Dear Diary: 20 July 2017

Dear diary,

I’m finally here in Suchindrum! We landed in Trivandrum on Saturday evening, and took a car to Suchindrum. It was a LONG flight from Singapore, and the three of us were exhausted. When we reached Suchindrum, I immediately rushed inside to say hello to my cousin Karina. She was playing with her dolls and I built a fort for them out of pillows and blankets. My other cousin, Rita, said hello to me and gave me a new notebook, gel pens and a vanity kit. 😊

After that, we had dinner. We had eaten a few snacks on the plane, but that was it, so we were STARVING. But guess what was for dinner? Stew!!! Sloppy, green, disgusting stew, which was filled with strange veggies like drumsticks. Ugh! When I made a face, Aunt Keisha said, “Stop scowling, Tanya! You’re lucky to be eating this…see…. Nice hot stew!”

The most annoying part was that she pronounced my name wrong AGAIN by saying Thaan-yaa, instead of Tan-ya. I corrected her thrice last year but she still doesn’t get it!

Aunt Keisha isn’t exactly the nicest aunt. When I was seven, I bought some cat food for the cats who live in Suchindrum, and Aunt Keisha threw it away because she thought it “smelled bad”. When I was eight, she said electronics “ruined children’s imaginations” and didn’t let me use my iPad for half the trip! Then when I was nine, she shut down the TV so Rita and I got so bored the whole time! Well, let’s hope she doesn’t do anything crazy THIS year.

Yesterday (Sunday), I woke up extra early to play with the cat here, Skulls. I love him. Even though he is so evil. Take last year, for example. He scratched dad so badly that dad had to wear a HUGE bandage for a week. Well, it was fun bringing Skulls into the house and watching dad hurry away.

Skulls is very playful, and his favourite thing to do is push the chess pieces around the house. Mom says he would be awesome at soccer if he were a human.

After everyone work up, Karina asked me to play Snakes and Ladders with her. At first, I was impressed that Karina knew how to play Snakes and Ladders, because she is only four. Well, five seconds into the game I realised that all she wanted to do was randomly move the counters around the board. I obviously told her that I didn’t want to play with her anymore, and she just crossed her arms and glared at me.

Next was lunch. I told mom I wasn’t hungry and begged her repeatedly to let me skip lunch, but she wasn’t gonna fall for it.

I ended up giving my lunch to Stray Doggie, this poor dog with a broken leg who lives in our yard. I would be nicer to him, but I’m scared he’s gonna give me some disease.

In the evening, Gran, mom, Rita, dad, Uncle Karthik, Aunt Keisha and I went to the beach. We left Karina behind with Rita’s mom, Aunt Tara.

I loved the beach. It was windy and it was fun to climb the huge, black rocks with Rita. Uncle Karthik tried to push me off one of the rocks, but I climbed down just in time. The best part was the sea, which was cool and clear.