A scene from around the campfire at JM on our last night in Tirur. 
Students and teachers dance around the campfire during the Bharat Scouts' weekend retreat.
The gym teacher Prakash, who has a fine singing voice, led the group in a traditional Hindi song.
A group of students takes the mic and belts out a Bollywood tune, to the delight of the other students.
One of our most memorable times in Tirur was saved for our final night in town. On Saturday, Jenna and I, along with our roommate Jaime, went to a bonfire at JM School. The bonfire was part of a two-day retreat conducted by the school’s Bharat Scouts—the Indian version of the Boy Scouts (though the Bharat Scouts are co-ed).
More than 40 students participated in the retreat, which started Saturday morning and went all day, with several leadership and teamwork-building activities led by a group of JM teachers. The Scouts were also set to go on a hike the following day to a hilly area near Palakkad, north of Tirur.
In many ways, the bonfire was reminiscent of the campfires I had sat around at Boy Scout Camp when I was a kid—the familiar smell of burning wood, the sharp sensation of smoke burning your eyes, the sight of dancing embers licking up towards a starry sky.
In other ways, though, the experience was totally Indian. Instead of songs like “John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt”, the students belted out Malayalam classics and hit Bollywood movie tunes. At one point, the students feverishly broke out into Shakira's hit song "Waca Waca", the song used as the anthem of last year's World Cup.
They danced incessantly around the burning blaze and forced me to join their rhythmic motions. (There is embarrassing video of this but, fortunately for my sake, the Internet connection is too slow to download it properly onto the blog.)
At one point, the teachers and students insisted Jenna, Jaime and I lead the group in an ‘American campfire song’. In desperation, we latched onto the simplest thing we could all remember: “Kumbayah”.
“It’s got to be faster,” I muttered, for I had noted the speed of all the other songs the students had been singing. (Indians, I think, like their music fast with a pulsing beat.) I sang out the first verse alone at a speed that would be considered entirely inappropriate for the spiritual song in America.
“Kumbayah…my Lord. Kum-Ba-YAAAH!”
Jenna and Jaime joined in on the second time around. By the third time through the verse, some of the students had picked up on the simple words and were hesitantly singing along, nodding their heads. By the fourth time around most of the group was singing with us, their voices more brash and confident. By the fifth time, they had gotten bored, realizing this tune was not really that danceable.
They still clapped when we concluded, however. Though some of the kids had quizzical looks on their faces.
The night concluded with some of the students acting out skits in Malayalam, which received much uproarious laughter from the kids and teachers. At the end of the night, the group stood around the dying fire and concluded the evening with a short prayer. Then, they all lept from their seats and sprinted towards a few classrooms which had been set aside as sleeping areas for the night. The students would be spending the night laying on the benches and tables normally reserved for learning during the daytime.
After some long goodbyes, taking pictures, and giving a few hugs, we struck out for our apartment in the dark. A nearly full moon lit our path along the same road Jenna and I had walked almost every day for the past four months. It was hard to believe it was the last time we would be walking it. But we could not have thought of a better way to end our experience at JM.
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