Update 6

Hi there everyone,

its been a good few days since the last update, so this might be a lengthy one! i think my last blog was last tuesday, and since then ive been in the wars! earlier on the tuesday i had drunk some cold but dodgy water in the community, and that came back to haunt me at approximatly 3 20 the following morning....which has continued up till now with stomach crap type feelings for short intervals each day and numerous visits to the loo! this has passed now though. that was only the beginninh however, and the wednesday went to the community as usual feeling ill and tired from only 4 or so hours sleep, proceded to get very dehydrated in the mid day sun (my older group spend most of our time in the heat of the sun because they need more active/unning about games than the other younger groups, and got what we later labelled as mild sunstroke. so that was a tough day! then thursday, after a better day in the community, was traveling back to the office on the back of swamy's motorbike, when he offered to let me drive his bike. as mentioned before, i have driven thomsons, but to drive swamy's is very different, as its a least twice as powerful. ignoring my polite requests to continue on to the office, he got me onto the front seat, having stopped us on a very busy road. when practising with thomson, he has always selected quiet backstreets, but here i was presented with a proper indian rode, filled with crazy indian drivers. to add to this, there was a large cart of bananas directly in front of me, meaning i would be forced to pull out into the busy road if i was to get anywhere. slowly started off, but after a few feet i decided that this was a very bad idea. tried to put my feet down and stop, but to my surprise found i couldnt reach the ground. the bike wobbled as this was unfolding, causing me to let the clutch slip, jerking us forward. now swamy is not large, but like most indian guys, he likes his rice, and despite me getting the bike under control again via the clutch, both had lost our balance, and our combined weight tipped the bike left onto the high pavement, squashing my leg. picked the bike up and had a good laugh about it, and continued to the office. back at the office inspected my leg to find a cut on my toe and a 3x1 cm burn on my leg, which had gone quite deep. so now i have a 2nd degree burn on my leg. my battering continued on friday, when on my way to a good 20 run total in a game of cricket in the community, thumped my own foot, and producing a nice big bruise. i was very grateful for the weekend, away for any cricket bats, motorbikes, or shouting kids. did play cricket with ranjith and co on friday, and did much better this time, helped by the fact they were sticking to spin bowling until the end when the main quick bowler got fed up of being cover driven and started throwing some quicker bouncers in.

saw spiderman 3 on thursday, pretty good. expected simple story of bad guy, defeated by spiderman, the end, but this one has a decent, though at times predictable, plot to it.

did nothing on the weekend, except do some work in the office with thomson on the saturday. the survey is almost done now, so i will soon be editing another new one that has just been conducted! powerhouse and sparkys on the sunday as usual. we intend to try a different one next weekend, possibly one with a congregation of 40,000!

becky the co-ordinator is now back from zimbabwe, and had a long meeting with her, resulting in us meeting some of our neighbours on our street, who will be teaching us a bit of tamil. they are extremely musical, and im reliably told that he is the best in india at musical theory, of which he is a teacher. they are both really nice, and it is good to get to know some of our neighbours. the girls in bangalore have reported they have loads of friends, and rarely have to cook for themselves on the weekend as they are always invited round some missionarys or westerners house and swimming pool. we have hardly any friends outside work, in comparison to the girls. there is this one guy who lives near us we see often called kuti. our conversations as as follows: (what he says) hello my dear friends! where are you going? shopping? (all in strong indian accent) where are you going? this is my brother...how are you?" (other broken comments and questions) and then a propt "goodbye! god is good, god bless you", said like he is reading a list, as he is just trying to please us! other 'friends' include the owner of the fruit shop, who when steve found himself short when we came to pay, offered that we could pay another time, because he knows us because we go so often! then same evening he had kicked out some other people who had finished thier drinks so we could sit down, being his most frequent customers! and tom the chef of sparkys, who i ahve spoken about before, we consider our friend. thats about it! though the guys in the office are all firm friends now. ranjith and i have loads of exclusive banter and tamil taunts going, which is funy because he speaks less english than i speak tamil! i have locked him in the bathroom numerous times after chasing his about, much to the amusement tof the rest of the office! i feel i have got to know everyone much better than the others due to the fact i do extra work there and spend more time just sittign and chatting to them. thomson today seemed to comment on this and say how good it was, which was nice and encouraging to hear.

anyway, need to go as i have to make some time to go for a run, of which im trying to do 3 of each week, so thats the end of this update. next one will hopefully be sooner than a week, as its harder to make it interesting with loads of news!

thanks again for all your comments, i really apreciate it and your interest in my time here is really encouraging.

laters,

josh