Monday, May 18, 2009

Kothasatram-Indiranagar

After four days in GP Village, we trekked over to Kothasatram-Indiranagar Village near Kavali City. We left in the morning after breakfast and arrived in the evening. On the way, we took a boat to an island for lunch. We had a variety of curries (and I ate fried rice). Jon also had some half-melted ice cream for dessert.


After lunch and another hour or so in the car, we stopped to visit Habitat for Humanity Andhra Pradesh (aka Ravi's old office). We chatted with his old boss and co-workers for a few hours while we figured out where to stay in Chennai (near the airport). Habitat requires recipients to pay them back for the houses, and as a result, leaves out the poorest people in the area. Average pay back is less than a few dollars a week, but the people we worked with barely had enough money to feed themselves and their families. As a result, Ravi left Habitat to help out those who couldn't afford a Habitat house.


About an hour outside Kavali, we stopped so the driver could get some food and we could have a stretch and bathroom break. However, the bathroom consisted of a tiled room with a drain and a faucet. We all waited until we got to the hotel.

The next morning, we drove out to KI Village (about 30 minutes from Kavali). I was shocked at the sparseness of the village. While GP has a church, a school, and a community hall, KI has the houses. That's it. We gathered under a tree. We left our stuff in Adustruma's house (I'm probably spelling her name incorrectly), and worked on painting doors and windows. They needed to be painted so they would last longer and to increase visibility of crawly things that should stay outside. We paired off and painted about two houses per pair per day.


On our second morning, we helped out with the feeding center. Basically we served one egg and one cup of milk to each child, and one cup of tea to each adult. We also got them some watermelon, thanks to Jon.


Sadly, after our second day, Sauna and Jon went back to Japan. Emma and I worked together on the third day, and I had a brand new partner on our last day. She wasn't the neatest painter, but she was much faster than me. We worked together to paint the higher places since neither of us could reach them on our own. Doors are about a foot higher than the ground outside due to flooding problems during monsoon season, so that made painting the outer frame difficult.

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