Day 7 - Kutraalam to Kanyakumari (130 km)
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2007
1
26
Trip End
Jan 13, 2008
Kanyakumari,
India
Monday, January 7, 2008
I'VE MADE IT TO THE END WITH NO DISASTERS, INJURIES OR SERIOUS BREAKDOWNS!
so, let me start with yesterday - could not get to an Internet cafe! are rickshaw was fixed the previous night with some serious arc welding at the bottom of the handle bars. just amazing how no rickshaw is given up on! we got into Courtaalam just after 6:30 so it was slightly dark and this was because we started late. the lead organizer's family is from Tuticorin so his father invited us to his farm and we ended up spending more time there than we should have. so we left the farm at 2PM to cover about 140 km!!! luckily the roads yesterday were the best we've seen so we could cruise at 40 to 50 km/hr!! Another participant and i decided to skip the farm and instead we spent all morning in Tuticoriin buying goods for the school and as we have learned, to give out while we are driving through villages. lots of kids just run up to the rickshaw so we have started handing out stuff to them too. we got a local participant (who speaks Tamil) to help us and the three of us packed the whole rickshaw full with 30 cricket bats, 30 badminton rackets, 6 sets of stumps, tonnes of stationery, 50 school bags, 2 fans, tonnes of alphabet toys, 50 skipping ropes, 50 caps, 10 footballs, 50 calculators, and a carem board. we got lots of curious stares. after the farm we went straight to the school of 25 young children, all less than 10 yrs. so we gave out the toys, school bags and stationery. a nearby school heard of us and came running so we gave the 15 of them bags and stationery too. one of the little girls was crying as it was past school time and she wanted to go home. along the way we gave out badminton rackets, cricket bats, balls, calculators and pens and notebooks. at one point we saw a group of boys playing cricket in a parking lot with a stack of stones as the stumps. so we stopped and gave them 6 stumps, 2 balls and 2 bats and they were so thankful.that was the best part of my day. the rest of the day was just a nice drive on "good" roads.
this morning was a fine one as it was the last leg of the challenge. we did not get a chance to buy anything the previous night so we drove to the nearest town to the school and got there by 10PM just when the shops were opening. another team bought stationery this time so we bought 3 fans for the school. got to the school and gave the fans, plus whatever was left over from yesterday (calculators, some stationery and footballs) and the carem board. they were also young children and the headmistress was very appreciative and was the first one to ask us for our addresses in Canada. all this time we've been telling the schools that we are from Canada and the donations are from friends and family. after the school we went to some ordinary waterfalls to fulfill a challenge and then made it straight to kanyakumari by 3:30. going to go see the sunset soon.
well, that is it for the challenge. i did not manage to spend all the donations (spent just over 60%) and am very reluctant to hand over cash to the organizers. very shady people and not even sure whether the money will get to the schools. all the other teams have not been buying stuff so they will be handing their donations over and that is sad because from what i have seen, i am not too impressed by the organizers of this challenge. it has been a great experience for me but the daily planning and organizing has been very unprofessional and not up to my standards. everyone has the same opinion but is too polite to say or do anything about it. there are 2 other teams that have been vocal like us.
so, we plan on using our day in chennai day after tomorrow to find some orphanages and donate the money to them.
will send out an email in a day or two.
enjoy the pics at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=78878&l=cccdd& id=690225651
take care,
sameer
