Corey writes:

Sunday
We got up at 8:00am, got ready and went to work. Yay! Sunday was the first day of our new training program here at SOVA. We offered to hold some classes on subjects like MS Excel, MS Access, English writing, MS PowerPoint, etc. Many people were interested, but only if we held the classes outside work hours, on Sunday. So if people are willing to come in on Sunday to learn, we're willing to come and teach. The class went well, I spoke for about 90 minutes and then Gina led some practice exercises. I think everyone had a good time, especially the hands-on part.

We came home for lunch and just relaxed until 5:30 when it was time for the bi-weekly Skype session with the fams. It was fun as always.

Monday
We went to work, and then after we went to our friend Soumya's house for a birthday party for her sister. Her sister got married about a month ago, and she'll be leaving next week for the US to live with her new husband. So this was also kind of like a goodbye party. Gina and I asked her if she was worried about moving to a foreign country, but she said she was just excited. She'd make a good VSO volunteer.

Tuesday
Gina had her surprise field visit in the afternoon, which left her exhausted. So we came home and just relaxed. Our friend Binu came over and hung out for a while too.

Wednesday
We stayed late at work conducting another Excel training. This time was a little more hectic than Sunday, since we had two more people. We came home drained again. Binu came over for an "English lesson" which amounted to her reading one of her friend's love letters that she had translated from Oriya to English. Let me tell you, Indian love letters are some romantic, melodramatic stuff. Now I know why all the soap operas have dramatic close-ups of people reacting that last five whole minutes.

Thursday
We found out that Praveen, one of the VSO India staff would be visiting Koraput in the afternoon, and that there would be a big meeting with attendees from the United Nations Millennium Campaign and several other NGOs in the area. Gina and I were excited to be included in the meeting, and we hope that we'll be able to help with the pilot project that was discussed.

Then, after work, we had dinner at The Raj with Praveen and Nancy. Nancy is a new VSO volunteer that just arrived in Koraput a couple weeks ago. Praveen also asked us to meet with Ekta (another Koraput NGO) and help them plan their objectives for a potential volunteer to come in July 2011.

Friday
People from Ekta arrived to pick us up at 8:20am, and we spent the next hour meeting and planning. This was before we put in our full day at SOVA.

After running on all cylinders for about 12 days, we're ready for a break. Things are starting to pile up around the house, and I think the roaches are getting more enjoyment out of it than we are. After the week we've had, we decided to take a Saturday Holiday.