First Day of Work!

Hello from everyone in the Bridges to India crew! This is Dana and Shannon and we are having a blast so far on our trip. This morning we rose early for some relaxing...relax....relax....relax... (it's a joke) yoga. Some of us decided that we needed to catch up on our sleep, but many people participated in yoga. For breakfast we had something interesting, but we really can't remember because most of us had the "pancakes" with Natalie's peanut butter. Shannon was upset that she lost her extra-crunchy peanut butter, but we are sure it will show up soon. We then got all primped and prepped in our safety goggles, work gloves, and close-toed shoes for a hard day at work down at the clinic. We have been planning to help out with the construction for an add-on to the Women's Vocational Center, where they have the resources to earn money by sewing. They were working on our very own saris, which was "uber" exciting to see the process of something so personal. They also demonstrated the embroidery work that they have been practicing.

We began working by collecting leaves, sticks, and rocks to put them into other piles of leaves, sticks, and rocks. Then, we moved gravel for the foundation of the center. Quinn, Shannon, Hunter, and Dana were the first to begin sifting granite sand, old school style, by using pans to dump it onto a screen where someone would then smooth it over with a wooden tool in order to filter the smaller sand out. Quinn thought that this was rather inefficient. Daisy agreed. So, we began the process of lifting up the screen and shaking it back and forth. Consequently, the work was finished faster, but our shoes became great sights of geological excavation. Later, we formed a human sand brigade to move our freshly filtered sand into the preexisting frame of the center. One local boy even skipped school to help us because he was so excited. But we later found out that he didn't have the money for the bus to get to school. Daisy is working to help this family. The people who had started the building process of the center, were demonstrating to us how they mush the sand with water to create a cement. Everything here is granite. Granite floors, granite counters, and now even granite cement! Mom, you should think about granite counters (from Shannon). Then, the junior girls began plastering over the lava-stone bricks with the cement. During this process, our same little helper and his two younger siblings had quite the photo shoot experience. Annie and Ellie made supermodels out of the boy's younger brother and sister, while he ran around with Kaytee's camera, artistically taking pictures of everything... everything.

Lal brought us all lime juice, which was so refreshing after working so hard and being so sticky and sweaty. Then, we went up to the house for some lunch. During our time in Daisy's house so far, we have had some pretty interesting food. Daisy had told us many times that she has been unhappy with the cooking, although we haven't lodged any complaints. Dana remembers looking over and seeing Daisy, Lal, Ms. Laly, and Vajeema speaking very fast in Malayalam. Apparently, what had been occurring was the firing of our cook. I guess Daisy really wasn't happy with the cook and decided to do something about it. What spunk?

Shannon and Amber completely missed this whole episode because they had fallen victim to a change in bananas. Originally, we were fed small finger-sized bananas that were yummy and sweet. Today, we were treated with scrumptious house-sized bananas. After Amber and Shannon ate them, they fell into a comatose nap and proceeded to have the most bizarre dreams. Shannon is thinking about smuggling some for the hellacious plane ride (only joking).

After working some more, and becoming thoroughly tired, hot, sticky, and sweaty, we gave in due to thunder in the distance. However, for some reason some of us decided it would be a brilliant idea to go for a walk towards the school to see if they were out yet so that we could walk them home. Unfortunately, the rain decided to accompany us as well. So we turned around, much to our chagrin, the students overtook us in a rumbling bus. Twice. But lucky for us, we got a shower out of the ordeal. A natural shower.

After some downtime, Dana, Shannon, and Amber, began to rehearse for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the front room. Lal then entered with two eleven-year-old neighborhood girls. They were quite giggly and glad to meet us. The girls left, and Dana walked them down the street. Then Lal brought us outside to pet the guard dog, Jimmy the Dalmatian. Shortly after, Lal began to push leftover "hamburgers" on us. But... no one was hungry.

Then we had dinner which consisted of goat mutton, veggie goop, and flaky, delicious, naan-like pastries. Dinner was much better than before. Haha. Susie then read us a bedtime story of all you avid bloggers' comments. Thank you so much for following our progress!

We miss you all,
Dana and Shannon