Day two of testing

Today (Tuesday) was Republic Day in India! This morning we watched a flag raising ceremony at our hotel and wore India flag stickers on our Cole shirts all day! This afternoon, we finished our speech and language testing at the Ranipet Boys' home. We tested an additional 12 boys, gave a crash-course in fluency techniques for a stutterer, and trained Thomas to work with the individual. All of Teresa's and Shannon's boys were very well behaved and attentive. They so wanted to perform and be successful for us. Teresa's boys especially loved the candy taste of the tongue depressors! MOST of Vikki's boys were well behaved and attentive...one of them needed quite a bit of encouragement to attend to the task. We are so aware of the sensory overload in India (car horns, animals, people, smells, etc.) that we cannot even imagine living here and having attention and/or sensory deficits.
Now we are beginning to develop home programs for some of the boys and short term goals for the boys who need an SLP to work with them. We hope that one of the therapists that we met with earlier in the week will be able to pick up a few boys for some treatments.
We have awesome video footage of the boys giving us a tour of the orphanage grounds...their library, temple, kitchen, dorms, garden, classrooms, etc. They LOVE taking pictures and making movies. One of the boys even sang a song that they sing when they worship in temple service...got that on video!! The boys all come from different faiths but all faiths share the same temple on the orphanage grounds. After we finish our reports tonight and this blog post, we are hoping to upload a video of the boys sending a special message to our friends at Cole Therapy Center! If we can't upload it, we will DEFINITELY share it with you when we return to the US. They are such sweet boys!!
In the process, we have a few "favorite" things about India to share:
Teresa likes the boys' smiles and handshakes, dosa (like a crepe in the shape of a dunce cap served with yogurt or curry dip)--YUM!!!, and the Tamil word for cat-"puna."
Shannon likes being emersed in the culture and interacting with the kids and bringing a smile to their face.
Vikki likes that the boys are so happy to have our attention. They laugh and smile, skip and run, play games, and try to use as much English as possible with us.
Tomorrow we will head back to CMC to meet with ENTs and visit the Girls' Hope House Orphanage in Vellore. Thursday we will be training the staff on home programs. We will be sure to keep you updated!