Sadnana Forest

_     Yesterday we went to Sadhana Forest for a festival celebrating the forest's birthday. There had been a note about the party on the notice-board and I was really excited for the arts & crafts, so when we got there I was really disappointed. It was for little kids, maybe six or eight. I felt really weird standing there so I went and joined Mom in her yoga class. Maybe I should explain things more. The cluster of huts is like a community centre. There's the Main Hut, the Healing Hut, the Nursery, the Kitchen and a whole bunch more I didn't get to explore. Pretty much everything is natural. The huts are made of bamboo and palm leaves, they wash their dishes using a coconut husk to scrub and ashes from the fire as soap, and they turn the... stuff from out of the toilet into compost. To sum it all up, almost everything is . . .

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_bio-degradable and people who live here could survive if all man-made resources ran out, or pretty much if the world ended. As I was saying, I joined in the yoga class, and soon Birch and Dad arrived. They had biked here and Mom and I had taken the bus. Dad joined in and I left to hang out with Birch and find something interesting to do. Then I noticed how hard it would be to build this place. All the work, all the planning, and not to mention all the math! I guess that's kind of the case with every building, but these roofs only last about two years, so you would need a lot of material for this. But the structure is surprisingly strong! One kid was climbing on it, and I was shocked that the bamboo didn't snap! After a while me and Birch got bored so we went back. I watched the yoga finish, and Birch disappeared, as usual. Next was acro-yoga, so I joined in. We practiced being 'tables' which I'd had some experience in (I'd always been the bottom of the pyramid when my soccer team did a photo shoot). I was able to have Mom sit on me and another girl stand on me. We also learned how to 'fly', lifting up other people on feet. It was okay, but not exactly fun.
    After that came lunch, which consisted of strange curry, tasty humous, not-so-nice salad and stale bread. I was fine with it, since it was free, and I was too hungry to deny it. Also, they were feeding two hundred people, so I have to give them credit!

Doing Acro-yoga

They even post instructions on how to use their eco-friendly toilets

Everyone enjoying lunch in the main hut

Dad and Birch helping to make fires

_After lunch I washed my dish and Birch started questioning one of the volunteers about how they cook stuff. Since Dad's a carpenter, Barbra (the women in charge of the school we're volunteering at in Uganda) asked him to make an oven. The volunteer said that they cook bread and stuff in a clay oven, but they had had an expert build it. He also said that if Birch went to the kitchen, they would probably teach him how to boil water and barbecue eggplants. Birch wanted to go right away, but Dad and Mom wanted a tour of the camp. We asked a volunteer and he brought us to a place called Children's Land. All the local kids in the nearby village come here with their schools and learn all about nature and how to reuse. The kids benefit a lot from it and I think it's great. He also showed us a manmade forest, with little trees, and told us that it had been pretty much red soil before. Monsoons come through here, washing away everything in their path. In order to plant things they had to create big mounds of dirt that stopped all the seeds from being washed away. The towns-people did the same since it would stop their village from flooding entirely. We learned about a bunch of stuff, then went back to the camp. As soon as we got there Birch and Dad dragged Mom and I to the kitchen, where they taught us how to cook and reuse a bunch of stuff. I got pretty bored and kinda skipped out, so I'm not so sure how to build the oven, but Dad and Birch do. When the guy asked us if we wanted to help, I quickly steered Mom away. I'm not so good with fires. Birch and Dad helped and Mom and I joined in a dance in the main hall. Our bus came and we had to leave.
IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE!
Merry, merry Christmas,
Allie

Cramming into the shuttle van, time to go home