Environment Day-Vultures and Meadows

Here I am back with some updates. The world  environment day was a hectic day. Nishtha kids prepared a puppet show on environment theme and they planned to do that in 3 schools. I missed the first show as I went hiking up and down the road to buy some groceries.  But I managed to jon the second one in a primary school in a small village named Chakvan , some 4 kms uphill from rakkar. Two trips in the jeep on barely existing road later we started setting up the screen and props. The kids enjoyed the play and the creator of the play sangita interacted with the kids.

Past the play the kids danced danced and had their part of fun. I managed to capture little innocence here.

We trekked down with props while the jeep went to drop the kids and 3 kids joined us till their home enroute. 

Eventually we reached rakkar and the kids had fun playing with the water from the aqueduct. 

In the evening we went to the eurokids campus near norbungla tibetan institute and this time since the kids would be late to home we adults managed the show with the recorded dialogues of the kids. We wrapped up the day with some snacks and reached home at 8-30 PM. Its a satisfying day as we went around spreading the message of garbage seggregation on the world environment day.

Back to morning hikes. Two days back along with my son we took a deroute and trekked up a small road up to a meadow and the view from the meadow was a memorable one. We finally spotted the Common cuckoo whose call we kept hearing almost every morning. It goes cuckoo-cukoo. Let the picture speak more about the place.

The long trek today means our son skipped the anganwadi school that day. He liked the school and he ate the snacks and food served there. The food they offer to kids is very good and nutritional and they asked us to send him with a empty lunchbox to pack his lunch to home. Nishtha supports many anganwadis and schools in close by villages with quality food supplies and monitor them. They carry supplies every week and deliver them to the schools. Our son was the oldest of all in the school and dispelled all my worries about him managing the show despite of language barrier. I wonder how he reacts when he grows up knowing that he once went to this small school in himachal for few months. Our landlords son too goes there. its fun watching the kids promptly came out and wave to the 10 am bus driver and the driver too acknowledged them by honking and waving. 

Few days back when I went bird watching, at around 8-30am, I saw vultures swooping down the valley. I got curious and hiked further to see what interested them. The hike made my day. I walked 500 mts through pine forest to see a big group of himalayan vultures on the ground.. running.. jumping.. some of them crossing the road. Apparently a dead cow I guess had attracted them. Mighty wings, big bills, funny walk made it an  unforgettable experience. I counted at least 15 and more flying around. Here are some pictures and video for you. I could not click better as I needed to head back and I didn't want to disturb them.'

I also got to know that as monsoon starts the locals take their cattle up hill and leave them in a meadow only to return in september to search and find them and take them back. They trek for 4-5 hrs to the meadow next to a glacier with their cattle. I asked my landlord to take me along and he mentioned that every year he takes few people with him and a newbie almost everytime. I am itching to try that.

That's it for now. Keep coming back for more