Yesterday morning, after our yoga and breakast ritual, I went to Grace Nursery and Primary School to teach the kindergarten, first and second graders. Before I went, I found out that this would be my last day teaching there as our work assignments were shuffled due to the two week volunteers leaving and holes needing to be filled. I was sad to leave as I felt that I was just getting started, but Katie was reassigned to Grace School and I will be going to Assisi Illam next week. At the end of each class, I took pictures of the students and at the end of our class with the teachers, I took pictures of them as well. I will truly miss the conversations I had with these women. The diversity in those three women was amazing. Two of the women were Pentecostal and one was Hindu. One was "liberated," one was very traditional, and the third was someplace in between. They exhibited great curiousity about our hair dye, the cost of our clothes, our undergarments, our alcohol and tobacco habits, just to name a few items.
After lunch, I was able to relax and cool off before we headed to SEAM for another dance party. This one was wilder than the one we had the previous night at Assisi Illam. The children at SEAM had never attended a party like this and they had no idea what to do, so they expended their excited energy by just running around, jumping, and being generally close to hysteria. Once again, we danced until the sweat soaked our clothes and then headed back to our guest house to shower before our dinner out. Before we left SEAM, the children sang a song and presented cards to the volunteers who would be leaving this weekend: Laura, Niki, and Nita. (Unfortunately, Nita wasn't feeling well so she skipped the celebraion. She did make a quick trip later to SEAM on the way to the restaurant to say good-bye.)
The showers felt good after our dancing, even though the water is cold. (If I haven't mentioned it before, we have no hot running waterr. All our showers are cold; in the afternoon, sometimes the water warms a little in the above ground tank and we MAY get a tepid shower.) Laura and Katie then headed to Assisi Illam to pick up Sister Virgin to join us at the restaurant. Before leaving Assisi, Sister Virgin and Sister Rose helped them put on their saris. Apparently, the art of putting on a sari is a difficult one. I was glad I had bought a churidar for myself instead: long loose pants, a long top, and a flowing scarf. I wore my churidar for our fancy dinner out and did get a few compliments.
The restaurant was very nice; food was served buffet style and once again we were presented with a multitude of Indian food choices. We did not leave hungry. I tried a glass (or two) of Indian red wine and thought it wasn't bad, being a little "spicey." When dinner was over, Stephen needed a volunteer to go home to auto-rickshaw, so I volunteered to be the sacrifice. It took a few minutes to find a rickskshaw going our way, but eventually Stephen and I were speeding along at break neck speed back to the guesthouse. Before going to bed, we spent time saying goodbye to Nita and Niki would would be going to the airport at 1am. We will miss them.
Today, several of us got up early for a visit to the flower, fruit, and vegetable market in Chennai. This is a huge market, flowers were sold in one large building, fruit in another, and vegetables in yet another. It was a chaotic, noisy, and colorful mix of vendors, delivery people in trucks, rickshaws, and on bicycles, both men and women transporting goods on their heads, vegetative refuse strewn on the floor, and everyone (it seemed) who wanted their photo taken. Photo opportunties galore presented themselves and we happily snapped away.
We returned to the guesthouse for a late breakfast. After breakfast, Jana, Aneesh, and I headed to SEAM to do physical examinations on the children. I did height, weight, and gross dental examinations, Aneesh did vision screening, and Jana performed quick head-to-toe examinations. Stephen found a standing scale by talking to a friend, who had a friend, who knew someone who worked in a clinic. A measuring tape was bought at a local stall to measure heights. I had a flashlight to check mouths, and a public health nurse I know sent me a web site where I was able to find a vision chart. Jana had a stethoscope. We were unable to locate a blood pressure cuff or otoscope, but we did the best we could. The most pressing need we found was dental care. Most children are in dire need of major dental work. I talked to Stephen about the need to organize a Global Volunteer dental team and he said that this may be possible. The second most pressing need was eye examinations as many of the young children could not read the eye chart.
Lunch was eaten at the guest house. After lunch, Laura was taken to the airport to catch her flight home, while the other members went to visit St. Thomas Mount, a cathedral, and to drive by the beach. I, however, elected to stay in the guest house to rest, then get ready for my weekend adventure. Tonight, Jana, Katie, and myself will board an overnight train to Mysore (accompanied by Stephen). There, we will view the Mysore Palace, then it will be off to the forest. Saturday night we will stay in a tree house and hopefully will be able to view wildlife from our accommodations. We will have the opportunity to go on some type of day safari and I'm hoping to see tigers, jaguars, and/or elephants. Of the three, Stephen said the most dangerous were the elephants. He said he has been charged by elephants only twice. He instructed us that if you run away really fast the elephants will usually stop chasing you. This should be interesting.
Signing off for now - more when I return from my weekend outing. Stephen laughed when I asked if the tree house has internet. I'm guessing that means "no." :)
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