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

November 24, 2019

There was a four day holiday given by the government. We spent three day holiday in countryside for relaxation and to look at farms. I fed farm animals, and learnt new things.

When we were going by car to our destination, we saw lot of trucks on the highway. My father suggested us to count the tyres of these passing trucks. The maximum number of tyres for one truck was 22. When we reached the province called Chachoengsao, I saw rice farms with storks. My family went to three temples of Lord Ganesha. The statues were very big. In the first statue, Lord Ganesh was sitting straight. It was pink in colour and beside a rice field. The second statue was near a river. There were three elephants near the temple. I fed them with bananas. I found these elephants very cute.

Then I noticed that their leg was tied with a chain. I am sure that the middle elephant was youngest because it was playful. I felt sad as they were tied.  The third statue of Lord Ganesha was very big and black in colour. Out of all the statues that I saw, this was the biggest one. This statue was made from metal and was in standing in straight position. In this temple, there were plastic flowers with candles in the middle. We floated one in a small pond near the Lord. When we reached the hotel, it was dark; our room was next to the lake of ducks and geese.

We stayed in a stilt house and the fish in the lake, kept going under our room. There was also a bird park in the resort. Next morning before leaving, we went to see the birds.  When I was in the bird farm, I wore a bird hair clip. I even saw ducks incubating. Once, when we went near a mother duck incubating, she made a hissing sound. The father duck came near us quacking loudly. We quickly went away so that they wouldn’t get disturbed.        

Next day, we went to a buffalo farm in the afternoon. The farm had a mini train (a tractor and mini carriages).  There were also feeding animals services. I and my brother fed the carrots and cabbage to the rabbits. Then we fed the buffaloes two litres of milk. There were various activities for kids to join. Our first activity was making Do-It-Yourself (DIY) soap. I made purple colour soap with my name on it. The instructor told us to arrange our names, with soap letters. He also told, “If we want to, we can add cartoon characters also”.

I arranged my name with green and yellow soap letters, with a soap unicorn and three soap stars. They told us to arrange these letters, in a mirror image. He gave us primary colours to mix them for our soap. I selected blue and red while my brother selected yellow and red. After this, the instructed asked us to add two droplets of these selected colours into a hot fluid liquid.

We poured this coloured hot liquid in the soap case. If any of our soap letters floated, we could push them down with an ice cream stick. The soap was kept in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to harden. After 30 minutes, we picked our soaps with a case. I felt surprised that we could make soap by ourselves in just 45 minutes. I am eager to use my soap for a bath.

The second activity was planting rice.  The instructors gave us a pair of socks to wear. At first, the farmer instructor gave us a pot. They taught us to plant rice in the pot and grow it by ourselves at our home. The first step, they told was to mix the soil with water. Then the instructor gave us rice seeds to put inside in the pots. Later, we went to the field and then planted the young rice saplings in the soil. When I stepped down, the soil was slippery and had big holes in it. I kept falling inside while walking, so the farmer instructor held my hand. I put rice saplings in a line, at some distance, in the field.

Then we climbed up the stairs to reach the top of a mudslide. It was indeed fun. I have never slid on a mud before. I was nervous at the beginning but after falling in the muddy water, I felt happy. I slid five times on this slide. At one time, I and my younger brother came down the slide together. We went to take a bath after this fun as we were muddy. My mom said that we were tired after only 1 hour in a farm. Imagine if you were a farmer, how much tired would you get?  Farmers have to work very hard every day in such fields. They will get very tired. So we shouldn’t waste food. I always try not to waste food and not to be picky eater.

Like me, my younger brother has also written 5 sentences about our holiday. He drew a drawing of duck and macaw also. He also wants to write a blog like me.    Bye for now and don’t waste food.