Monday, January 4

At breakfast on the lower balcony, we planned an approximate timetable for our last week. Today we will go to the lighthouse and tomorrow we will eat in Trivandrum again.

After breakfast we went to the SISP centre, where SISP stands for Sebastian’s Indian Social Projects. It has been operating for ten years and it is in a little road off Kovalam Junction, where it houses a school, a skateboarding club, and a miniature factory. The school offers free education to very poor children, and the factory employs local women.

We are currently looking at the room where a team of women are making paper bags out of old newspaper, as well as assembling bags for local businesses from new paper. They are using a glue made from rice and water.

SISP also runs the surf club on Lighthouse Beach, which is where we first came across them, and one of the surf instructors is at the school working when we arrive.

In the afternoon we will take the rickshaw down to the Lighthouse where we will discover that it is closed on Mondays. We will walk along the beach instead. I will sit in Leo for an hour or so while henna tattoos are painted on legs.

We will eat at home with Bruno.