After a hearty Indian breakfast we headed out for our day in Bangalore. We soon entered the small oasis in the city of Bangalore called Annadana. This was a five acre farm that was dedicated to the preservation of seeds. It may sound strange to have an entire farm dedicated to preserving seeds; after all, they are something that we take for granted. I didn't realize that hundreds if not thousands of plants were in danger because their seeds were just simply not being harvested. Instead people were relying of the large companies like Monsanto to supply their seeds meaning that the food that we eat and the plants that we are able to have in the future are in the hands of multinational corporations. Annadana was dedicated to growing these varieties of foods including over 47 different varieties of tomatoes, as well as many varieties of corn, beans, and peppers to insure that the farmers can access these foods. They also worked hard to promote innovative agriculture techniques like making their own pheromone traps and biodigester systems to keep bugs off plants but not use the nasty chemicals like roundup. We were also very fortunate to eat a hearty meal of plants grown on the farm including a salad, pasta, and an indian coconut dessert.
After lunch we headed back to Makkala Jagrati. We first stopped at the community center where the younger children had their school. We were soon greeted by a barrage of tiny hands all wanting to shake our hands and learn our names. It was so fun to see kids so excited to see us and practice their English. We spent some time with them in their classroom and then headed off to the classrooms were we met with our groups again to finish our "Story of Change" project. After we finished and shared our projects we made friendship bracelets and passed them around to our newly made friends. To finish the day we sang and Oli Mahalo to them and they returned the gesture with a song in Kanada. After exchanging facebooks and our last goodbyes we headed back to Visthar.
Before returning to the retreat center we collected some supplies that we will need for Timbaktu. We will be leaving Bangalore tomorrow for our next adventure at the Timbaktu Collective.
--Sidney
Alohi Angelique and Sidney planting beans
Ariella, Angelique and Alohi holding bunnies from Annadana
Ariella with the children at Makkala Jagrati's community center
Tyler and Sidney and their group share their "Story of Change" poster
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