Thursday, and Office Wildlife!

Yesterday we went looking for wildlife, today the wildlife was looking for us!

First thing in the morning, Manni had already told Alex that we weren't heading out to the field today. We therefore didn't rush our food, and after breakfast we spent a little time talking with Chewy, KK, and Ish, as they loaded up and got ready to head back to Bangalore. I knew they were only having a short visit, but I was sad to see them go so soon as they were really nice people and really good fun.

The school was still having its 1st unit tests, and today's test was Hindi, so yet another one that we couldn't help with. I therefore decided to work in the office for a while to catch up on uni work. At first I tried to catch up on my Indigenous Health subject by listening to the lecture form the previous Friday. Alex came in while I was doing this, and as if it wasn't bad enough that the internet was so slow, making the lecture tricky to listen to, Alex kept making weird noises that were really distracting. After giving him some passive-aggressive looks of displeasure, he didn't take the hint and carried on making these weird noises. The lecture got to a part where the on-campus students were talking amongst themselves about something that wasn't audible on the recording, and so I took my earphones out to say something to Alex - and realised that the noise wasn't coming from him at all, the sound was just coming in through the screen window in front of him! I got up to see what it was, and discovered that it was a little group of small birds who were swooping near the window and making almost hissing noises. It seemed very strange, until we saw a large-ish snake that was the focus of their aggression. The snake exploring the window area as if trying to find a way in to the office.

"Please let me inside - the birds out here are driving me crazy!"

The birds were pretty good at chasing the snake away, but the snake kept trying to come back!

Apart from the excitement of the snake, it was mostly a fairly slow day today. I had to abandon the lecture after a while because despite my patience with waiting for things to load, somewhere in the middle the lecturer moved away from the microphone and it all became inaudible again anyway. Instead I tried to complete the reading tasks from the tutorial sheet, and did a little bit of research into options for my school fundraising ideas. I also got to see the children going for uniform fittings at the production centre across from the office. I can't get over how patient the children are here, even very small ones. They all sat so nicely and quietly for such a long time while the adults painstakingly went through ensuring that each child got the correct sizes of the handmade uniforms for school. It is really important to them that all of the uniforms are handed very soon, as the children will need them in time for their Independence Day celebrations on 15th August.