Day 13 - June 7 - Discussions and Dance Moves

This morning, we intended to work on the stairs but we ran out of sand, so that was it for today. On the bright side, Mr. Dixon said that we’ll still remain somewhat on schedule. We hope to complete up through the lintels (concrete supports that extend out over the windows) tomorrow. Communicating the technical information has several challenges because of the language barrier, but it’s a lot of fun and everyone is relatively positive about the outcome. This also gave everyone some time to rest.

In the afternoon, we sat down and talked about the social work and community engagement aspects of our project. Understanding how to address the human aspects of the project is difficult because no matter how big our hearts are, the reality is that none of us are certified to do this work. Social work students are vital to the program for this reason and many others. We want to help, but what is the right way to go about it? Is that even our place?

Anyway, life has a funny way of following profound situations with extremely laughable ones. Shortly after that, Sowmya, our cultural advisor from Chennai, showed us her dance moves. It started out as a “lesson” but pretty much turned into Sowmya taking center stage and the rest of us sort of stumbling around. Kiera taught us the Charleston (same story… no coordination on my end!!). Arvind even went so far as to teach a fake dance to Sowmya, who believed him… This is proof that we’re all just a bunch of monkeys at the end of the day. 😊

Our team is the BEST. It's great to be here with so many sweet souls. It amazes me that in just nine months, we became so close and are doing this together. The combined power of ingenuity and love can’t be beat, and it makes me especially happy to be here with these goofballs.

- Nina