Update....5? is it 5 so far? or 6?

Hello again,

this weeks blog was going to have some interesting info about the local community i had written in a personal email, but i forgot to actually save that bit of it, and so you will have to wait for it! how exciting i hear you say! something to look forward to! well.....really its probably not that interesting at allit was just really detailed so to me thats worthy blog material! i often thing of interesting things to write about, like observations and random little things that happen as we travel or as i walk through the local community, but i forget. i may have had a good reason for not remembering these things, but i forgot that too.....

hello by the way, to all you high and mighty Oasis high and mighties. im told some of you are keeping track of things in chennai through this. (no joke non oasis people!)your are all of course, wonderful wonderful people.

anyway, have been quite busy lately which, if i have described it effectivly enough, might be a surprise to you! the next day after my last blog was our first day running the childrens club, a friday. i had the oldest group to look after, and played 3 games with them before my resistance to them playing cricket instead broke down. luke and steve both chose the groups they wanted, and i was left with this one. however, my group have turned out to be the easiest to run and control, despite a strong thirst for voilence during the games and an overriding desire to play cricket. its good because when i run out of things to do, i just say "bat and ball?", "cricket?" and i'm sorted for the remaing time in the session. today i have used all my planned games with an hour to spare, so we played cricket and also football penalty shootouts. so that went well, apart from the immense heat! the time we do it is 10 30-12 30. just about the hottest time of day. back at the office, after lunch i helped thomson with the huge survey toasis have been doing. thomson is very sadly leaving on the 20th, to go work as a social worker for coca cola (they have to do social work by law now!) which is much better paid. i dont blame him for moving on really, as he does all of the work in the office! i have been editing all of the survey, which is very interesting and familier to the old mr davis and ms/mr pashersnysdfhzxvwqyzcxdifiouetihvnickt (sp?) days of psychology. this thing is pretty huge, and thomson is still here working away at 8:18 at night, and tomorow onwards i will read it all through and correct it, because it needs to be in perfect english when it is published etc.

saturday, decided to go on the mission given to me by claire and find a coffee day cafe and have what she belives to be the worlds best chocolate fudge brownie (with ice cream). there are loads in chennai, but i wanted to go to the main one listed in the lonely planet guide. got into an auto, and made sure he would drop us off at the south of the main big street in chennai, anna salai. so eventually we arrived there, and got the very unsatisfactory shaking of the head from the auto driver when asked if this was anna salai (sometimes i wish they would just smile and say "yes, this is anna salai/ok/whatever the appropriate answer is! i have started to do it myself occasionally, and say "sari sari" in imitation of swamy, which means ok/good in tamil). i then worked out that we were on the north end of anna salai, which is too far away from its southern counterpart to walk to. the coffe day is located on mahatma ghandi road, which joins anna salai. got into another auto to take us there. more accurate instructions this time, including coffee day, and mg road etc. we soon found out that the guy didnt know where to go (i have found that when you agree where you want to go, they will never admit they dont know!) and i stupidly hadnt written down the address. the main problem is that all of the streets have different names now, but all the auto drivers use thier old original names! just like the whole mumbai/bombay, banglaluru(sp?)/bangalore etc thing. he hadnt a clue where the MG road was, as he knew the old name for it. eventually (100 rupees later!) we got there. found the fact that everyday we pass the particular shopping complex that it is located in every single day on the way to SM Nagar (slum community, summer camp) quite amusing, and went on in, in search of the famous chocolate fudge brownie (with ice cream). got there, a very nice place with comfy sofas (i wanted to buy one for our front room!) and found there was no famed chocolate thing which is loved so much on the menu. devasted, instead ordered a very nice iced coffee. and a tika masala sandwich. both very nice. no chocolate brownie though.........the quest will continue in bangalore and mumbai however! on the way back our auto driver forgot where he was going, and took us to the number 1 cricket stadium in tamil nadu, which was good to see. i plan to go see some cricket matches there. so all in all must have spent as much time in autos as we did in coffee day!

powerhouse on sunday again. we plan to go about trying some other churches in the next few weeks, as powerhouse (thought the people are very kind and friendly) isnt quite as inspirational as we had been told. 20% discount at sparkys is good though......the owner there tom is a legend! he has been to loads of cool places like albania to work, and is a stronger christian than he appears. i would tell you all about him but i havent the time, and my fingers are tiring and steve wishes to use the computer. oh on saturday we went to the cinema in the hope of seeing spiderman 3, but instead had to settle for clint eastwoods 'flags of our fathers' which is slightly unusual but good. people into american battles, but with a taste for deep and meaning ful messages about the apparent glories of war back home away from the battles etc blah blah, will like this film. got tickets to see spiderman 3 on thursday.

monday and today, kids club as described on the friday/earlier. same blazing heat and cricket. the kids have loads of little special handshakes, which i have learnt now, and each kid must do them at least 10 times a day. i have taught them to play thumb wars, and until today was unbeaten, when one guy, who must have oracticed over the weekend, used the same tactic i use on them all, and beat me. so the record stands at 122 games unbeaten. thats probably not far off you know! they do it so often! played book cricket back at the office, which involves you having a dictionary and 5 wickets, and scoring runs depending on the last digit on the page number you chose. 0 is out, 1-4 are just what they are, 5 = a four, 6 and higher are all sixes. after loosing my first game, i then set a high score of 148 a/o, with a highest 'individual' score of 56. bala has the record for that, with 82. after this, when and played real cricket with ranjith, the office boy/runner who does all the odd jobs and stuff, and his team. he is a really nice guy, cant speak much english, but a really happy and funny guy. we have lots of office jokes and banter going around, of which he is one of the main participants. with the rest of his team, all (like ranjith who is 16 days older than me) around 19 years old. dont ask me what there names are, all i remember is that they are all massively long! managed to hit about 3 balls from some extermemly fast bowling, then got bowled by ranjith, who went on to get a hat trick. have been asked to come back on thursday and saturday. they have a match on saturday which i plan to go watch. luke is getting into the cricket aswell, and has requested we go practice most days, which sounds great to me!!

this must be one of the longest blogs ive written, hope i havent messed up your busy scheldules! uni students, hope this has been a good distraction from your work! i do have more to say incidentally, but steve is getting restless and my wrists are hurting!

thanks for reading/skim reading. i prefer it if you read it all though skim readers....it wont take toooo long :)

josh