Wednesday Feb. 20. 2008

Peter Rient

Quote for the Day:

A jug fills drop by drop

Gautama Buddha

Much the same is true of the walls at the SEAM Children’s Home. As Helen and Peter found, they are scraped, scrubbed and painted one stroke at a time. After their second day, the team earned the coveted accolade of “very super” from Ravi the foreman. Nevertheless, a higher authority found their work a trifle fast for his taste, and decreed that they should be summarily removed from the job site after only one more day, albeit with vague promises that similar positions would be found for them elsewhere.

The rest of Team 63 seems to have found its stride and fared considerably better on day three.

Jenifer continued her rotation through the departments at St. Thomas Hospital by attending one of the physicians on her general clinical practice, and reported that she actually experienced a sense of accomplishment.

The report by Anne, Birgit and Eula from Assisi Day Care Centre was even more upbeat – “Our babies were all over us today, we kept them entertained the whole time, and Jasmine almost walked!”

At Grace School, the picture was not so rosy, however. At the beginning of the day Margery found herself unable to be heard, on account of the tumult of parading students outside in the street; and later on, when she gave her children their first ever markers, they hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with them.

Meanwhile, Larry continued his heroic efforts at St. Joseph’s School. Although still intimidated by the younger children, he was able to carry the day with the older students by making an example of one of them to illustrate a quaint concept he refers to as “respect”.

Not to be outdone, the irrepressible Rae, having been charged with teaching the tiresome subject of ‘spoken English’ to kindergarteners at St. Joseph’s, opted to subvert the work of the nuns by teaching the little dears to do the “Hoochie Koochie” instead.

All of this earned the team a special treat following the late afternoon visit to SEAM a trip into Chennai for a bit of shopping and dinner. As an added bonus, and an extra reward for our patience and flexibility, Stephen treated us to a couple of hair raising auto-rickshaw rides that left us feeling that we had really experienced India, and grateful to have reached our beds in one piece.