After preparing for a couple days before all the students arrived, the South Asian students presented on their cultures for the international students. You can read more here, and see a few student interviews here, beginning with Olga!
Monica
Mohammad
Rohini
Kultwisiso
Shilpi
Today we visited a village to ask questions about our project to the people who lived there. My group is focusing on wet waste. The first thing we did was go to a small school that went up to fifth standard and there were 35 students and 2 teachers. We had an introduction to the small village members there. Then we went into a house with the village leader there to talk to us. We discussed our topic and asked many questions to them. It helped us later on. Also, today we heard the founder of Agastya speak to us about how it started and many other things. His answers were really inspiring and I feel that I learned a lot in such a little time. Lastly, we had a spiritual circle where we listened to the background and meditated. I really enjoyed that. And I really want to see a peacock.
We had an amazing start of the day with the walk session and the another thing that fascinated me was that we had pigeons on board with us on the bus. When we first went to the village, I remembered my village and the houses were really beautiful and people were welcoming. It was really great engaging with the elders of the community. We visited the school and chatted with the students and we got to the see the kitchen too where the mid-day meals were prepared and then we visited a house where the head of the family was a lady and we interacted with the surpanch there. Then we headed towards the new plants that was build to manage the waste in the villages. Then we went to the rice fields.
Here are some pictures!!
Last night was an inspirational experience for me. It started off with us meeting the children, who were very excited to see us and show us the songs they’ve learned in both English and Telugu. They engaged with us even though most us didn’t understand what they were saying. They were all so beautiful and well mannered. They even did a few dances for us. We also danced for them and it was like a beautiful exchange of culture. Just seeing them in their school made me really appreciate education, and I hope to have many more experiences like that on this trip.