Patience, Indian Restaurant, and Physical Labor

My favorite quote that I heard yesterday from Stephan is: In India, if you don't have patience you'll need it. If you have patience, you'll lose it.

After our team meeting yesterday, we made another visit to SEAM. The children once again practiced their English by introducing themselves and afterwards we talked, played, and read wtih them in the courtyard. We walked back to the guest house and readied ourselves to go out to eat at a "real" Indian restaurant. Stephan led the way down the busy streets and along the way we passed a Hindu temple with a ceremony in progress. We made it safely to the restaurant after dodging motorcycles, auto-rickshaws, trucks, cars, and cows.

The Kaaraikudi Restaurant, after walking over broken pavement outside, was elegant on the inside with several waiters attending our table. Stephan ordered a multitude of Indian dishes for us to try. Some of the dishes that I remember are: chicken tikal, garlic chicken, a crispy caulflower dish, fried rice, two different types of flatbread, cucumbers and carrots, cheese in curry sauce, curried potatoes and cauliflower. I HAVE to learn out to cook Indian food. Needless to say, we were stuffed.

We went to bed fairly early; however, most of us are experiencing a disruption in our circadian rhythms and have been waking up at around 3am unable to sleep. I figured we'll finally adjust to the radically different time zone just in time for us to leave.

This morning, Aneesh (a 24 year old premed student) and I were taken to SEAM to begin our morning's work helping with constructing the new dormitories. Global Volunteer's policy is one of matched labor. If volunteers are working on a project, an equal number of local laborers has to be present. Our two local laborers were Moonian and Shebadun (the spellings on both are most likely incorrect). Aneesh and I spent the morning filling buckets with sand, sifting the sand, carrying the sifting sand up a flight of stairs, and dumping the sand. I'm getting quite adept at carrying buckets on my head. I also helped Moonian keep his plaster bucket full so he didn't have to stop plastering. (Moonian seems to think he can teach me the local dialect, Tamil.) After our morning's work, Aneesh and I were tired as all this work was carried on in 100 degrees with high humidity. Currently, we are relaxing before we go back to work a few hours this afternoon. Tonight, we work at the hospital.

Well, lunch is on the table...