Summer at Aarohi to meet Freedom

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The stay at campus begins with choosing my own space. Knowing what I want to do is next step to understand freedom at Aarohi.

Safety training is part of starting living at Aarohi. How do we live in harmony with wilderness around us, how do we co-exist? When we understand them we take care of each other. Understanding is beginning of knowing our own actions in case of safety Elaborate safety training on emotional, physical and sexual safety set the stage for freedom at Aarohi. Freedom begins when I take responsibility, When I understand, I take responsibility. Safety presentation allows one to know about safety at Aarohi, some of them presented their learning through drama, puppet show and discussion. It was nice to see how one values the information about safety and feels safe and informed.

Next begins coming together and planning what each one would like to do and how and when…this lead to coming together, as well as making individual plans. People team up, some prefer to work by self. Many activities happening at the same time, it allows one to really choose what one wants to do, while sometimes it also creates confusion and inner conflict of what to miss and what not to. Once we get clarity over our day and week, we are done.We met our challenges, success and failure as we go ahead in our journey. Sometimes we discover joy while sometimes we face disappointment, all experiences allows us to look into ourselves.

Theater, mud construction, musical act, blogging, summary writing, connecting with people, organizing event, making wheel barrow, assembling basketball stand, cooking, drawing, painting, sketching, night trekking, dancing, gardening, drip irrigation, Dance and movement, yoga, Tabata, playing together (sports) were some of the activities for this week.

Learning mela is the space to teach and learn from each other – learning languages like French, Spanish and Kannada, Maths gambling, exploring car engine, exploring emotions, writing paragraph and making mask were some of the attraction of learning mela.

For some gardening was new, for some it was first experience to rake the land, some enjoyed seeds, some enjoyed making sapling. Some came back again and wanted to do more. Some got involved in drip irrigation, some thought it is about drip irritation. For some it was just a thrill to work with tools to work on drip irrigation.

Veronica an young adult joined us this week, coming from Mexico bringing another opportunity to experience another culture. It takes no time to feel that finally its all one, it does not matter which part of the planet we comes from. It took 2-3 days to understanding the working of Aarohi and soon she was part of us. She shared her love of painting with a wall painting. Learning Spanish with her in leaning mela brought the opportunity to another language and also the culture.

They danced, they acted, they wrote story line and they performed.

They began with ‘carpentry’. They wanted to work on carpentry. We gave them option of making wheel barrow to carry stuff from one place to another, They liked the idea. They entered the our tool room and got excited to see many other things which they could use and reuse in making of their wheel barrow. No looking back after this, they worked for hours, explored unconventional materials to make the wheel barrow, were ready to take in failures and get success in their own way!

Bath in pond is the must at the end of the week to beat the heat and enjoy cooking by pond side. Climbing rocks and trees becomes natural part

We continued with dancing, reviewing our day, thinking together in thought club and working together in campus care. Often we give answers to a questions, in thought club we explored various questions for one answer. Making an advertisement to sell self was challenging for many, while debating on ‘whether to revenge or not’ was thought provoking. Dancing with Mrinalaini in sunshine was unique. Watch video


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