiti (Age 8) has been facinated with horses. Wanting to draw horses, paint them, stitch them. Last year for our Poetry mela she chose a poem about how to love a horse  to illustrate and share with others. The other day , she was swinging on the tyre swing and walked up to me with a smile on her face. When she was sure I  was listening to her she shared ....  'I have an idea! I want to make a horse I can ride. See , I will explain.... --looks around... finds a cardboard box.... gets into it...-- so, I want the horse around me , so I can ride it. and we can use some boxes for the neck and head.' Our learning space for the young children is consciously stocked with a variety open-ended material. For the children to easily access, use, play and learn with. Cardboard boxes are a open-ended resource material that lends itself to versatile unstructured play/learning beautifully. It takes the children on an adventure and helps them explore the imaginary places in their
Post a Comment
Read more

Chittara Workshop

The Paaruls and Palash were introduced to the Chittara art form through a two day workshop at Shibumi.   Chittara is a folk art form practised by the women of Deewaru community living close to Jog Falls in Shimoga, Karnataka. CFRIA (Centre for Revival of Indigenous Art) is a non-profit organisation that is committed towards preserving and Indigenous Art practices in India. We had Geetha Bhat, from CFRIA, as the facilitator and Lakshmakka, who is from the Deewaru community, introducing the kids to this art form.   We started off with an introduction to ’Hase Gode Chittara’.   The motifs used in Chittara are geometric and mainly lines. Hase Gode Chittara represents a marriage ceremony in the community. The drawing of the Chittara itself is part of the ceremony.   The colours used in Chittara are red, white, black and yellow. For white, ground rice paste is used; roasted rice for black, yellow seeds (Gurige), red earth and the brushes are made up of pundi naaru. The children starte
2 comments
Read more