I'm a bit happier today, but the problem still remains.

We had dinner at Jerry's house with his mum the lovely, slightly deaf headmistress from Schwartz Matriculation. Her sister and her family live with her as her husband died last year. She is the niece of Rev and Aunty Fenn! Everyone's related. We ate Burri with fried mashed potatoes, then dosai and samara, then banana custard! Papaya, apples and grapes. We felt slightly full I can tell you! On the way out we spoke to the HM's father who told us that they speak Tamil here and Tamil Nadu is at the bottom of India surrounded by the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Enriched with this new and hitherto undiscovered knowledge we came back and had a discussion about God and which bits of the Bible are actually literally true.

C. said that we shouldn't say some bits are true and not others, but obviously the New Testament is more true than the Old. It all stemmed from the question of homosexuality. C. says it's all wrong and I say it's alright. Wouldn't do it myself, but gay people are okay. I also don't think you can pin God down with something as human as a personality, which C. says you can. We know the nature of God, but that's different. Anyway C. laughed at me a lot and spouted all this fundamentalist stuff about the Bible being a set of rules which you can't pick and choose from. Then he said he doesn't like talking about this kind of thing because you get all lost. He might – I thrive on things like that, even though I know so little.

So today we did very little, writing letters, eating, that sort of thing. This evening we went to Kiruba teacher's house to get our lunghis sewn up and watched this bloke making parottas. He's the Parotta King, apparently and we ate them later with a chicken that they killed especially.

The brother-in-law was asking us about alcohol and how English people are all drunkards aren't they? My own theory is that no-one drinks in India so those who do, get blind drunk and so no-one drinks in India. I would think that because we do drink an incredible amount and at any excuse. We were saying ooh no, we only drink a glass or two at mealtimes, and C. said that it was only wine because wine is nice. I had to put a stop to this – don't ask someone who doesn't drink about alcohol – and just before he launched into the 'some people drink beer and whisky and give everyone a bad name' malarkey, I dove in. I said that liquor is usually drunk in moderation and beer is social. It's true isn't it?

I didn't want C. to get on his high horse about it like he keeps doing about his 'adult' college where he took easy examination boards and had all open book English exams. He did it again this evening and made me look really lazy because he had a job over the summer and I was going to bed at two and getting up at nine. I had two weeks, then Sellyoak, then two weeks, then Bosnia, then I was learning to drive, then preparing for India. Of course I didn't get a chance to defend myself and by now they'd all written me off as a lazy drunkard. C. has got absolutely no idea how the Indians take things. I can spot it a mile off now, but he's still surprised.

On Christmas Day he gave Kiruba a Jelly. It became clear that she thought it was for her so he went and asked her to make it. Of course now she was thinking Oh no, I thought they'd given it to me and they only brought it because we've got a fridge and now I look really stupid I'd better go and make it, even though I've been cooking all morning. I watched this going on in her head and had my face in my hands when C. came back all innocent and pleased with himself. When I told him, he went back and said she didn't have to make it now, any time will do. So she's our slave now? I don't know how he can't see these things. He's got no idea what the culture is here and is almost as unaware now as when we first came. But I've said all this before, about him 'seeing'. I won't waste more precious ink on the subject.

Kumar's back, and he's going to take us to his village tomorrow morning at five thirty, then bring us back with the Rev in the evening because they've only got one toilet. It's mad, we're supposed to stay until Sunday but the Rev's crazy and at least we'll get our post earlier.