Honnemardu Trip Process Document

The group:

<> <> Volunteers : <>
Sharada
Krishnamoorthy <>

Children: <>
Netravati - 12 yrs

Shivshankar - 9 yrs

Sukanya - 13 yrs

Shekhar - 14 yrs

Murali - 11 yrs

Manjunath - 12 yrs

Banappa - 13 yrs

Sharad - 10 yrs

Durga - 10 yrs

<>All children were from Ananya

Departure Day (Feb 22 2006 ):

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Reached the Railway station by 9:20 PM.

Met with Vishal , Sharada and the kids by 9:30 PM.

Got into the station platform by 10.00 PM and settled into the train by 10:30 PM. The train left the station by around 10.30 PM

Day 1 (Feb 23 2006 ):

Train Reached Shimoga by 5 AM. The group finished morning ablutions by 5:30 and

caught the rail bus and left for Talgoppa by 6 AM.

Reached Talgoppa by around 9:45 AM. Shambulinga was waiting for us at the Talgoppa station with his tempo. Left for Honnemardu and reached at 10.15 AM.

The group met with Ganapathy , our guide for the next four days. Then the group unpacked and had breakfast . Then the group dressed up for the swim and headed to the lakeshore. I ( Krishna ) left for Talgoppa by 11:00 AM to make a office related important phone call . Completed the phone call and came back to Honnemardu by around 1:30 PM.

Dressed up for the swimming and headed to the lakeshore. Saw the rest of the group already at the larger island . I swam towards the smaller island first . From there reached the bigger island and met up with the rest of the group and Ganapathy.

Spent some time there and then the whole group headed back to the shore. Reached the circle house by around 4 PM.

Had some evening snacks and tea and the rested for half an hour. Ganapathy spent some time with the kids at the circle ( also called as circle time ) helping the kids to plan the next activity which is camping and tenting.

The kids took the rolled tents and headed to the campsite which was around 200 m from the circle house. Sharada and I stayed back at the circle house to fill in the report for the day. I went to the campsite after a while and the kids were collecting the firewood and some were putting up the tents.

The tents were up after a while and the kids were all ready to have dinner. The kids played a little play ( gratel and ?? ) before starting dinner. Food ( rice , chapattis, playa ) was brought in after a while and the group had food by around 8 PM around the campfire. After the food, slowly the kids started moving into the tents and getting ready to sleep. Sharada, Ganapathy and I went for a walk up the road and towards the lakeshore.

Day 2 (Feb 24 2006 ):

The group was up by around 6:30 AM and the kids got busy unwinding the tents and putting off the campfire. With the packed up tents the kids and the rest of the group headed to the circle house.

The group washed up and brushed for the morning and had break fast at the circle.

Ganapathy spent some circle time with the kids explaining the day’s activities to be planned. The days activity was to coracle to an island a few kilometers away from the shore and come back.

The team with Ganapathy headed to the shore and split into two groups. One group consisted of Sekhar, Nethra, Durga and Shivshankar and myself . The rest were in another group. Sharada and Ganapathy did not join us because she wanted to call Vishal and ask him about the tickets. So we headed to the island. Initially we were on track but slowly drifted towards the dam because of the heavy winds. The other group went straight and was able to make it to the island. When we were halfway , Ganapathy and Sharad coracle towards us and asked us to head back to the shore. We headed back to the shore while they went to the island.

And waited for the other group to come to the shore. The second group came ashore and then after some time Sharada and Ganapathy also returned to the shore.

The group headed back to the circle house and washed up and changed clothes. After that the team had lunch at the circle. After the circle, the kids rested for a while. After that Ganapathy spent some time with the team explaining to them what the activity is for the kids for that evening.

The activity is for them to have a limited supply of items ( tents, utensils, match box, rice, vegetables etc. ) worth around 250 Rs . With that they have to plan a trip to Peacock Island in coracles and stay overnight and come back . They should plan the trip in detail as the resources were limited. Also they will not be given any tents and only mats will be given . So they had to prepare for a night without tents.

The team was given some time to plan for the trip . After that they were asked to leave for the island. I was to accompany the kids as an observer but will not participate in their activities. Sharada and Ganapathy will stay back at the coracle house.

The kids split into two groups. Sekhar, Manju, Sharad , Murali and myself were in one group. The rest were in another group.

The group coracled to peacock island with all the supplies, and headed to the highest point were they were supposed to spend the night. On reaching the high ground in the middle of the island , the group saw three tents already put up . The group assumed they were put up my Ganapathy.

Then one group of kids started collecting firewood while the other group went about making fireplaces for cooking the food.

The kids lit the campfire and made two stone stoves (?) and cooked rice and dhal. While they were almost done cooking, they heard a loud sound in the nearby woods. Manju and I went to see what it was and we found two vessels full of food. The kids thought that the food was sent by Ganapathy.

The kids had food around the campfire and after a some story telling by me, headed towards the tents to rest for the night. I shared my tent with Shivshankar and Banappa and spent some time, sharing some jokes and little stories before drifting off.

Just then , I heard Sharada and Ganapathy walk in . After chatting with them for a while, everybody went to sleep.

