It was St. Andrew's School sports day today and we were invited as guests of honour! At last, some kind of welcoming ceremony! About time... there was a lot of fun and games - sack races, fancy dress competitions, a slow bicycle race, various dances and an old favourite, the folding of the five saris. This last is a tense game as those who have shot to the lead can still come a cropper at the slightest slip! The dance was great, some real traditional Indian routines as well as the obligatory film songs. One girl was specially selected to dance for us, which was embarrassing for both parties I think! The dances make a lot of use of the famous Indian head movement, something that I'll never learn. It rained half way through the afternoon, and our shelter gave us an interesting view of the mayhem that followed.
Later on in the afternoon we took Yesu and some of his friends (Jerob – son of the HM at the Schwartz Matriculation school, nephew of the Fenn's! & two others) to see The Mask at the cinema. It was very noisy, as usual, and I think only men go downstairs. The projectionist needs a bit of practise as well – he kept cutting off the ends of the reels! They have an annoying tradition of a twenty-minute break in the middle, presumably so the projectionist can find the other half of the film, which cuts in anywhere it wants to. Still, we enjoyed ourselves and managed to avoid the pot smokers.
On the way home we stopped at the Hotel Surya for a late lunch (4pm). We have moved on to Chinese food because we can actually digest it. Kumar could never understand why we wanted less chilli in things, so we've stopped having Indian food.
As I have mentioned before, we have been having a lot of problems with Kumar, the main one being that the Rev has run orf to Madurai so he can't sort it out. He has been scolding boys who have come round to see us, like Arun and his three friends (Majik, the musician and the other one). We've tried to explain that they are our friends but to no avail. Kumar thinks they are casing the joint and it's partly the Rev's fault. We have been paying for Kumar's meals, and this is the Rev's responsibility. He isn't looked after and is sleeping in a shack at his office in the Schwartz Matriculation school (He works in the Vocational Training Centre). Yesu has helped us a lot in getting everyone to understand this and it seems that the best option is to sack Kumar, shout at the Rev, get our money back and go to the hotel for meals. Tomorrow will see...
