The day started extremely early since Promeeta and Katie were gung-ho on finishing the artistic aspects of the project. While the artists finished full scale drawings for the exterior and made additional touches to the columns Aditya, Amrita, and the IIT boys helped us put up the posters for the 1st-3rd grade building. Unfortuantely, regular scotch tape was inadequete for the walls so we consulted Ilango who said he would put permanant frames inside the building and have the posters rotated based on the needs of the teachers. At 11 the adult forum began, lead by Shrutika, as an outlet for the parents to voice their needs and opinions about the school curriculum and their ideas about the future. Ilango used this as an opportunity to stress the need of a high school and by the end of the meeting all the adults who attended the forum promised that they would help achieve the goal of a high school within the village community. Meanwhille, at 10:30 the Reuturs TV crew arrived to interview the group about our efforts in Kuthembakkem. Both events ended by 1:30 so we quickly ate lunch in order to organize the talent show taking place at 2. Ilango had a tent constructed to roof the talent show with a full scale backdrop! All the grades, 200 students, sat on the floor while the teachers sat on chairs behind and we had the priviledge of sitting on the sides to watch the event. The team was especially impressed by the topics of the students who made speeches about civic topics, thus giving the students an opportunity to address the entire student body. There were other various events that the team enjoyed immensely such as the girls who sang village songs and the students that danced to tamil songs. Katie and Amrita enjoyed the boys performance so much that as a grand finale they decided to jump in with the boys! After the students performed Team Kuthembakkem demonstrated their own talents: Amrita tap danced; Katie and Shrutika sang, Adi played the drums, and Venkat sang. When the talent show was complete it finally dawned on us that the project was coming to an end. It was so moving when Ilango ended the occasion with concluding words and presented a shawl and house decoration to Mr. and Mrs. Sankar. One of the teachers spoke eloquently about how we had lived up to the words of Robert Frost since we continued on for our cause to help even though there were “miles to go before we sleep”. Ilango presented each member of the team a potpouri case made by the villagers that used indigenous plants and was crafted to look artistic. We were impressed by the high quality of work and even remarked that it was of a caliber of Potterybarn!! On the way to the van the children waved out and exclaimed goodbye, but hopefully its only the beginning of a long relationship with the community. We have come to understand the character of the villagers and admire their idealism and perseverence for a better way of life. Moreover, every team member remarked how inspirational the smiles on their faces are to us. We hope to live up to the words of Mahatma Gandhi and ensure these smiles are permanent; its the least we could do for children who easilly cause our own faces to smile.

Lastly we’d like to conclude by thanking all the supporters of this project once again. Thank you for your support and the perspective you have provided to this project, which have been essential to making this project succesful.