December Report 2007

The Rotaract Club of Hyderabad East has kept itself busy in the month of December by spreading smiles. On the 8th of December, we inducted three new members into our club.

On the 21st of December, a group of us got together and made chocolate for the children at AGAPE. It was a fun filled club activity as we made chocolate and wrapped it with great enthusiasm! Our sincere thanks to Rotary Ann.Babita for sponsoring all the ingredients for the chocolate.

On the 23rd of December, we visited AGAPE, where we conducted a Magic Show for the 180 children and sang carols. Snacks were distributed and the children had a wonderful time as they were mesmerized by their first exposure to Magic. As a special Christmas gift, we gave a 1200 Watt music system to the home. We raised funds for this through a salsa workshop, conducted at Bottles and Chimneys in September of this year. At the end of the evening, we distributed the home-made chocolates which we had made especially for them. Our host club, The Rotary Club of Hyderabad East further supported this cause by donating 130 blankets and providing snacks for the children. In all, It was an evening that the children enjoyed and had them asking for more!! Thank you for making our project even more special!!

Painting at AGAPE

On the 2nd of September, we visited AGAPE again. The purpose of this visit was to spend some time with the kids and draw and paint with them. When we reached the Home, all of them had assembled at one place. It took us a little bit of time to get organized, but very soon we split them into groups according to their age and each of us took up one group. We handed them the paper and colors, which instantly brought a smile on their face. We could feel their excitement in the room and we joined in. Each of us took a sheet of paper ourselves and started drawing. We were truly amazed by how much talent those little kids possessed. Some of them were even better than us!! When they finished one painting, they would look at us and say... “ Akka chudu !!! Anna chudu!!! ” with a big smile on their face!! And that was all we wanted! We clicked a lot of pictures and gave them refreshments. We sang songs and danced with them. I felt like a kid again, and I re-discovered my love for colouring books. I actually went n bought some for myself later! :) But the adventure was just beginning for me. I was on driver duty for the day and a whole bunch of my friends were banking on me to take them home safely from Uppal. I brought my old van with me, which suddenly decided halfway through the journey, when we were just about to enter Osmania University on the way back, that it had had enough! It stopped and refused to start. Loud noises started emanating from the engine and some funny green goo ( I later learnt what that really was) started dripping down to the road. Like that was not enough, Abhishek decided to entertain us and played some music. One of those songs was "Pon Pappi Jam" (which we later discovered much to our amusement was actually -Pump up the Jam).. Varenya fell in love with that song and played it a hundred times. But the madness did not stop there, she sang with it too! :(

Finally after trying various things like kicking the tyres, and pushing the van, we called for help. The mechanic obviously did not realise our plight, and as we waited in the van with no air conditioning, we waged a mini-war on a million mosquitoes, sang that stupid song again and again, Isha slept, and the sun set completely. Still no sign of the mechanic.Just when we decided to get out and start pushing the van again, it started raining. I could go on forever about how long it took and what a pain it was not to scream at the mechanic for coming late. Anyway, all's well that ends well. The car was repaired and we reached home safe and sound. This was really one project I will NOT forget in my lifetime!

--Rtr.Amrita Kanjani

salsa !

Hyderabadis learn how to indulge themselves in everything that is considered 'happening' in town. The salsa fever struck the city and just then we had our first 'fund raising' event (in september 2007). Our instructor was Mr. Jeremy Brian, a salsa expert who used to teach at ahala,Bottles and chimneys besides conducting quite a few other salsa workshops. He was magnaninous enough to do the workshop for a very nominal pay and also got us a good deal for the venue ( which happened to be BnC). This was a 2-days event. On the first day the basic moves of salsa and other club dances were taught. The workshop began at 5pm at BnC. Everyone who bought the pass arrived at the venue before the instructor did ! The response was overwhelming :) The following day set everyone on a 'high '. As the music continued to play, each and everyone tapped their feet and swayed around with their partners for nearly two hours.Jeremy also taught us a few other latin american club moves like merengue. His exceptional talent coupled with the high spirits of the particpants set the evening going. Some of our 'guests' even refused to take the complimentary drink that was offered to them. They wanted to help us save 'OUR' money for charity :) The Rotaract club of hyderabad east had it first accomplished ' fund raiser' way before it was officially chartered.