We ate lunch with Anna and Natalie today, which was really nice. Natalie seems like a really cool person, and we’re hoping that she’ll come along on some of our Chennai adventures! Today was Anna’s last day, and we’re definitely going to miss us. She gave us each a pretty metal bangle as a keepsake, which was really sweet of her. She’s thinking of doing some further education in the US in the future, so we’re really hoping that she comes to visit us.
Today was World Disability Day, so there were no classes or therapy session in the afternoon. Instead the whole school congregated in the vocational training center for a big assembly (it was supposed to be outside, but its started raining at the last minute). The assembly was a really awesome experience. SPASTN as a school has so much spirit – the teachers were giving out awards for sporting events and everyone was cheering so hard for their peers. I actually got a little bit teary eyed! Some of the students did some dance numbers and sang songs, and a few of the staff performed as well. Talk about a fun afternoon! When things were starting to wind down, they unveiled the giant cake to celebrate SPASTN’s 28th anniversary. I don’t think that it was actually 28 feet long, as it was supposed to be, but it was a pretty big cake. It was decorated really nicely – in the middle was SPASTN’s logo, on one side it was decorated to look like a beach, and on the other with crocodiles etc. It tasted really good too! Kind of like pina colada in cake form.
After work we headed back to Ascendas once again, to fight with Airtel, once again. We discovered this morning that we’re now neither able to make outgoing calls nor receive incoming calls. We didn’t get very far with them – they promised we’d have our phone activated by tomorrow morning, but I’m in suspense as to whether that will actually happen or not. Once we were done at Airtel we caught an auto rickshaw to Besant Nagar for a bit of a pick me up. We wanted to hit up the grocery store and buy some interesting fruit!
The first grocery store we went to didn’t have custard apples (which are these really curious looking spiny green/black things that we are dying to try) but we did pick up two guavas, and we also got a mango yogurt each (which was really yummy – we ate them on the street with our tongues!). We spent some time wandering through the streets of Besant Nagar and came across a little jewelry stand where we each picked up a few little, hand beaded items. Eventually we made it to the second grocery store (which also didn’t have any custard apples) but where we found Parle-G cookies (which are these really yummy buttery digestive-ish cookies) and mango fruit leather. By the time we finished perusing the grocery store it was almost 7:30, so we decided to head back to SPASTN. We managed to the get the auto to drop us off pretty much at our door, which was great. Snake walk aside, lake SPASTN has begun to grow steadily again, and we’re always glad to avoid walking through the water.
We’d told the kitchen staff not to bring us dinner tonight, which gave us a chance to try out our kettle! I made a Campbell’s Thai flavoured noodle soup and Priyanka had Minestrone. Mmm mmm good indeed! A nice change from our usual dinner of chapatti and dahl!
After dinner we googled how to eat a guava, and I hacked them in half with my swiss army knife. Apparently you can eat them like an apple, but we wanted to avoid the peel, so after cutting them in half we scooped out the flesh and seeds with a spoon. They were really tasty!
Our night has really flown by – I can’t believe its almost 11pm! We’re now just finishing up our presentation for tomorrow, and then I guess we’ll be heading to bed. What a great day!
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