Social Trek/23 - Nov 14 - Arumbugal Aalayam - videos

[Sailaja]

November 14th was the first sunday of my life which started at 3:45 am in the morning. Nevertheless, I was superexcited as I was going to meet lot of kids and it was my first trip to Nagalapuram. I decided to join this trek as I missed all the visits during Diwali. Reached Madhyakailash by taking lift from a generous auto driver, which is kinda hard to find early in the morning.

37 Kids were picked up from Arumbugal Alayam by Peter, Karthik, Sudhir, Sathya and others and 59 volunteers from various pickup points reached Koyambed by 5:30 am. We headed towards Nagalapuram and reached the base by 8:30 am. Nilgiris Cream buns!!! Yes we had an awesome breakfast. We distributed Appys and Milk bikis biscuit packets sponsored by Geetha. After the group photo session, we started walking towards the dam and as we reached the dam point, we were too tempted by the waters and a splashing game began drenching most of the kids and the volunteers. The area was flooded unlike the pics i have seen earlier and we moved ahead and reached a stream and the game took form again. We reached the second pool after a while and quickly moved to the big pool where everybody had a nice dip and took turns in cooking maggi noodles. Hot noodles - the perfect saviour !

When i had started out for the trek, I had no idea of how I would communicate with the kids as i did not know tamil. But then somebody pointed out that love has no language. So i held kutti guru's and swathi's hand all the while and I was touched when she refused to go with anybody else other than me. And the way she kept calling Abhishek 'Motti boss' was very funny. And Adityanathan, the first kid I had met in the car while coming from Madhyakailash was so energetic and he knows the lyrics of most of the Tam and Hindi songs, which was surprising.

Being in the sweep team, we started heading back fast to the dam. Peter swam across the lake formed by flooded water, while some of us ran back to reach the point before Peter :D After enjoying the water massage to the fullest, we headed back towards the base camp. Weather was so awesome during the return and the misty clouds over the mountains formed the perfect backdrop for the bluish lake and it was worth a click. Peter and I couldnt resist jumping into the lake and the swim was so much worth it. We stopped by a dhaba on our way back to Chennai and took total control of the kitchen. It was so much fun serving those kids and a nice meal at the end of the day made them very happy.

This was my first social trek and I enjoyed it soooo much!

Special thanks to Peter and Thilak for organising the trek. Thanks to Kathik for suggesting Arumbugal alayam to Thilak and Sudhir for helping kids out. Thanks to Shanmuganathan, Sasirekha and others for the sweets and Geetha for the Appys. Thanks to Sathya for bringing in the noodles. Thanks for distributing the sketch pens and chocolates to the kids (I forgot their names - Sorry) Thanks for all the volunteers who contributed selflessly to the trek and made it a huge success