Today was a pretty great day. People at SPASTN are starting to get used to Priyanka and I being around, and are talking to us more! We spent the first part of the day observing in the PT department as usual, and then headed to the speech language pathology department to observe there for an hour. In the SLP area we met several interns who are visiting SPASTN from a different state in India. We got to chat with them a bit and learn a little bit more about SLP and their program. They were really friendly (and feeling equally as lost as us, since they also don’t speak Tamil), and we’re hoping that we might get to spend some more time with them in the future.
We have had a few other people staying at our building for the past two days (a special educator and her husband and brother) and we were able to chat with them for a little while at lunch. Along with them was Anna, a very friendly Psychology masters student who is also interning at SPASTN. Anna speaks English very well and lives in Chennai, so we’re hoping to get to know her a little bit better. She said that she would give us some pointers on where to go, and how to use the sub-urban train system etc. Slowly but surely we are figuring out how to get around in this crazy city!
In the afternoon we had our first hands on experience with the kids! Priya (the PT) arranged for a few kids to come in so that we could practice using the Tardieu scale, before we start our project (although we still don’t really know what the goal of this “project” is). The kids responded well to us, and it was really nice to have some hands on experience. I’ve missed that!
After work we headed out to Besant Nagar to explore a little bit, as well as (finally!) get our internet sorted out. We were supposed to meet Karthik at 5pm, and were a little bit early, so we explored the nearby grocery store. It was pretty cool! It was a pretty small store, but they had a lot of cool stuff, including a variety of westernized products (like Corn flakes and Nutella!), probably because of the area that it is located in. After a quick browse, we headed over to Reliance World to meet Karthik and get our internet going. It was a pretty efficient process, and before we knew it we were surfing the web in the store! We are SO thankful towards Karthik! He met up with us there on his own time, outside of work hours, just so that we could get internet. What an awesome guy!
After getting the internet working we went back to the fancy/expensive clothing store. This time, I had more success. I walked away with an awesome pair of pants (very light and balloon like) and three shirts. I think I’m all set for clothing now! We also stopped in at “Dora’s Bag Mall” across the street which is a HUGE purse store. Priyanka bought a change purse, but aside from that it wasn’t really our thing.
It was pretty dark at this point, so we decided to catch an auto rickshaw home. The first one we stopped wanted 150 INR for what we knew to be a 70 INR trip, so we sent him on his merry way and flagged down another guy who was wiling to take us for 70. We even managed to get him to take us to the door so we could avoid the scary snake walk!
After dinner Priyanka decided to try doing laundry the good old fashioned way – in a bucket with a bar of laundry soap and a brush! I can tell you, I will never complain about the crappy washing machine in my basement again…washing clothes by hand is a lot of work! I have to do a load of laundry tomorrow, and I’m not really excited about it!
Both of us having been up and about on the internet for about the last 2 hours, catching up on emails, posting blogs and chatting with friends. Its been really great! I managed to figure out how to use my computer as a router of sorts so that both of us can be online at once, despite only having one mobile internet key. Its been a long (but fun) day, and I’m pretty sleepy…starting to think about crawling under my mosquito net for a nice long sleep J I’m planning on posting photos to go along with these blogs, but I can’t plug in the internet stick and my camera at the same time (USB ports are too close together), so that will have to wait until tomorrow.
Good Night! Hope you all have a great day!
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