Thursday 17th April

Even though we've only got a couple of days left in India our dear, dithering Reverend still didn't come to see us when he said he would. He said 9:30, we waited until eleven then took Miss Shanti's Sunny-Zip out for a spin. Why? Why didn't he come? It's the only time we could have gone round to see the projects. Now we'll never know what we missed, what the church actually does in Ramnad.

We went to the beach on Tuesday afternoon with Yesu and Jerry - at Muthupettai - which was quite fun, although the sea was very rough and I made sure they didn't go out too far. We had a great time diving into the breakers instead. In the evening we went to see Mrs Juliet and that visit made me realise how much I've come to care for her. All the arguments and things have served to make the friendship deeper.

Yesterday we tried to go to another beach in the afternoon but the bus didn't come so we bought chocolate and played monopoly instead. I didn't really want to go to the beach with Yesu and Jerry every day because it means we're isolating ourselves from everyone. There are other people I'd like to spend time with, but no-one's going to come and visit us. They're like that. Everyone will probably come round tomorrow with invitations for dinner that we can't accept. It's as if they think we're going to be here forever. But the truth is looming large. We are denying ourselves the acceptance of this truth so that we can enjoy our last couple of days here. Just carrying on like normal. We can see people tomorrow, tonight, next week...

Last night Rev Jothi was playing badminton with his son and in due course Yesu and I borrowed some racquets off him. We played until we broke his shuttlecock and Jerry and I had to go and buy another. C. came out and we played doubles until it got dark so we switched our outside light on and played a bit more.

We had dinner with a boy from 9a called Siva and Mrs Juliet must have had something to do with it because it was Purri and potato korma stuff - our favourites! I don't think I'm going to miss the custom of guests eating first while the whole family stands around watching you eat and looking really hungry.

We were up at seven this morning playing badminton again, 1-1. I'm getting really tired now, I had about eight hours sleep last night and it was still a real effort to get up this morning. I'm going to keep it at bay until we leave though, I'll be able to sleep for as long as I like when we get home.