During this week, I've continued to have a cold. This is most unusual for me as I am rarely ill but it's difficult to get rid of it with the conditions we have. I also got an allergic reaction to an insect bite when I went for a walk in the nearby valley last Sunday. The skin in an area of only about 1cm2 became tender and red. I wasn't sure if I had had got eggs laid under my skin so on Wednesday, went up to a local doctor. Interestingly enough, you just go in and ask their advice with needing t show a passport of pay anything. He confirmed it was a reaction and although I can still see it, it doesn't hurt now.
Other than that, I've had a kind of swelling in my left index finger on the main joint, making it hard to bend it. I had this before about a year ago and it just went away. This time, it keeps recurring in the mornings and I now have the same thing in my right index finger, on the main joint! What's that all about? To be honest, I'm getting fed up of all these little things coming up...
On Monday, I went up to the village to buy a couple of things and went to a shop where I'd been before. The man had said he had recently opened and needed the customers, so I've decided to always go to him when I need basic things. I think it's good to help out when you know someone needs it. I told him of my intention when I went in again at the weekend and he was happy to hear that.
One of the teachers, Janet, left this week. She's been a good person to know and I wish her all the best, as well as her partner, who has liked speaking Spanish with me and hopes to get involved in making solar panels back in Spain. We went out for dinner at a small Tibetan restaurant and saw these men playing a kind of flick-pool.
It looks really good and I hope to learn how to play it (maybe even introduce it in England).
This also meant the rest of us have more lessons but it's generally four a day and like I said before, it feels so easy that it's hardly like work.
I got the top group to tell me about schools in Tibet in the conversation lesson as I plan to write a book about their journeys. Over the weeks, I will try to get more stories from other students, too.
I gave the lesson on Leonardo on Friday, which was interesting as they had never heard of him. They recognised the Mona Lisa but knew nothing else so it was nice to be able to educate them on more than just the English language.
After seeing so many beautiful birds in Ecuador, it is also good to see different species here; and there are quite a few. We get mynah birds around the school a lot and a few others, including this little fellow, which bobs its tail up and down a lot.
In my free time, I've been reading a lot and have just finished Charles Dicken's 'A Tale of Two Cities'. Quite good as a story but the first 100 pages are far too wordy and a real trial to get through. I've also been playing some old ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 games on my computer to pass the time. To be honest, there's not much to do around here so I need to fill my time with something. I'm playing strategy games so they take more time to solve.
The weather has been a little warmer but it's still winter here. The snow has started melting in the mountains but I'm not expecting it to get warm just yet.
I went into Dharamsala on Saturday morning to get to know the place. I was planning to stay over night there but it's little more than a shopping village on 4 or 5 streets with few cafés and restaurants. It rained while I was walking around so I decided to go into McLeod again. I found a hotel which was cheap enough and had wi-fi and hot water so that was like a luxury as here, we wash in the springs which can be pretty cold most of the time.
I went to a few cafés to read and use the internet and managed to spend a pleasant day there. I bumped into Maggie and Kendall in a restaurant later, who were staying in the same hotel as me, too. It wasn't too cold in the hotel room and I slept well.
The hot shower in the morning was good – the first I've had in three weeks. I went back to the Four Seasons café for breakfast then went back to wash my clothes, plan my lessons and of course, write this.
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