Update 9

Hello all, im still weeks behind on these updates, hopefully youve not all interest in this by now. then again....if you have, you wont be reading this......oh well

i think i left off at our arrival in bangalore. we experienced indian buses for the first time, having previously only seen them in chennai so full they were about to topple over, with people hanging out of all the doors. this particular one wasnt packed at all though it was about 6 30 in the morning. bangalore is very different to chennai, the roads are small and packed with lots of traffic, and it is built on many hills, which was quite an odd sight having not seen a single hill for months (excluding st thomas' mount in chennai). the autorickshaws are slightly different also, and they are actually willing to use thier meters, unlike chennai. the cost of autos in chennai is at least double what it is in bangalore, but then in chennai you need not fear being taken for a ride as it wont affect the price as it will in bangalore. the whole atmosphere of bangalore is like a chennai suburb, much more rural and pretty western. you can actually walk from shop to shop here, whereas in chennai there is no real centre and you have to get autos everywhere.

it is a very nice place though, a lot more chilled out and attractive than hot industrial chennai.

we arrived at the girls flat after dropping in to see majella, who lives up the road from the girls. she said we had all lost loads of wait, which she was worried about but i was quite pleased with! the combination of the heat, frequent runs and not eating a huge amount of food has been a beneficial one it seems. however here in chennai we now have a food menu, and we have picked out the things we dont like, and now our menu basically consists of curries, dosai, beef, and noodles/chicken fried rice. the food we had at the beginning was not so good, probably because steve couldnt handle the spice and they deliberatly made the food bland. steve has improved quite a lot now in regards to spicy foods, which is quite impressive as he can each most of what i can each now, and i eat the spicest stuff or the 3 of us.

the girls flat is smaller than ours, but sooooo much nicer! it has coloured walls and is a lot brighter, AND they have thier own terrace/roof to enjoy the amazing sunsets on. we got to sleep in a crazily nice room on the roof, the inside of which would have fitted a nice spanish villa (the paint job this is, it was only one room and a normal indian shower/loo room.). majella gave us the option to take the morning off work, but i wanted to go to see the boys home that the girls had been working in each week. luke and steve were tired but came along aswell. it was really great to see the girls, as they are louder and good fun to be with, a nice change from the quietness of our flat! the boys home was a pretty nice place, in comparison to our place in SM Nagar with was a derelict sandy triangle with rubbish and waste littered around the edge. the boys were very friendly and love the girls coming in each day. its hard work in there, as they have around 20 boys each and often then have no translator at all. not only that, but it takes a 2 hour bus ride with at least 2 changes to get there. bangalore was one a quiet town, but now its population had rocketed, and it roads have not been able to keep up, resulting in massive conjestion each morning and afternoon. the buses are packed and you have to stand squashed against lots of indians for the whole time.

i have to pause to savour the beautiful smell of the kebab barbeque place down stairs which i can smell......it smells so good. i plan to go have one soon, after my retreat in a week and a bits time so if i get ill from it i wont ruin my time!

after the boys home luke and steve wisely went back to the flat to rest while i chose to go to an oasis prayer session thing, which the girls were running. ended up having to walk round praying with the co-ordinator of oasis bangalore who has been running the punatra bhaven project up near mumbai for the last few years. then tiredness caught up with me and i feel alseep during the sermon, having almost done so during an earlier worship session! i woke up to see the girls and majella had noticed and were laughing away at me. hopefully the speaker didnt! majella is extremely bossy i have found to the girls, which stresses them all out quite often!

the next day. saturday, the girls had been invited to a wedding, and when they told the couple we were coming, we were invited too! i was press ganged into wearing my ridiculous white long kurta, and looked like a muslim i think. either that or some kind of angel! give me pink hair again anyday over wearing that on the streets! i actually found myself missing the pink hair the other day looking at a picture of it on facebook!

anyway, we went to this big huge cheesy indian wedding, and had plenty of good food and some kind of sherry with which we all had to eat with a brownie and toast the married couple.

sunday, we went to thier church, called all peoples church, and had a most brilliant worship session. was very good, better than most sundays at TBC (when kevin isnt leading that is....alex if your reading, you know what im saying!). then lunch with the 'youth' there. the term 'youth' in india isnt like england, where youth is people under, say, 18. here youth is about 18-30. some really friendly and cool guys they have for friends there, much more so than powerhouse in chennai. one of them invited us for dinner on tuesday, which was a really good english style stew. were told she never cooks the same dish for a visitor twice, and each dish is brilliant.

monday, tuesday and wednesday were spent in the boys home, with the journey getting worse as the schools started up again after the holidays, and on wednesday evening went for a really nice chinese meal before setting off for the bus station and on to connoor in the hills known as the western ghats, and old british place and tea plantation.

i get along very well with both steve and luke, who are both fun guys, and we have plenty of banter going on. however they are both very contemplative and thoughtful, which oftens results in quiet moments when i want to just chat and have a laugh with someone, which is why it was really good to see the girls, as they are louder and more inclined to chat at length and have a laugh more often.

i think thats enough for now, ill write about our week in conoor on a camp with the youth of becky our co-ordinator's church, which i can sum up as being quite like sunday school all over again!

if your waiting for me to reply to an email, dont worry, ill get onto it soon but my fingers and back are hurting now from writing all this! and also the a/c unit above me is giving me an early shower, which im not really up for just yet.

check back here soon....

josh