Loop Trip

Road trip to A1 & A2: Brian, Sally, Deepak & Miranda
17th to 19th March
By Logs Assistant Manager, Sally!

After leaving a sunny fieldbase early one sunny afternoon, we arrived at Hosekerasunda at just the right time: dinnertime. The meal was provided by the village and tasted delicious, as usual. We joined the group for their evening meeting after the meal, and joined in with their review game: Fortunately, Unfortunately, where you have to say one good thing and one bad thing that has happened to you during the day. After a good day, Graham handed over Day Leader duties to his deputy: Karim, who was looking forward to the responsibilities. Once the meeting was finished, PM Sally read out a story (complete with sound effects and voices) Graham had written. It was a horror story about a couple living in an old house meeting a grizzly end, and Graham promises that it was purely coincidence that the victim’s name was Sally, it was nothing personal! No one wanted to go to bed straight away after the story; everyone was afraid of having nightmares, but after the amount of chocolate, fizzy drinks, sweets and crisps eaten from the loop shop everyone was wide awake and buzzing for another couple of hours at least.

The next morning, after a breakfast of porridge (again!) we joined half of the group relaxing by the reservoir whilst the other half worked on the toilets. When they swapped over after a couple of hours we had a tour of the toilets built during the first phase, and of the toilets being built in this phase. The toilets are coming along really well; the group has done a fantastic job of the construction and they are on target to have them finished and ready to be used by the middle of next week, when they leave. Everyone appears to have a really good tan but most of it actually washes off at the end of the day. Everyone is having great fun and all are really proud of what they have achieved; taking great pleasure in showing us the bits they actually built themselves. The villagers are also enjoying having them there and take every opportunity to dress the girls in saris; some more than once, and provide hot, sweet tea on a half-hourly basis.

Christina and Victoria

For the afternoon they were visiting the MYRADA office a few kilometres away. Myrada is one of the project partners of Raleigh International in India, and pointed us in the direction of the project initially. Everyone was really looking forward to the visit; if only for the chance of hot showers, proper beds and pillows!

We left at lunch time, leaving our Finance Manager, Miranda behind as she is staying for a week to help in the school in the village.

Miranda in Hosekerasunda School

The eco-sanitation unit taking shape

Time for a cup of tea