To The Hills!

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. There just has been so much going on. I am a very busy person. So now, I have finally taken time out of my day to inform you on these happenings of my life. Not much homework tonight so I have been emailing all night, and now I'm going to blog. So be excited, this is now a rare occurrence. Haha.
Last weekend we went up to the hills to visit some tribal villages. It was an amazing experience. The whole SYA group split off into our three adviser groups. The three groups went to different locations to specialize in different things. Environment, Agriculture, and Education. I was in the education group. This is good, because that is the one that appealed the most to me anyway. The Environmental group went up to some caves and did something to do with the mining up there. The Agricultural group went up to a village and worked with them on farming techniques, like fertilizer. But that's really all I know about those groups, the Education group, I know a lot more about.
It was a group of six girls, and two teachers. SeoYeun, Victoria, Chloe, Eleanor, Molly, Mr. Stifler, Mr. Billing, and me. The point of the trip was to observe some schools so we could see what kind of help we could give them. Like if, we needed to come back, bring supplies, and help teach the teachers or anything else really. We were visiting schools that were established by the program, Balamitra. The Indian government does not care much for these tribal children so the Balamitra schools are established by a NGO called Sumitra, so the children can have a chance. The schools use the Waldorf teaching style and there are about 8-15 children in each school. But it varies greatly.
We headed up to Poolabunda, the resource center, a three-hour drive from Vizag. After teaching the woman there to make friendship bracelets, a completely unplanned experience, and eating lunch, we continued our journey. A three-hour trek up to the village we would be staying the night at. That trek, I must say, was not at all fun. But I'm not going to talk about it, since it wasn't a nice experience. Haha.
After trekking, we made it to the village where we were treated to a bonfire, dinner, and entertainment. All the villagers were incredibly nice. Even though I couldn't understand anything, they said, since they spoke in Telegu. But I did learn how to say Thank you and Hello in Telegu. Both of which I put to great use. We danced with the woman of the village around the bonfire while the men of the village played instruments. It was really a surreal experience. I was having so much fun. These people live in little huts and have very little but still they know how to have a good time and they are all so happy. To tell you the truth, I am now tempted to someday take a year off from life and go live in a tribal village. It would be the most amazing experience.
After our night sleeping in our sleeping bags on the concrete floor of the school building we began our trek downward. This one was not quite as bad. We stopped at two other Balamitra schools on our way down and visiting with the students and the teachers. All who came to school on Sunday just to see us. It was so nice of them. All the children were so shy though, it was so cute. I really enjoyed visiting them, it was interesting to see the different learning style and how they taught them.
All together, it was a great experience. I really liked going up to the hills, minus the trek up there. Haha. I think we will be going up again, at least to the resource center. Maybe we'll bring games or teach the teachers. I just hope what we do will be helpful and lasting. Otherwise, we will just come across as tourists who don't really care. Which is far from the truth...
Okay, now its bedtime. So I'll write again soon...
Much Love,
~ Jenna