day 35

Half way through! There are now snow on the mountians which looks good, but the weathers been sunny so its not as snowy as it had been. Just the usual day at school doing alphabet then plantation in the afternoon.

day 34

We got up at 7am to go to the temple again, as we didnt get to go in the golden bit yesterday because of the queues, but again the queues were massiev and we didnt haev weenough time which was rubbish. We got some breakfast then at 10.45 we got the bus back. Got back home at 7.30...so a long day!

day 33

We had to get the 7am bus to Amritsar so an early start. It took about 3 hurs to get there. When we got there we went straight to the golden temple, its really good. We walked round there for a few hours, and had lots of people staring, shaking uor hands and requesting for photos with us...because they cant get enough of white people! Later on we went looking for a place to stay the night, but everywhere was really expensive. In the end we found an ok place about 10mins from the Palace. As soon as we had dropped our stuff off there we went to Wagha, which is on the Pakistani border. Every evening there is a ceremony where guards from both countries close the gates and lower flags. It was really good, it was like a pantomime with India chanting things, then you could here from the otehr side of the fence Pakistan with a feeble attempt of a comeback as they have no tourists to shout lol. I also had my first bit of alcohol! jsut 500ml of lager, but it was great all the same. It took about 1.5 hours to get there from Amritsar, so when we got back it was quite late. We went to a posh hotel/restaurant which looked great but the service wasnt that good. Then we went to bed because it was quite late and we needd to get up early.

day 32

School was teh same as usual, we set them a test which ended up lasting the whole day. In the afternoon A few of us went to Amritsar, which is 8 hours bus ride away. Its like the holy place for Sikhs. We left here at about 4.30 and got on the bus at 5.45 and had to stop off in Pathankot 5 hours away because the buses stopped running, so we satyed at a guest house at the bus station. It wasnt too bad, basic though. We then went to a restaurant nearby which was alright.

day 31

At about 4am it started thunder and lightning outside. As our room has 2 sides with windows in, it was really bright, it was flashing at more than 1 a second for about half an hour. It was either like being in Afghanistan or being at a nightclub with all the flashing and the noise. As it had already woken us up, we noticed that itd started leaking into our room, and coming from the window, the back door and the bedroom door which is near an outside corridor. We spent the next half hour trying to get rid opf the water and putting towels down. As the weather didnt get any better into the morning we stayed off school and just watched DVDs and played scrabble the rest of the day. I also got a letter off tom :)

day 30

On the way to school there was a car accident where a car had tried to overtake a tractor, which resulted in bits of the side of teh car falling off. To make an insurance claim, they needde to call the police, which in India could mean they come whenever they feel like it, and as a result of this we were a bit late for work.At school we taught the lower case alphabety and I did some maths with Vishal and Vinita. In the afternoon we did a practice for sports day, wher the lower years are separated into 2 teams and race against each other. The 2 teams and tigers and sharks original, i know). Its made up of about 6/7 normal sports day games, but has a lemon and spoon instead of egg and spoon race. When Manu (our project executive) gave them the spoons and a stone to practice with, they all put the spoons handle side first into their mouth and started running, so I started shouting for them to stop, because running with something in your mouth on an uneven and slippy floor does result in injury/death. We also found out that Tommy the dog had died :-( apparently some sort of bleeding to death. The cleaner of the school is albino, and everyone apparently in the town believes she is that way not for genetic reasons, but because she aet chicken and milk at the same time. I thuoght this was really funny. Even Manu believes its true as well. Its crazy how people in the 20th century still can believe such things! After school we made some medals for the sports day and I went to town and got my glasses, Im rather pleased with them!

day 29

There was Vishal, Nikil and Nitika at school toady, the same 3 kids as before. I worked with Vishal who is the cleverest of them and did addition, subtraction and 1 times tables. In the afternoon we did a community survey at a house which was a 15 min walk away fmo teh school. It was quite a nice house! marble floors, 2 bedrooms, a real bathroom and a kitchen. After school a few of us went into town and had an eye test and ordered some glasses. The cost for the test, lenses and frames came to 550 rupees (which is between 6-7 pounds) its great!