20th May

We had a really wild storm last night. It started around 10pm and went through to 6.30 this morning. It was quite amazing. The sky was alive with thousands of lightening flashes and the thunder was intense. It makes our Christchurch storms seem ‘insignificant’. I woke to the alarm and no power, again. I turned on the hot water for the shower and, nothing. DOH!! Oh well. Its not as though I couldn’t have a cold shower. Especially as the cold water tap isn’t a lot different to the hot tap. (When it’s going).

The students were asked to give feedback on the course so far yesterday. On the whole they seem to be positive. There are some differences they have asked for which we wouldn’t do in NZ. They are asking for a revision day on Saturday to go over what we learned during the week.

This whole Saturday thing seems a little confusing here in India. Its as though there a split in perceptions. On one hand there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Saturday and Sunday are the weekend but, then there’s plenty of people who work Saturdays. Some of the students treat Saturday as a day to go home to the parents, then come back on Monday. It makes it kinda hard to get everyone through the course. Still, we can but do our best.

I went for a walk to the city centre with Avinash. It wasn’t quite as far as I thought it might be. There’s some fairly major reconstruction going on around the various parts of sector 17. Mostly in the courtyard areas. Given another year and it will look quite nice. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of big machinery here. Just lots of people doing the work manually. I did notice that, when they resurfaced the street I live on last week, they were using the ashfelt truck similar to what we use in NZ. But that was it. Even the vehicles that transported the ashfelt to the machine were not much better than horse and cart.

There are small businesses all around here. When I say small, they are one men operations. An electrician who’s transport is his push bike. All his tools fit in a bag on the bike rack. Or a cycle tyre repair man, who works on the corner of a street, on the footpath. His house is a tent held up by a garden wall. A richshaw driver who’s bed is the back of the rickshaw. He washes himself and his clothes at a public tap on the side of the road. The other day two men came around to install a sky dish. One chap had the dish in a bag on his back. The other had the tools in another pack. They both arrived on motor scooters.

One chap, just down the road from me, does everyone’s ironing. His house is a tent on the curbside. He lives there with his wife and daughter. You see plenty of chairs outside under trees. They are the local barber. Some even have a mirror attached to the tree or a freestanding frame.