We are going to the beach!

On a regular workday… no wonder all the other volunteers are jealous of HBP volunteers’ work. It is a great variety of tasks in our projects. Currently, 2 of the 4 HBP-projects at CEL are occupied and we, as the 5 international volunteers mostly give sessions on our topics in government primary schools. But that’s not all… today we are heading for something different.

The first Nirvana beach festival at Kodi beach walk is about to start on the following weekend, and the place still looks quite boring. Of course, there will be all kinds of different things installed the day before, and many of them are planned to be colourful and give the place a nice appearance.

The problem is: the festival is temporary and so are the decorations. Our sand sculptures will be erased by the wind, the fabrics that are going to be connected to stalls and trees put back into their cases. Sky lanterns and kites will fly away and all the people we expect on the weekend will go. The place will appear the same afterwards. Except for ONE thing.

We are going to do something permanent, something visible for years to come, something nice and big, and something educational, too. For the next few days we are here to draw an underwater world. We will show the great variety of sea creatures, their appearance, interaction and environment. And because the festival’s goal is to inform people about the dangers of plastics and avoidance of the use of any harmful products to nature, we will also demonstrate the human’s influence on the ecosystem in the way of pollution. Environmental Education and Sea Turtle Conservation are our projects. Both will be part of the picture. It perfectly fits. Our canvas is the big blue wall of Clean Kundapura Projects House, which faces right towards the centre of the future festival.

Materials and sketch are ready. It is going to be the picture of a sea turtle made out of different trash items and a polluted scenery on the ground of a sandy ocean. Our motivation is high because we never had that many colours before, and because the background is ready to start. We have a ladder and all the brushes we need. No reason to wait.

Almost three days later it’s completed.

Time to start the next activity! Visitors will be there tomorrow.