A Day Well Spent: Aboli Foundation Hosts Its 2020 Annual Trip
Students pose in front of the museum. Photo courtesy: Shubhada More.
On January 21, Aboli Foundation took third and fourth graders from four schools to Mumbai, where they visited a planetarium, museum and zoo. Board member Shubhada More accompanied the students, teachers and volunteers. Here are her thoughts:
The day started early for the 50 students of Temkipada, Dasgav, Talpaada and Dhanvge Paada. It was a field trip for third and fourth graders to the Nehru Planetarium, Nehru Science Center and Veermata Jijabai Udyan (Zoo) in Mumbai. The journey from Mahim to Mumbai was bumpy, tiring, and a bit sickly for the small kids who were not used to traveling such long distances, and that too in a bus with no air conditioning. When I joined them at Borivali (a northern suburb of Mumbai), they looked quite distressed and I was worried about the rest of the day. Would the children enjoy their time? I pushed that thought out of my mind as we headed towards the Nehru Science Center. Before we arrived, the children had a breakfast of cupcakes and juice. But I could clearly see that they were not enjoying the treat.
We reached the science centre and got off the bus, 50 sleepy-heads in tow. I bought the tickets, entered the centre and all of a sudden the sleepy heads were awake! The sight of dinosaurs brought a wave of excitement. The little ones started talking about and to the sculptures of dinosaurs. The rest of the exploration in the centre was sheer fun. They were intrigued by the optical illusions, their curiosity was challenged by various sound and light experiments. But they had the most fun in the fossil section.
Then we headed to the planetarium. We were running late so we decided to have lunch after the show. We reached just in time. Personally, I felt that the show was nice, informative and at the same time interesting. All the little ones were awestruck by the expanse of the universe, and they liked the journey into the future.
We had lunch on the bus as there was no place to sit outside the planetarium. After lunch, we headed towards the Zoo. Let me tell you this, all the children were waiting eagerly to arrive at the zoo. I had my own doubts about visiting the zoo, as the internet reviews were not great and in general, everyone had commented about the absence of animals.
The zoo was not a disaster as I had expected. There were elephants, deer, tortoises, reptiles, and— most fascinating of all—penguins. The children greatly enjoyed the walk through the zoo. We even found a play area for the kids. That’s where they came to their elements. We spent around 45 minutes on the playground.
And then it was almost 5:45 pm. The Mumbai traffic is notoriously bad, especially in the evening. It took us almost four hours to reach Mumbai in the morning. So it was high time to start the return journey home. Before leaving the city, we had some snacks—banana, Indian bread and muffins. And then we joined the rushing traffic.
The children liked the city lights, the cars, and most importantly the planes that were taking off as we passed Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
The day was ending, the children were tired, but they were still enjoying the city through which they were traveling.
“Children, how was Mumbai?” their teacher asked.
“Chhaan (beautiful),” everybody cried in a chorus.