The first week of October was wildlife week and we visited some villages in the neighboring Lawngtlai district. Started with Cheural and moved onto Lungpher and Bualpui. All of these villages lie outside the Blue Mountain (Phawmpui Tlang) National Park , which is currently on our must visit list. The road to blue mountain has been blocked for a while owing to a landslide and prolonged monsoons. So Blue Mountain remains on the wish list as opposed to the been there list .
The programmes in most of these villages involved at one level interactions and discsussions with the Village Council Members and Youth Groups and at the other Children from the local schools. In both instances films were shown and this was my personal favourite part of the programme. In long dark town halls or homes , post dinner , the youth and village council would slowly trickle in while the projector and screen were being set up. With the young ones we had interactions in the daytime.
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| House Full |
Walls were screens in some places, while bedsheets were quickly quickly put together in the others. electricity was a concern, and amidst all of this I was quite surprised at how quickly and efficiently the generator , screen and seating was organized. I was expecting a more laid back process but in most instances we started on time and the participants seemed quite interested.
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| Me too! |
While there was very little I could understand of the the discussions it was indeed interesting to observe the reactions of people to the films and photographs. Pictures of familiar animals would lead to a sudden perking up or nodding, creases on the forehead when the not so familiar appeared and of course nudges and discussions. The children of course were delightful with unrestrained laughter and curiosity.There was one little girl who chose to sway on a pole while watching the films and some others creeping upto the laptop and checking at the consistency of what they saw on the screen and what they saw on the laptop.
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| Not without my pole |
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| or in my case my umbrella |
Overall the trip was great , I got to be in places that were quite different from the one's i'd been to earlier in the year and it also gave me a taste of how programmes like these are organized locally. But as is usually the case with me ...its what happened behind the scenes that left its mark............To be Contd in the next post
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