We arrived in Ongole this morning on the train. Unfortunately, all of the hotels were booked up (I knew this was going to happen, and should have trusted my gut instincts), which was a bit tough to deal with at 6:30 in the morning, especially after an all night train. So we finally found a place with availability, and it was definitely interesting. After we got settled in, we phoned our contact at ASSIST, the local NGO working in the Prakasam district. Mr. Murthy, our contact at ASSIST, was very nice and upon hearing where we were staying, invited us to stay at their guest house. He also contacted a local contractor and some various material vendors for us. He also offered to send some of his staff with us to the village tomorrow, as they do a great deal of work in this area as well and have a relationship with the villagers. This did a great deal to alleviate our concerns, as we were starting to feel very uneasy about the fact that both our contractor and translator had not worked out. People are remarkably hospitable here. We had three invitations just yesterday for lunch, dinner and then coffee and watermelon with either ASSIST folks or other Rotary members in the Ongole area.
Tomorrow we will visit the village! We are so excited to finally meet the people and see the place where we have done so much planning. We plan to discuss the project with the villagers to get any comments they may have, because we would like this structure to be as useful to them as possible.
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