7th May

Sorry. I haven’t been on my blog for a while. I’ve been quite sick. Luck of the draw really. You try everything you can to stay safe, but … I’m slowly coming right. I’m back at work at least.

Now for an update.

I needed to spend an extra couple of days in the Hotel. Partially because Ashutosh was having a lot of trouble securing an apartment for me and partially because of the illness. About three days ago, I moved into my room. It’s situated in a rather posh part of town. The landlord/owner lives downstairs and has three levels above him that he rents out. Mine is on the top level. If I step out onto the roof and look north, I can see the Himalayas. The place has a single room with a kitchen and bathroom coming off that. There is a single bed in the main room, a desk and a wardrobe. The mattress belongs to the owner. I believe he probably had it second hand when he was a boy. (He’s older than me) As I lie on it I can hear the straw rustle. My first night was not the most comfortable night I’ve ever had.

The air conditioning consists of an ac unit that Ashutosh had removed from one of his offices and installed in the flat, plus a ceiling fan. The ac unit sound like a 747 jumbo taking off and the fan has its own rhythms and squeaks.

So the first night in my room, I stayed up reading for most of the night trying to get tired enough that my body would ignore the mattress and my mind would ignore the army of ants that came for a visit. I think I finally crashed around 5am.

Next day I braved the elements and found my way to the market. The first thing I was looking for was some fly spray. I figured, if the ants want to stay, then they can jolly well pay rent. Otherwise, they get blasted. I purchased a few other munchies and headed back home. (I ask the ants nicely. They couldn’t come up with their portion of the rent, so I evicted them. Chuckle, chuckle.)

The next evening, I had hoped that Ashutosh could replace the mattress. He had so many things he was trying to do that it way quite late before ha got underway with my situation. I had another night on the straw rustling mattress. What made life more interesting was that somewhere in the night, the power went off. This meant that the ceiling fan was off. (I had already turned the ac off. Couldn’t sleep with that thing going.) I woke up sweating. I needed to open all the doors to the outside to let some coolness in. Believe it or not, it was colder outside. The power hadn’t come back on until after I had gone to work.

In the evening, the mattress was finally replaced with something much better. Phew. I felt like going straight to bed. I was just considering the possibility when the power went off again. DOH!! I checked out side and saw some lights on here and there, so I was a bit confussed. So I popped down to talk to the judge. He invited me to sit in the ‘cool’ of the evening to have a chat. Very pleasant fellow. He assured me that this sort of thing rarely happens in their part of town. Then we went on to talk about his many trips to New Zealand and some of his favorite areas. He informed me that the kiwis are very friendly and the aussies are very rude. (Sorry Carol. His words, not mine.) He blames the aussies behaviour on immigration problems.

The classes are going well. I have ten students with at least one more starting on Monday. Maybe more during the week. Which is somewhat better than last time. They are mostly keen. I might need to move them along a bit with their homework though. (I have a plan) They have bonded well and give me heaps of cheek. Rakish is the Indian tutor. He seems to be enjoying himself. He’s in all of the classes, listening carefully. I get him to do some of the Lab sessions.