I have very fond memories of my amazing trip
to Auroville. It was indeed a lifetime experience with great learnings. The
most interesting aspect of the trip was the excellent cross-cultural
interaction with the local rural peers as well as with the Turkish
co-participants. Both the cultures were equally new to me.
It has always been my passion to teach young
school kids and the 12-hours
of teaching at the school in the village
Edayanchavdhi, in Auroville, was very interesting. The lamguage barrier never
bothered me. I was surprised to see the discipline, enthusiasm to learn and
some great talents in these young children. I found the aspirations of these
children no different from the children of Sai Bal Sansar School in Noida, whom
I teach during my CAS service lessons.
Some of the other highlights of the trip were
the full moon walk in the forest. It was a very different experience with a mix
of fear and quest for exploring something new. The forest was exceptionally
quite, which according to our guide was not normal.
The musical therapy was
again a first time experience and was very relaxing and refreshing. It was also
good to learn about the cross-cultural experiments that are being conducted in
Auroville. Lastly, I managed to make some very good cross-border friends from
Turkey with lot of exchanges about the Turkish culture.
The arrangements of logistics by MindVisa was
very good. There was never any lack of coordination and the hotel and food
arrangements were great. The variation in the cuisines was also in line with
the overall cross-cultural experiences during the trip.
Overall, I would rate my trip experience as
an outstanding one with great cross-cultural learning and renewed feeling of
responsibility towards the underprivileged and the community as a whole.
