Balamitra Bodi

No running water or electricity.

No word such as the bathroom.

I’m sure that all of you have heard about these tribal villages – either in the news or a channel like the National Geographic.

I was one of you, untill the day before yesterday; I was aware of the fact that there are such villages, but I never pictured myself visiting one of them, or actually sleeping in one of the villages.



Yesterday morning at 6:30, the SYA group assembled in front of YMCA on the beach road. We were divided into three different groups (according to advisee groups); educational, environmental, and agricultural.

I was in the educational group with Mr. Stifler, Mr. Billing and 7 other students, but two of them were absent for their personal reasons.

Mr. Stifler was still in Sri Lanka, so Mr. Billing led our group and we hopped on our jeeps.

During our 2-hour drive to Araku valley, we stopped at a local restaurant to have greasy pooris and dosas with warm cups of chai.

Pooris are kind of like flattened fried jacks (I guess this is only useful to those who were in Belize with me! I don’t know where fried jacks are found except for Belize…) and they’re often eaten for breakfast, with other Indian veg dish.

By the time we got to the resource center in Poolabunda, we were unaware of 3-hour hiking that was waiting for us.

Chloe and Eleanor brought their strings for friendship bracelets, which sparked interest in the villagers. Both women and men gathered around us to learn how to make the bracelets – there are like 10 different kinds and I also learned them!

We had a delicious lunch consisted of rice and spicy potatoes – some of us couldn’t handle it, but I absolutely loved it!

Knowing that we won’t have access to drinking water, we busily filled up our water bottles and started to hike.

Hiking seemed endless to me, even though the beautiful scenery was more than enough to relieve my exhaustion.

We started to see the local villages after an hour or so of hiking – we occasionally stopped for water breaks, and tried to talk to the villagers.

Many of these villages have their own languages that are not recorded, and not much has been done to translate these languages. Therefore, the communication among tribal villages is hard, and in addition, attempt of the “city people” to reach out has been very challenging.

So one of the projects that Balamitra Bodi has been working on is recording these languages and compiling dictionaries in these tribal languages and Telugu. (I saw some of these books when I went to the resource center near Visakha Valley School, and these were all handwritten!)

After 3 hours of hiking, we finally arrived at the village where we slept at. (We slept in the school building that Balamitra Bodi volunteers built)

As we put our stuff away inside the school, little kids started to swarm around the building. But they were too shy; they kept on running away when they had an eye contact with us.

However, we started to get along – time takes care of everything J

It was funny when one of the men climbed up this tree (sorry I don’t remember the name) to bring us a natural alcoholic drink called jaloo – for the “cultural experience” we all had sips of it and none of us liked it. It tasted kind of like coconut milk and rice wine.

It was soon dinner time and the natives served us pumpkin with pumpkin leaves, chicken in red sauce, and tons of white rice.

We were so grateful for their hospitality, because we learned that they usually eat veg, and non-veg is only for special occasions. (3-4 times a year)

The highlight of the day was our dance party!

The women dressed in their special clothing and the men used some interesting instruments to spice up the party!!

We were exhausted so by 10, we were all asleep after looking at the beautiful stars.

Today I woke up at 5:45AM and talked with Mr. Billing, Mr. Stifler, and the fellow SYA students about the possibility of setting up different activities that can help the villagers in the long run.

Chloe and Eleanor talked about how the friendship bracelets can be sold at the weekly markets – it can be one of the sources of income!

The purpose of this trip was to learn about the villages and their situation, rather than actually helping them.

After having some junk food for breakfast – yes, junk food, like butter cookies with peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies – we started hiking again to visit 2 more village schools.

Again, we hiked for 3 hours total – and it was more than evident that I was NOT in shape to do this. Haha

When we stopped at the schools, we were exposed to a mini class, for it was Sunday. The kids don’t go to school on Sundays but they were there especially for us.

We painted, stitched leaves, sang songs, and watched the kids perform.

On the way back to the YMCA, Victoria, Jenna, and I just slept.

After all, hiking for hours and having fun with the villagers are tiring activities.

I’m looking forward to going back, but this time after working out so that I’m in shape.

I would love to contribute something that is long-lasting!


(This is a journal-like entry that I wrote after I came back from Araku Valley)