SP SRI LANKA OCIP DAY 2

JOKE of the day! #2
It's 7.07am local time, CK and Kenny were still sleeping in their room. The rest of the group who woke up earlier decided to play a prank. CK, who was obviously awakened by their prank, went to open the door.
Andro and company: *Knocks on the door continuously* Police! Police! Open up!
*CK opens the door*
CK: *Covered his face in relief when he saw the croud* Eh sia la! -.-

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We were heartened to be served a great spread of western and local breakfast. Even though the curry was spicier than what most of us could handle but we enjoyed the breakfast.

Left to right: Celest, Nic, Hisham, Andro
Having breakfast at Nelly Star Hotel

At 7.45 we left for Chen Su Lan centre. Our main task for the day was to revamp and equip the newly built computer lab on the second level. Kenny, the IT head led us and gave us instructions so we could get to work. We started from basic checks such as turning the computer on and off to checking for missing important components and configuration settings. Soon, we discovered that some CPUs donated by local charity organizations have missing components, including important ones such as the motherboard. We learnt from Bhante that the computer parts are prone to be stolen.

Everyone's busy setting up the computer lab.

In the early afternoon, our muslim members headed for the mosque for prayers. The friday prayers are usually started with the prayer call, followed by a short sermon that lasts around half and hour, followed by the actual prayers. Our muslim friends realized that the ablution area was unique, and ablution is taken from the water in the koi pond. The main difficulty was that the sermon was difficult to understand as it was in Sinhala.

At approximately 2pm, we had pumpkin and brinjal for lunch. Some of us were able to adapt better to vegetarian meals as these dishes too, were great! This is how the cooks prepare the ingredients.

Ingredients for our lunch.

After lunch we interacted with the students and they were excited to see us again. We started playing a game named "Draw Something". It requires the students to guess the drawing on the board and to spell it out in English. There were incentives such as sweets to reward students. Although we had a communication barrier as some of the students couldn't understand us, all of us had a good time.

Cow or dog? Drawings by the local students.

We continued to check for spoilt CPUs while Kenny opened the CPU covers to diagnose the problem. The staff at CSLEC offered us biscuits and hot milo drinks and we appreciated it.

Computer lab almost done!

As the day had passed, we enjoyed our dinner at a restaurant near the hotel. The food served was delicious, together with hot chicken curry to pamper our taste buds. It was a pretty short day, and we headed back to the hotel to rest and prepare for the task of the next day; construction of a new room/ garage.

This is our dinner for today, it's similar to thosai/ prata just that it is inflated. 

Reflection of the day:  Life is not easy for the locals, especially after a war, there are many problems such as petty crimes as theives resort to stealing in order to survive.  Even the less fortunate Singaporeans are richer than most of them here in Sri Lanka. We are mostly fortunate and able to support ourselves without resorting to crimes. It was definitely something to contemplate about that we take our security for granted at times. However, they are mostly happy people who are contented with just the little things they have. 

Reflection by Cornelia and Khai