Eco Cycle-Yatra- Hand Clap 'Choco-la-de' in Moratandi

Imagine, over fifty barefoot children in a circle, chanty South-Indian houses in the background, some curious dogs sniffing your toes, a group of about ten mothers observing from a safe distance, twenty volunteers from all over the world and... ' CHOCO-LA-DE' hand-clap smiles where-ever you look. This is the image that comes to my mind when looking back at my first Eco-Cycle Yatra experience last Monday (19/01/10). Since the launch of the project in September 2009, aiming to share, interact and connect with people from the villages surrounding Sadhana, this was the first time so many volunteers joined in.

We spend the afternoon in Moratandi, a village at walking distance from Sadhana Forest, so bikes were abundant this week. The fact that a Turkish body percussion expert taught us some techniques and songs beforehand -making music with our hands, legs, fingers- certainly put all of in the right mood for clapping and chanting. And the kids... they loved it too! Surprisingly, so did their mothers, fathers, the Tamil villagers passing by bike, passengers stopping in front of the spectacle,  all of them were eager to join in. Soon we were clapping hands with one villager after the other. It felt like giving out free five-fold high-fives. To put it in Lamie's words (one of our Korean volunteers): “everybody twinkle in eyes, singing, so beautiful, I had tears springing out my eyes. Wow!”. When everybody got the flow of the clapping game, Ana and Diego used the middle of the circle as a performance stage for a true Capoeira show.  After some hesitation, the first kids tried to imitate them and participated in the musical combat-dance, encouraged with loud cheers and songs of their friends and family.  Even one of the fathers showcased the flexibility of his Indian body with handstands and acrobatic stunts. He got a loud applause and a subtle suggestion by Ana that he would even dance better if he would abstain from alcohol. Hopefully he will leave a fragrance of pineapple juice when he dances with us next time :)

The ' Choco-la-de song'  caught on. Even five days later, during the chant-and-plant workshop in Children's Land,  girls and boys came up to us in the garden with inviting hands and a huge smile: “choco, choco, la, la, choco choco, de de, chocola, chocode, chocolade!”