Day 10

A morning sunrise over the desert welcomed day 10 at our resort at Shaam-E-Sarhad. We began the day with an activity similar to connecting the dots during the semester. We were tasked to reflect on our trip using a keyword and connect it to the larger theme of (Re)building communities, insights and reflections from India. Some of the keywords included ‘community’, symbols’, ‘religion’, ‘ (un)freedom’. Our reward for completing the reflection would be chocolates of various concentrations - a reward arguably hard earned as we had two minutes to brainstorm for the reflection and two minutes to give an insightful speech in front of everyone. Our reflections were also cheekily captured on camera though we are unsure as to where it’ll end up. It was nice to see that most of us were able to complete the brainstorming of our reflections within a minute, which demonstrated that we have kept what we learned through the trip at the back of our minds. After lunch, we broke into our groups to discuss about our field project.

The highlight of the day was the Great Rann of Kachchh - a seasonal salt desert reputed as one of the largest salt deserts in the world. Everyone’s faces lit up as we neared the Rann with the view of white in the distance, as most of us had never even seen a salt flat before. We were lucky enough that the salt and sand base was not too wet, thus allowing us to venture deeper into desert without sinking ankle deep. The white sand made our photos appear as if we were at a Christmas wonderland rather than a desert. While most of us were busy taking photos, some of us took some quiet time to silently observe the sunset and admire the beauty of nature. We then left the desert for the Rann Utsar (a seasonal festival) night market, selling foodstuff and fabric handicraft – leaving many of us to reflect on whether we had brought enough money for the trip. Some of us were adventurous enough to try the local street food, such as roasted corn, cheese masala Maggie, and paneer gobi Manchurian, and were pleasantly surprised at the taste. Some of us even went back to get a second helping!

The day ended with some quiet time to reflect on guiding questions for our photo essay - a sign that indeed our trip is drawing to a near end.