22 Jan

Yesterday (Saturday), I went to Kangra, which was quite disappointing. I had been intending to stay there overnight but after asking at different hotels and finding them either too expensive or too dirty, I walked up and down the main street with all its market stalls and decided it wasn't worth staying for. However, it has a 3500 year old fort so I got some exercise and walked the 3km to it. It was quite impressive, especially after suffering from an earthquake in 1905. I walked back and eventually found a bus that went to the village near us but it had gone dark and I couldn't recognise the stop so ended up going the extra 6km to Dharamsala. It was now 7pm and so I thought I would miss dinner. I walked into town and bought some samosas for only 20Rs and got a taxi back. I was glad to be back after a largely uninspiring day and found dinner was about to be served so I could have avoided that last diversion.

Ken told me that the bamboo worked well for keeping the draught out so that was good to hear.

On Sunday, I decided to see what jobs I could get done. I wanted to tackle the rubbish problem so dug what was already kind of a hole just over the wall around our house for food to be disposed of. I uncovered a huge rock in it and after digging around it, it looked like a meteor had just landed and formed a crater!

A couple of children who live just up the road came down to play. They are a girl aged about 4 and a boy aged about 3. They are very sweet children and know a few English words but mostly, the girl talks to me a lot in Hindi and I have to keep saying 'sorry, I don't understand!'

I noticed where a pipe next door leaks and makes our driveway wet so dug a simple channel to join it to the stream that runs along the road. The water started to flow down it so that should help.

I wrote about the rubbish across the road and saw a spot where I could dig a hole for a land fill. Whereas it's not the best solution, it is a step up as you can see from the photo

The Indian people who went past saw what I was doing but probably didn't know why. One man stopped to ask and I explained it to him – to put all the rubbish around it in one place and he said thank you. The idea is that the people here think it's a good idea and hopefully they will replicate it elsewhere. The reason the rubbish gets thrown onto the ground is that there is no alternative. It doesn't get collected so I just wanted to help out and give the locals an idea. I will let you know if it has any knock-on effect in later weeks.

All the day's digging left my hands sore as I don't have gloves here so I went for a shower in the spring. The water wasn't at all warm but the weather has picked up a little this weekend. It's been sunny and noticeably warmer during the day (even more so yesterday when I was at a lower altitude).

Tomorrow, we won't have classes as it is Tibetan New Year in the east of the country so we will be celebrating that.

I am feeling quite at home here now and pleased to be finding other work to do. I hope I can be the change I wish to see in this world, as Gandhi famously said.