After 40 hours on the road the four Rural Changemakers made it to the Jugaad Skateboarding Competition 2018 in Bangalore. Under the lead of Arun, Ramkesh, Kesuram and Brijesh went all alone on this trip. They took the auto from Janwaar to Panna, caught a bus to Jhansi (7 hours) where they boarded the train at 1.30 am. 29 hours later they reached Bangalore. All on their own – with a bit of whatsapp supervision. Well done guys!!!
After a very warm welcome at Decathlon Sports India with a nice South Indian breakfast we reached the Jugaad a bit late – but we made it 🙂
15 minutes after we walked in, the three boys – Ramkesh, Brijesh and Kesuram – had their runs in the group under 14 years old. Arun acted as their coach and supervisor, he didn’t want to participate. Unfortunately the Jugaad was during exams times back home in Janwaar – so we could only send the three boys which was a bit of a pity.
The boys just told me that it was a great experience just being there … and they described in great detail what they liked/disliked at the saktepark. They loved their runs and watching the other kids – some of them they knew from our Skateboarding Challenge in 2016. They disliked the quite long passages where nothing happened, they didn’t like lunch ( 🙂 ) and they felt bored because there was nothing else to do and no corner to relax. So their excitement dropped usually around 2 pm … they were ready for a nap and wanted to go home.
Brijesh and Kesuram were out of the village for the very first time – so for them Bangalore was quite an adventure. Curiousely they inhaled as much as they could. Both of them are also “new” skateboarders – they only started recently to come to the skatepark – but in the up-run to the competition they were there every day. During their runs they tried everything they could and when they fell they simply stood up and kept on going.
Ramkesh, even though he was our youngster, was the “experienced” one. As cool as he could one could also say in a slightly but nicely “star-manner” – he was cruising the park and getting familiar with it. And – he made it to the finals, which meant an additional two runs. He didn’t make it on the winner’s podium – yet we all could see that he was happy with what he had achieved.
It was so great to see these young boys how independently they managed the entire trip and how close they were together. I couldn’t sense a single fight – they all agreed on Arun’s lead. Great job!
