And We're Off to Dharapuram

Wednesday:

After leaving our hotel at 11pm, we took an overnight 6 hour train ride sleeping on top of bunk beds before starting our hour bus ride (with great Indian music) before finally arriving to Dharapuram, Tiruppur! The dormitory or Resource Center we’re staying in has the absolute best food and have been so overly hospitable and accommodating.

When we finally settled into the rooms we drove to meet the Narikuravar community we will be serving for the remainder of the trip. Below is a picture of the thatched housing they currently reside in, next is the excavations they have done in preparation to us coming to build their new homes, and lastly is some of the community members themselves!

From there we visited a completed home in another village, similar to ones we will be building to estimate the perimeters of the house. And then traveled back to our community and staked two excavation sites. Below is a picture of the family and the perimeters of their new home! How exciting!

After some changes of plans, we met with a new engineer, instead of the contractor we originally planned to work with, to talk over materials needed and discuss the Indian housing regulations.

The team then went to a restaurant for a quick dinner (we were so exhausted at this point we were all falling asleep while eating) and went back to the resource center to talk about the pros and cons of our day. And now the team is currently staying up late tonight to go over material costs in our budget… This has been the longest (almost 20 hours straight) but most fulfilling day so far! And we are very excited to see how our remaining time in this beautiful country will go!

Thursday: Just a quick update! Today we staked the last 3 excavations, made adjustments to the design to meet the regulation codes, explored the city of Dharapuram and prepared for our meeting with the contractor that we will have in the morning. Hopefully the team will get more than 4 hours of sleep tonight!