Friday, October 7

Lily, one of the women involved in the DOP team, died suddenly yesterday and so we start the day by attending her funeral at Our Lady of Good Voyage Church in Kottappuram in Vizhinjam. In a bizarre and jarring juxtaposition I then go to SISP for the celebration for the skateboarders who receive medals and ice-cream and cake, and much applause.

I stay for lunch to practise my eating-with-my-fingers skills, which have definitely improved. Not even the gravy fazed me today. Simi and I then meet the Friday DGD group. Something interesting happens there. One girl demands to know why the instructions ask her to make something and then delete it. Everyone else has just done as requested but she demands an answer.

I count this as important progress.

The television at home has never worked and so in the evening the man from Asianet turns up with an assistant, a three-wheel truck, with a long ladder precariously mounted to it. I watch as the assistant runs up and down the ladder carrying cables.

At the end of this process we have a set-top box but the television still does not work.