We had some bad news later in the week as the father of one of the students died in an accident. He then went away for some days and the support from the other students meant that some people didn't sleep much. One of the classes ended up not performing well for the last two days of the week in the lessons so we hope that they'll recover from it for next week.
It also meant the plans for the director's party on Saturday had to change. The students were going to do some dances and had been practising in the afternoons but Tibetan tradition states that after a death, there should be no singing or dancing for the next nine days.
Ken showed us a walk around the back of the school one afternoon through a village area. I found it very pleasant there. It had lots of quaint, rural buildings, the usual collection of farm animals and was a nice surprise to find, even though it is so near to us.
Saturday was a bit different. The highest level class did their presentation in the morning, which consisted of two comedy sketches. They went very well and had us laughing a lot. One was about a corrupt vet who would treat anything or anybody as long as he could get money from them. The second was about two lovers and the man had to prove his love to his girlfriend by doing anything for here. She ordered him to attack another man in the park and he ended up getting beaten up by that man after all of his three attempts failed.
The director attended this and we still had some games after the show. We first played bingo and I won a bar of chocolate for getting a line of numbers! We then played volleyball which was good fun, although my team lost both times. Then we went upstairs to the terrace and played table tennis. I couldn't remember the last time I'd played it but did quite well and I'd like to play it again before I leave.
We played darts which everyone was equally hopeless at. We played 'round the clock' up to 10 which took a lot of effort. Ashley also taught the students how to use the hula hoop and those rhythmic things where you swing two weights around in coordination with each other. The students also demonstrated how good they were at skipping. Especially Choephel, who did more than 400 on two occasions. I tried and after successfully skipping the first time I tried it, I couldn't do it again. That was a shame as I was thinking it could be a good thing to do to get back into shape a bit in my last couple of weeks here.
After that, I went up to McLeod with Ashley as we'd both wanted to do some things there. We got there mid-afternoon and the weather was probably the hottest we've had so far this year. I went around the stalls buying some gifts and I met her again later. We had coffees and fruit juices (which we rarely get), used the internet at café terraces and went to Jimmy's Pizza, which we both enjoyed. As we were spending the time together, we got to know each other better and it was good to chat about lots of things and good to get to know someone new. We decided to stay overnight so booked a room each at a hotel that she found. It was only 500 Rupees, which was cheap considering hotels have put their prices up this month. We had a beer on top of the Indian restaurant I've eaten at twice before and went back to sleep.
After getting a hot shower (once I'd battled with the taps to make the water actually flow from the hot water tap), we had breakfast and I sorted out my overnight train ticket from Amritsar to Agra for the few days after I finish at the school. It's a long journey so I managed to get a sleeper train but will have to change in Delhi. It was more expensive than I'd expected (1300 Rs.) but at least I've got that sorted out. Ashley advised me to book it while I was here as the places go well in advance. It was good that I took her advice as it was quite difficult finding a train even with over two weeks to go.
We read our books at a café, had lunch at Four Seasons and got the buses back. It was hot again as we got back to the village so we hope it will stay like this, especially so that it's warmer in the evenings.
It's brought the lizards out in full force, so that should be a sign that spring is properly here.
I've just seen, via Facebook, that it's Mother's Day today, so as usual, from being in a different country, I didn't know. Happy Mother's Day, Mom!
I've also recently heard that you people are still having that Easter thing over yonder. :)
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