A Child’s Diary: Idhika Diwan’s Corona Lockdown Days

July 27, 2020

I am back to school

On Tuesday, after my assembly, I went inside my class. I looked at my class timetable. I noticed that the first subject was “English”. Yeah and yippee!!! I was eager for the surprise from my teacher. Now I will share the surprise with you also. It is a piece of chocolate. Yummy!!!!!! But our teacher told us that our piece of chocolate will come in an envelope. He will  not give it to us in our hands. This is the first time I am going to receive a letter from someone. I check my house’s letterbox every day.

My mom told me that a mail takes longer than I think.  The person who sends the mail puts the mail in the postbox. A postman will collect the mail and send it to the post office. Then a postman will sort out the continents, countries, and cities. Another postman will sort the subdistricts also. The last step is the delivery by the postman to the houses. It takes 2, 3 days or more for a mail to travel.

Do you know that we have lots of snails in our front yard? So I have planned a kid’s mission. I and some of my best friends will sell the snails as pets. The money will be divided between all of my friends as we will work hard. I have thought of a promotion also. “If you by snails for 30, 60, and 90 THB, you will get fresh vegetables free from our own kitchen garden”.

If someone buys all the snails, they have to pay total of 1000 THB. I, my younger brother, and my house friend are collecting the snails in a small plastic tray, in a plastic bag. Inside the plastic tray, there is soil and swamp for snails to bathe. I was afraid to pick up snails with my hand at first. Then my house friend taught how to pick up snails.

Before going to school, I told my mom that “don’t let the snails run away”. But when we came back from school, all the snails were gone!!!!! I think the snails were feeling lonely and bored. I plan to develop a bigger cage with a play area for snails.

Sunday to Tuesday, is long holiday period for everybody in Thailand. Our family planned to go on a day trip. On Sunday, we went to Sattahip subdistrict. We went to a museum called “Thai Island Sea and natural history museum”. While going to the museum, we were stuck in a traffic jam. On the street, I saw solar panels on street lamps. They looked like hats for lamps. Haha ha… It helps the lamps to catch light from the sun and shine at night. I think that when I grow up, all the houses on earth will have solar panels.

The museum was on a mountain. At the entrance, there were two big statues of dinosaurs. One of the dinosaurs was a T-Rex; the second one was a Triceratops. We climbed on rocky stairs to reach the first exhibit.  It was all about dinosaurs. There was a statue of a dinosaur called Phuwiangosaurus. This dinosaur’s fossil was found in Thailand. But how did it get its name? It is because the fossil of the dinosaur was found on a mountain called PhuWiang.  

We had to climb up the mountain to reach each exhibit. I liked the exhibit which had a microscope and magnifying glass to look at organisms in the soil and termites. The 4^th exhibit had an e-book. I read some slides of that. I was surprised to see that the e-bookwas not on a table but a big rock! I saw a movie about cleaning sea from pollution. There was a speaking turtle. He told us to protect his home, the sea, and children from enemies. He told us that only humans pollute the oceans. He gave us an example of protecting ocean by cleaning the beaches.

Beside the museum, there was sea. We could see the sea from top of the mountain or exhibit 5^th. It was a spectacular view. I saw the sea and boats and ships. I even saw 5 islands. One of the islands was like a giant starfish!!! I didn’t even feel tired while climbing up and down the mountain. We climbed on wooden stairs to reach the bottom of the mountain. The forest had a big canopy and no sunlight was reaching the forest floor. While we were going down, there were chopped tree stumps as sitting area. I counted the rings on some stumps. The rings help us to know the age of trees. I learnt that we need to conserve water, or in the future we would get no water, or seafood etc.                                       

After the mountain hike, we went to the walkway bridge on the sea beside the mountain. The pillars of the bridge had dead corals and scallops. There was a very nice breeze in the air. I was wearing hair clips. But when I was walking on the bridge, I removed my clips. I wanted my hair to fly. When I was nearly at the end of the bridge, I noticed something. It was a mangrove forest plantation. At the back of the young trees, there were big tall trees. My mom told me that they are planting the forest because not to have erosion. I learnt about erosionin the museum, it is landfall that happens when lands are weak. So we need to plant trees for no erosion. I want to go there after 10 years to see a very big mangrove forest.                

Now, my school group I changed to A. That means now I will go to school on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Bye for this journal