Well we’re almost wrapping up our adventure here at Kuthembakkem but we have a feeling tomorrow’s final day will be nothing short of a grand finale! Things have been going exceedingly well and we are all extremely happy with the results thus far. After an intense night of drawing on behalf of the residental arists we headed off bright and early to Kuthembakkem with certain goals in mind. Katie and Promeeta intended to draw the sketches of the rural development scene on the elementary school building but it unfortunately had not been painted over yet (since the villagers had painted the outside of the middle school building last night). Instead, they decided to have the 1st-3rd graders put their thumbprints around the chalkboards for each grade and the full handprints of the 4th-6th graders inside the middle school building. The project was widely supported by the rest of the community; for example the teachers and local painters gave their full support by helping paint the hands of the children and helping the children place their painted hands on the wall and some of the 8th grade boys washed the hands off of the childrens hands after they had finished. Meanwhille the rest of the team was actively planning the sports day that would begin at 1:30 this afternoon. First we had to sort through the prizes and determine which would be appropriate for the occasion. Of course there was some side-bar horsing around (such as playing with a small watergun…) but overall we managed to determine the three rounds of the sports day, 100 meter race; relay race; and tug of war, and sorted through all the prizes. Some of the village women who were helping at the Panchayat office were amused by the different prizes and enjoyed understanding how they worked (such as mechanical walking toys, rubix cubes). After lunch we then broke off into 3 groups: Tuhin working on the computer to catelouge the books, Katie and Pro getting the handprints of the Team;Teachers; and Ilango, and the rest of the team working on the sports day. It was fairly amusing since the students now began to ask members of the team for our autographs. We felt very similar to celebrities when a group of children rushed up with pads of paper and pens for us to sign! Anyways, we got the activities together and sent for the students to begin the sports day by 2 o’clock. We managed to organize the students by their houses and had flags provided by Ilango for the houses to sit behind while they watched their house students performed. The relay races were also enjoyable but the concept of a relay race had to be explained to the children. The final event, tug or war, gained a GREAT deal of enthusiasm from the kids but unfortunately as soon as the teams began they tore the rope with their enthusiasm!!! The sports day was briefly interrupted by a religious procession but otherwise went off smoothly. We finally announced the winner of the sports day (green house) and awarded small prizes to the 1st place winners of each event. At this point the students were extremely curious about what the prizes were and wanted to see them so they eagerly crowded around us. Some of the prizes required a small explanation (the small water gun for example) but the children wanted to understand their purpose and were overjoyed to recieve them.

Tomorrow we have numerous items on the agenda. We first plan on holding a talent show for the children in different categories such as folk singing and dancing. Katie and Promeeta are going to finish planning the sketches inside the schools and coordinating with the local artist what they want on the outside of the building. Tuhin will hopefully finish the library system if all goes well but at least explain to the teachers the process to catelouge and laminate the books. The most exciting piece of information that we learned today is that one, if not two, TV channels are going to come visit the village to view the changes and the talent show. ZTV will definetely be coming and Reuters might air footage that they take tomorrow. Hence, members of the team that were intending to perform a small talent for the show tomorrow have a great deal of additional pressure put on their shoulders. Although we are looking foreward to having the finishing touches made to conclude our project, we are somewaht wistful that all our efforts are coming to an end shortly. It has been a moving experience that none of us could have ever even envisioned in our lives. Just knowing that the smiles of the village children have the potential to be permanent fixtures in their lives from a small contribution made on our part is extremely rewarding, and the village children have no idea how much of an impression they have made on our lives. With any luck we will have the photos to show you by tomorrow so that you can personally experience the life of the village. Thank you again for your support!