Issue Nº307

Two years ago, in its February 2013 issue, Auroville Today reported on the manifestation of the first three gardens of the Matrimandir. The Gardens of Existence and Consciousness were ready, and work on the Garden of Bliss would be completed by the end of the year.

Gerald Frape is a social issues communicator who has been working for 35 years with government and non-government organizations on a wide range of social and environmental issues.

My experience of Auroville started in August 2013, as an intern at the Auroville Earth Institute. For six months, I had the chance to lead a research project on a promising new technology for construction, Poured Earth Concrete.

Recently, a number of small structures with shiny roofs have come up on open ground near Citadines. This is a small experimental settlement for Newcomers and volunteers called La Maison des Jeunes (“house of the young”).

In January, Paulette mounted an exhibition of old photos, which she had painstakingly restored, in the Town Hall. Most of the photographers are unknown.

We move through the buzzing mass of people at the Visitors’ Centre toward the quieter corners. We have heard that the Art Cart emerges every Tuesday and Friday afternoon, and have seen pictures of it in The Hindu.

The story of the Tsunamika doll is well-known to Aurovilians and friends of Auroville. The Tsunamika came from Auroville’s Upasana design and garment unit when the people involved felt moved to help alleviate the tragedy of the December 2004 tsunami.

Albert Zwaan joined Auroville in 1997, after working for 20 years as the head of the outpatient department and operation theatre of a hospital in the Netherlands.