A hiking we will go

At the end of February, just as the winter cold was giving way to spring sunshine, the whole school participated in a mid-week hiking activity. High schoolers on Wednesday, elementary and middle schoolers on Thursday, the entire student and faculty (and many support staff) headed out to the hills. Each hike had an educational theme - landscape art, geology, tourism - but much of the delight was simply being able to walk the hills. Here are three of the reports we received back, one each from Elementary, Middle and High School.

Kimoi Village (nearly) - Elementary School

The grade four students set off with much enthusiasm along Tehri road with the intention of walking to Kimoi village. We stopped en route to look at the different vegetation and to see what the shops at JB1 & 2 have to offer. It was interesting to note that both shops sold lots of candles and chappals which led to discussions about the lifestyles of the people who lived in the areas. Some of the students demonstrated their negotiation skills as they swapped their chips for Kurkure. They were really interested to know about the "Haunted House" on top of the hill!

There were a lot of stories told by the children which really scared some of their friends! We did not get around to visiting the house but promised ourselves that we would one day soon. When we got to the first temple on the road we went down, down, down into the forest (that was some steep road!) on the way to the village. Walking on the concrete road was hard: we got to test our muscles!

And boy! we were glad to be back on the softer ground. We even spotted some rhododendron buds that were beginning to open. Unfortunately we didn't make it all the way to the village but stopped in the apple orchard for lunch before heading back. The grade fours discussed possibly getting a lift and then walking down to Kimmoi as they were sad not to have interviewed the villagers. In spite of the long and gruelling climb out of the valley the students had enough energy to play badminton, four square and soccer when we got back to school, while the chaperones sat on a bench and 'supervised diligently'.

A Perfect Day on Benog Tibba - Middle School

A hiking day instead of a school day. The weather has just turned warm after weeks of freezing cold. It is a perfect day and our group had decided to climb Benog Tibba to draw the landscape from the vantage point of the peak. We drove to Hathipaon, walked, climbed, chatted. No-one said "Are we nearly there yet", no one complained that their feet were aching or that it was too far. In fact no-one complained at all. We reached the top under a perfect blue sky and rested and drew and ate lunch. It was great to see all the different styles used for drawing a tree. I tried myself with an as yet unused Christmas gift of pastels. None of us were satisfied with our efforts but we could see merit in each others. Also good material for my RE topic on the Evidence for a creator from Nature. Mok Young drew the small white temple with Mr. Wildman asleep under it. Fallen branches were claimed by Himal for conquering the upper kingdom and by Rohit and Sainyam to appear as Moses and Aaron striding the ridge. A perfect day... hard slog, fun and togetherness, make believe and the discovery of a new hobby.

Documenting village life - High School

High School math teacher Jeanne Yu has assembled a group of students to carry out a documentary filming project in local villages. She was able to combine the hiking with some work for this project. You can follow the adventure on her blog at http://tangentjourneys.blogspot.com/ , which is packed with photos. Here's an extract.

Wednesday Feb 27, and our whole group got to visit the wonderful village of Mujh Gaon. We hiked and hiked downhill. It was pretty easy. Maybe about 6k total. So, we spent most of our time interviewing the members of the women's farming cooperative. Apparently, many of them had walked hours to be at this meeting for us, and had not eaten the whole time. We got there after 1pm, but they were told that we would arrive at 9am. They were so nice, as I didn't know about this snafu until later.

This was also the first time we got to see the boys in action. Since the documentary had originally been about women's rights, the team had consisted of all girls. But now that the story is about village changes, I decided to recruit some male students. Student "A" took over the camera right away, he was great. All the students were keen on asking questions.

We asked about how their group had gotten started. Apparently, they had been introduced to an NGO that taught them about Japanese organic farming techniques, such as soaking manure for 6 months and then using the fertilizer. They then got connected to buyers in Delhi who wanted Japanese products. These women currently grow enough food for themselves, and then an excess of leek, gobu (japanese root), and soy to sell at a higher price to the city. They also make miso of which we bought a few packets.

The documentary team left psyched and ready to start on our mission. I can't wait until we really start interviewing and hearing their stories.