My mom signed me up for the youreka yercaud y2 program for the silver group, from the 18th of April to the 26th.i knew it would be awesome fun over there because I had heard too many awesome things about that place. I had to go to the railway station at 6 in the morning and the platform was very cold and very stinky. They were about a 115 kids waiting in front of the train, when the instructors showed up they gave us our name tags on which they had put the seat and compartment number. None of us liked our places, so the instructors said we could change our places once the train started moving. After the train started to move everyone changed places and I sat with people of my age and younger who seemed to be very nice, friendly and someone who you can talk to. It was a 5 hour journey, so along the way we were talking about music, movies and about ourselves. In the train it self I made 6 new friends. The moment we reached yercaud all of us started to sweat, it was probably 40 degrees. We all picked our luggage and got into 14 sumo vans. Luckily my van had a/c and there were less people. It was 1 hour journey from Salem to yercaud; I dozed of in the van to catch my breath. After reaching yercaud we all saw the y1 program kids were wearing youreka t-shirts and waiting for the sumos to return so they could go back to Bangalore. We all chucked our luggage into a huge truck and we had to trek to our camp. I was thinking we would have to build our own tents but when I entered the camp I was shocked to see that the tents were built on metal poles. After that all of us had to assemble in a huge circle and one of the instructors named panna sang a song called ‘ajja gujja’! It was an interesting song which was filled with actions. Then the instructor divided us into groups of 18 approx. I was in the wilderness backpacking group, then he told us who sleeps in which tent. (In each tent 9 people could sleep).I liked all the people who slept in my tent, but their were few people in my tent who didn’t want to stay so they changed to another tent. Our tent number was ‘9’. After that we all ha to go up a small hill and into a hut called the ‘kprd’! (Khana pina rona????) It was a place where we ate, drank, chatted and partied. We had lunch there and went into our groups; our group went to a place called the sunset point. We had a name game to recognize each of our names and we named our group the ‘wild spirits’! After that we had soup and squash. We all got something called the cool book; with it we got a cool pen and a cool bag. It was something like a diary with lots of activities. After that we had to do it. I don’t really want to explain it though. We had an hour time of Y.O.T (your own time) after that we have to remain silent and do our cool books. After that I met one of the students who had graduated in my school when I was in the 4th grade. Her name was archana. She was an extremely nice person! We all had dinner by 8:30 sang and danced a bit! After that we all went into our tents and many people wanted to sleep in our tent because we were chatting interesting things. We invited a few people and chatted till 11. The next day the wild spirits assembled near a place called the lapa lapa (Mexican word for hut.)And we did a small bit of exercising called the ‘chota hazri’. After that we had breakfast and again we assembled in front of the lapa lapa, our group got a rucksack for each person we put our sleeping bags and we went for a short trek with our bags. We played few games when we reached our destination like Acid River and arms and legs. While coming back we had to find our own way back to the camp without the instructors help. We came back in time for lunch after that it was the regular program, Y.O.T and then did our cool books. Then had dinner and partied! This I did every day. (Y.O.T till party) next day we were told we will also be having some minor activities and few instructors would do some tent inspection while we are doing our minor activities. We again went for a small trek to a place called ‘raj pond’! over there 15 people didn’t know how to pitch a tent so the other 3 were given a challenge, the challenge was 15 people were blind folded and three people had to instruct the blinded to build a tent without touching them. The 3 were 2 of my friends and me! It took us 45 minutes to do that challenge. After that we were all given another challenge, we had to be divided into groups of 2 and 1 needed to be blind folded. The challenge was to guide your blinded partner through a rough pathway and both get a chance to be blind folded. By then we reached another pond. (I don’t remember the name of that pond) we sang a song and played a game over there, the song’s name was ‘rump sum sum’ and the games name I don’t remember. We came back in time for lunch and we had a minor activity, it was making a news paper and I had to review the campus doctor. It was fun, and the day ended with the usual routine. Next day we went for a 6 km trek to a place called great view, we made coffee over their with a butane burner and we had to make a map with the help of a compass. (I am not telling how.) till lunch and then we had a minor activity, ‘bracelet making’. I had never seen that kind of method of making a bracelet. You had to hold one end with your mouth and do a weird way of tying it. I made two of them. After that same routine till dinner, it started to rain heavily and we were very scared of what might happen to our bags. After it stopped raining we went to check on our bags and came back up to party. Then we slept at 11………. Next day same thing but we were getting ready to go for a 2 day 2 night trek to a place called ‘singlathpadiam’ or something like that…. Just before we left we did a minor activity called the tartan swing, where we had to swing on a rope and had to land on different circles (each circle had a different number of points) first three were 500, second row was 1000 and third row was 5000! After that we started on our trek, this time we had to find our way their with the help of a ready made map and a compass. I had to decide who to give the map and who to give the 2 compasses. After that we started the trek we made few mistakes making the directions but we finished half of the trek by 5:30 or so, we pitched our tents and made some palouv like stuff for dinner. And sang a bit and slept late.
Early morning we had to pack our tents and make breakfast, it was coffee, biscuits and bread butter, cheese and jam. After that we refilled our bottles and started on the second half of the trek.
The map and the two compasses were given to different people now. We saw a dead rat snake on the way. We reached our destination by 3:30 made maggi for lunch. One of the instructors made lemon tea for us, it was so tasty. Then we enjoyed the view for an hour. Came back made our tents and played a game called ‘where is my monkey?’ after that I made more knew friends, about 3 of them! Then we went to bed.
Next day we packed our stuff got into 3 jeeps sang all the way back to camp and we were all surprised to see that no one was at camp, it took us some time to realize to see that they had gone for their major activities….
Till lunch we were unpacking the tents cleaning the rucksacks and getting contacts in our cool books. Then the instructors told us we were going to do T.T. at first we thought its table tennis, but it actually was something called ‘tera tera’. We had to go down hill and we saw all the other groups’ river crossing. Then the instructors told us that tera tera means river crossing in México. We all did it; I was the fastest person to cross the stream, I did it in less than 30 seconds. Then we went back to camp had our minor activity, tie and dye, it was awesome fun and very easy, so I finished mine fast and I went to see what the other groups were doing. One of them was doing bracelet making so I joined them and made another bracelet. We were told that they were selling some things at the large tent behind the KPRD, so I went there and bought a t-shirt. Then after that we had our usual routine till dinner. They conducted something called the talent night. In that people showed off their new talents they learnt in youreka. It went on till 10:30, I didn’t like it that much I liked the other night where we partied much more. After the talent show we danced till 11:00. Then two of my group instructors performed some awesome fire tricks and fire staffs…I was seriously speechless by looking at them. After that we partied a bit mare and cheered the instructors who performed for us, till 12:00. Then we had 3 extra people sleeping in our tent because it was the best tent out of all the 30 tents…the next day we had a special breakfast and most of us were crying because we had to leave….
We took some more contacts and got few hugs. After that we dumped our luggage into a truck, the truck took the luggage to the railway station. We did something called the bead ceremony and then we got some chocolates from the instructors and got our certificates….we all left crying…I also lost a friend because someone had something bad to him and he thought I said it….then we waited for the sumo vans to come. When they came we saw the y3 program kids were in it. We all said some crappy stuff to them and we got on the vans and we were ready to go to Salem. I dozed off again in the van but I made another friend over their…when we reached the railway station I made 7 more friends, we all sat together in the train and we chatted about ourselves, music, funny things and about ourselves till we reached Bangalore…but we all still keep in touch through cell phones and facebook….
