The five of us — Ayush, Ashish, Reeti, Jenesha, and myself Shristi, along with our teacher Kanta Thami, participated in the Macfair International 2008 at the City Montessori School (CMS) in the Indian city of Lucknow in August.

On arriving at the school, we were very amazed by the size of the school — it was enormous and could easily accomodate thousands of students at a time. 

The next day, we were taken to the school auditorium where all participants from 72 schools were present. Jagdish Gandhi, who is the founder and manager of CMS, gave us a very inspiring speech on World Peace and World Unity. There were also many performances by the students of CMS which were quite fascinating.

On the third day, many competitions were held in which Reeti and I participated. There was Twin Quin Turdles; in this contest we had to take part in drawing, dancing, jumble words, role play and extempore.

It was the night before all these events that we found out we had to participate in dumb charade, dance, video game, find the word and instrument playing. Though we were unprepared, we performed quite well. The same day, Ashish participated in cartoon making where he had to draw on the topic — Global Warming. The day was hectic but interesting.

Ayush and Jenesha took part in the Maths Quiz. The questions asked were quite tough, but they performed their level best and answered almost all the questions correctly.

One the fifth day, we all woke up quite sad because it was the last day of our trip. We had made a lot of friends and had gained a lot of knowledge.

Macfair International 2008 gave us a big platform to show our mettle. We attended quite a few programmes that day. Prize distribution was also held where sadly none of us won any prize.

Though we came home empty handed, we had gained a lot of knowledge and had a truly amazing journey. I’d do anything to do it again!

— Shristi Acharya, Class IX, Triyog High School