Banana Chips: The Perfect End To a Long Week

Cultural differences continue to leave us speechless.  While working in the schools we have witnessed some disciplinary methods that we are unable to understand.  The kids get smacked around regularly; a student even approached me with a stick and asked me to beat another student for pinching her.  Courtney saw a student forced to stand bent over touching his toes with a heavy backpack on for five minutes, an action that seems to me to be quite painful after only a minute.  Since we will never become accustomed to these forms of discipline, it is hard for us to avoid intervening.  We have found it more comforting (and more effective) to deal with the kids who act out by drawing black stars on their hands or putting them in time-out rather than reporting them to the teachers, who will most likely apply physical punishment.

For the second Friday in a row we stuffed our faces with Indian food until we could barely walk.  Tonight we went to a South Indian restaurant.  Glancing at the menu most of us only recognized a few items (including the ever so popular lassi) so we told Leela to order us whatever.  Little did we know that “whatever” would turn out to be 12 different dishes served with lots of poori and rice.   All of the dishes were interesting; most of them were delicious but I think that everyone agreed that the dahi vada (a fried donut type thing soaked in yogurt) was not so much.  The Friday night dinners have been a great way to unwind from the stress of working with the kids all week, and we hope the tradition continues (hint hint Leela).

We have been on the hunt for the perfect banana chips since we got here.  Before today we had found some pretty good ones, but they were too salty and tasted more like potato chips.  We craved the sweet, bananay (totally a word) banana chips.  After a long 14 days, we, the 2010 DukeEngage students of Hyderabad, got our hands on the PERFECT banana chips.  We are all eager to enjoy them for the rest of the evening.  Happy Friday!