another week

Here we are at the end of another week. That means 6 weeks of our stay have gone by.
As I mentioned at the end of my last entry, we were preparing for some work with the youth who were in training for the IAYP awards program which many refer to as the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. The youth were to learn how to light a camp fire. You need to remember we are in the middle of the monsoon season. The group was divided into teams and each team was given a piece of rubber and some matches. The challenge was to find enough dry tinder and wood to actually get a fire going. Some groups did extremely well and other groups seemed to be sending up smoke signals! We all had a very distinct "smoky" smell about us at the end of the morning.
After church we went for lunch at the home of one of our new friends. The meal was simply delicious! We greatly enjoyed our time together and had another opportunity to practice eating without utensils! I am actually getting quite good at making a ball of the food and using my thumb to push the food into my mouth.
Monday was a simply gorgeous day and a walk in the botanical gardens was in order. There were many people in the gardens and my wife and I certainly stood out. We were approached on many occasions to have our picture taken. We felt like "movie stars"! It must have been quite a novelty for the locals to have their picture taken with someone with a very different skin color. The gardens are vast and have many types of vegetation.
Following our visit to the gardens we walked up to the Holiday Inn Gem Park for lunch. It was quite a walk up and gave us a very different view of the Nilgiris. We enjoyed a wonderful meal in very western surroundings. Quite a change! While there, the clouds came in and the rain came down. After meeting with some other friends, we walked back down to the town and made it back to our residence at the same time as the water truck was making a delivery of water. This was just before the rains came again!

One of the most unexpected happenings this week has been the number of times the power has gone off. Actually we were without power all day last Saturday. This meant the pumps for the 3 wells were not operating and as a result we had a water shortage which necessitated a delivery of water on Monday afternoon! We have had several other power failures as well. Last evening we had 3 or 4 blackouts within the space of an hour. Sometimes we can be without power for 6 - 8 hours, at other times the interruptions are very short. Candles, matches, and flashlights are kept close at hand.

Another event was my first haircut. I went out looking for a "Saloon" and found one just down the road from the back gate. It is called "Star Saloon" and has the usual tinted blue-glass windows which prevent anyone from staring in. I opened the door and went in. The "barber" greeted me politely, took my umbrella, and showed me where to hang my jacket. then I saw the two old brown cracked-leather barber chairs. I jumped in to one of them and the barber started. Let's just say "I got clipped!" (No photos are available!!) I guess I really shouldn't complain because I really got my money's worth. The cost 60 rupees which is about $1.40 Cdn.

Monkeys seem to be everywhere at Lushington. Just yesterday I saw one of them flip the lids of a garbage bin and start rummaging inside. We have got to be very careful with any food garbage to place it in the correct bins.

Hot water! Oh, for the comforts of home! Do you realize I have to heat up less than 1 litre of water every morning so that I can wash and shave! Water is very precious and I am learning to appreciate just how fortunate we are to be able to turn on the tap and have water. There are many families in town without running water! You realize this when you walk through town and see people at the outdoor tap with their water pots collecting water and then taking it home. We are indeed fortunate to have a supply in our flat.
That's it for now.