Day 3 (Feb 25 2006 ):

The team got up by around 6:30 AM and started to unwind the tents and putting out the campfire. Finally we split into two groups and left in two coracles back to the main lakeshore .

We reached the circle house and cleaned up/brushed and changed dress for the morning, before having break fast. After break fast, the team spent some time resting. Ganapathy also spent some circle time with the kids asking them about the trip to the island.

The next activity planned for that day was helping move some stones for a house construction. The team went to a house construction site a little further down the road and had to move a lot of foundation stones lying down the valley to the place where the house is being built. The team formed a human chain from the valley to the house site and passed the stones along from the bottom to the top. After moving all the stones, the team headed back to the circle house for lunch.

The team headed for a quick swim in the lake before lunch. So everybody , excluding Sharada, dressed up for the swim and headed to the lakeshore. After swimming for half an hour the team headed back to the circle house. After cleaning up and changing clothes

Had lunch at the circle. After the lunch the kids rested for an hour or so.

In the mean time, Sharada had an idea of sending the kids to the temple that was on the other side of the shore alone without anybody and see how they cope with it. She asked Ganapathy and myself about it and after we were ok with it, we told the kids about it. Since they will be sleeping in the temple, they would not be needing tents and Ganapathy will serve food to them.

We told the kids about this idea, and by around 6 PM, the kids headed towards the temple in two coracles. Ganapathy left after a while in his moped with food for the kids. Sharada and I stayed back the circle house and updated our notebooks. Ganapathy joined us in the circle house at around 10 PM.

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Day 4 (Feb 26 2006 ):

I got up by around 6 AM and after cleaning up / brushing for the morning, waited for the kids. The kids turned up by around 8:30 AM. After cleaning up and having break fast, Ganapathy spent some circle time with the kids asking them about the problems faced by them at the temple.

After resting for a while, the kids were asked to plan for a trek to a place called Bhimanahejji ( ? ) on the top of a hill . I was to accompany the kids, on the trek. The kids and I dressed up and first went to the little house on top of the little hillock where they had kept their bags. After changing their dresses, the group headed up the hill towards Bhimanahejji. After a hot and steep trek, the group reached the top of the hill. Once at the hill, the group members who were not familiar with the story behind the place ( about the impression of Bhima’s feet being there ) were asked by me to educate the others about the story . After everybody was familiar with the story,. The played play a game where the Bhima’s story is told by the whole team in a circle with each member repeating only one line of the story. After the story telling, the tea, headed back to the circle house, using a short cut , that was shorter but, much steeper and cut right across the thick woods.

The group reached circle house after a while and since we had some more time for lunch , the team went for a swim in the lake . After swimming for half an hour, the group came back to the circle and changed dress and cleaned up. After lunch , the team rested for an hour or so. After that Ganapathy spent some circle time with the kids – he spent quite sometime, explaining the importance of the trip. Sharada and I joined the circle time and asked the kids about their learning experiences during the four days. And we also shared our experiences with the kids.

After the circle time, the kids rested for a while and then had snacks and tea. And then we started to prepare to leave Honnemardu. In the mean while, we had two tempos turning up at Honnemardu to take us to Sagar. Due to some confusion two guys brought their tempos and after some haggling by Ganapathy, one of the tempos left. We packed up and left Honnemardu for Sager by around 6 PM .

We reached Sager by around 6:30 PM . We got a bus to Shimoga immediately. The bus was fairly empty so we had no issues with the seats. We reached Shimoga after a couple of hours. We took two auto rickshaws to go to the train station. After reaching the train station, we rested for a while , had some tea and bananas. The train was there on time at 10.00 PM . We hopped into our berths and were soon asleep .

Arrival Day (Feb 27 2006 ):

The train reached Bangalore Majestic train station by around 5 AM. We got down the train and I took the kids to the BMTC bus station and Sharad went to get some break fast. I found the right bus to Carmel Rum and had the kids into the bus after giving them money for the bus trip.

After a while Sharada joined me and we headed out of the bus station . We caught an auto rickshaw, and I dropped her near her Benson town home before reaching RT Nagar by around 6:30 AM.

The start

I reached the station by 9:20 PM and did not see either Vishal or Sharada or the kids. So I went out to buy a pen and some toileteries. When I came back I found Vishal , Sharada, the kids along with George uncle. I exchanged pleasantries with everybody and I asked them to wait there so that I could go have my dinner. I had some food at the Railway restaurant ( comesum ? ) and came back to pick up the kids.
The train to Shimoga was to start at 10:30 PM. The kids, Sharada and I started going into the station at around 9:55 PM. As soon as we entered the platform, we saw a train with a Shimoga nameplate pulling out of station . Some of the kids thought that was our train and started running towards to train. Sharada had to follow suit and I too ran behind them.

A gentleman then told us that the train is just leaving the station to the maintenance shed and will be back at 10:30 . Finally we were relieved and we started checking our tickets. We found that we had another headache. Shimoga return tickets for some of us were missing. I called Vishal who promised to search for the tickets the next day morning and courier them or else we will have to get new tickets at Shimoga.

The ( correct one ) train pulled into the paltform a little while later. We got into our compartment and finally settled down into the train. We all settled into our seats and went sleep in less than half hour of departure.