Chennai: Yercaud, Feb. 4

From Chennai 2008 Photo Album

The overnight train to Salem Junction en route to Yercaud provided the SCAW Team with a challenge and excitement. The jam-packed station in Chennai with down- and up-stairs under the tracks and no escalators abundantly underlined our wisdom in repacking only carry-on luggage and backpacks, and leaving our large suitcases in the home of a leading Rotarian for safe keeping until our return to Chennai in 8 days.

Narrow double-decked berths in a smaller-than-Canadian passenger car that had seen better days, and a train that swayed and growled clickety-clack along the uneven tracks, added up to a new travel experience. Fortunately, no one on the team is seasick-prone. We were stuffed and stacked in our short berths, with only curtains for doors to our compact compartments. With one compartment for four and one for two, sleeping proved intermittent with the background noise of some snoring fellow travellers.

The Salem train station at 5:30 am was already a beehive of activity. With speed we collected our luggage and made it off the train in the 5-minute window before the train again disappeared into the night. With haste we found our bus, guided by the three gallant Rotarians accompanying us on this part of our distribution tour. In the twilight of dawn, we set off for Yercaud up the mountains, our driver taking the switchback climb with its hairpin bends at breakneck speed. Our bus with its manual transmission seems to have only one gear: "Go!" Yercaud, as a mountain town 4700 feet above sea level, is a prosperous tourist site in the hot season but much poverty becomes evident as one explores the villages in the vicinity.

The lengthy train and bus trip meant that after arrival the rest of the day was free, but our dauntless bunch eagerly embraced the Rotarians invitation to visit several local attractions. The president of the Yercaud Rotary Club runs a coffee plantation of 1800 acres with 1000 coffee plants per acre and is expanding into growing pepper, oranges, cloves, mangos, vanilla beans, and gorgeous Anthuriums and Birds of Paradise flowers. We visited the building where over 700 bedkits were stored in preparation for the next day's distribution. In the beautiful gardens surrounding the owner's estate home, we enjoyed a sumptuous and authentic East Indian lunch.

In the afternoon, the Rotarians escorted us to Semanatham Elementary School of just over eighty students who greeted us with increasing enthusiasm in response to our warm-hearted interaction with them. Some of the students were going to be receiving bedkits the next day and some had benefited from this experience the year before.

From Chennai 2008 Photo Album

The Rotarians took us to visit two village homes where children had received bedkits the previous year. The incredibly small homes -- only 10 feet by 16 feet -- were clean and well-kept with the mothers obviously taking real pride in the family's very few possession, especially the bedkit. Canadian children would be appalled to live in the dwellings and villages we visited, but having never known anything else, we found most of the village children, though seriously deprived, good-natured and surprisingly happy-go-lucky.

Astonishingly, the Rotarians informed us that the SCAW bedkit program has led to a 15 percent increase in attendance. Parents of students highly treasure what to them is an enormous God-sent gift and have learned that the bedkits are only given to children who are going to school.

Our Rotarian guided tour next took us to a Hindu cave shrine at the Shevarayan Temple, and then to the Agathier Herbarium, a Aromatherapy Shop, where the women in our group indulged in some cosmetic and health purchases. Tired, but elated by our day's adventures, we reached our hotel for a two-night stay. We actually saw several monkeys, but more entrancing was the spectacular view from the mountainside resort of distant Salem Junction and the road winding upwards.

Gray Cavanagh for the SCAW 2008 Chennai Team

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