Absolute chaos is the only way to describe life's tribulations at the moment. We went to the school last night and discovered that it was in fact tonight that we start. Of course C. and I had to have an enormous argument about it, on the way there too! I think it was me who thought it was tomorrow, but we went round in circles so I've forgotten the detail. What I do remember is C. stopping and asking if he was going mad because his memory is crap, or did I tell him that his memory was crap? I said that my memory (which is very good) is very good and I'm sure I could remember that Rev. Athisayam told us it was last night. He did. It's just that the Deputy Head at St. Andrew's, who knows much more than the Rev, told C. we would start tonight. The Rev. said that the Deputy Head told him, she said she didn't. So who's really going mad?

My money's on the Rev. I think I've gone on long enough...

So we took Kumar to see Jumanji instead. The cinema in Ramnad is huge and the back speakers only work in the loud parts so we had to move to the front of the balcony (the expensive seats – Rs10/20p!). Indian cinemas aren't just for films, oh no. They are a social outing, a chance to smoke weed in the dark, to throw chairs around when the projectionist messes up the reels or the electricity goes off, they are an experience and no mistake. But it shows English films in English, which should be a welcome escape from India. We'll go again, no doubt.

This morning we got the seven-fifteen bus to Madurai, got money, bought books and loo-roll and other items of little interest, and returned. So far I've bought about six novels, all easy reading but that's really all I can cope with. In the evening we went to the girl's school to meet our prospective students at last.

We met another English teacher who didn't know anything about us! The Headmistress obviously keeps to herself as that makes three members of staff in the dark since we came here last Monday. The woman we met tonight is called Florence and she acted as a translator while we introduced ourselves and explained about what we hoped to achieve. She turned into a mediator however, asking all the questions and explaining our answers.

We were lucky that she was there, because we would have floundered a lot with the girls being as shy as they were. We explained our predicament and how we need to know what they want to know or learn, etc. I said that they should ask us if they have any questions about anything and we'd try to explain. We emphasised the fact that we are not qualified teachers. We talked about England; its size, counties, cities, towns and how it takes only nine hours to travel from top to bottom. Florence must have been quite shocked because she asked if we had enough material for five months. I said no, but we'd muddle through since we've been dropped in it ourselves! Preliminaries over, we start on Monday, every weekday night until we leave. Excluding holidays of course...

I'm missing Pastor Fenn and his long talks about nothing at all. The day before we left, C. and I were being ridiculously philosophical about the universe, combining physics and biology to argue for the non-existence of life. Matter is made up of quarks and leptons, which make up the components of atoms, which are components of a cell. On their own, they are proteins and lifeless, but together the cell is alive. Pastor Fenn came in about have way through, mulled over it all night and told us over breakfast that he thought the scientists must lead very empty lives without God.

He told me a story from his time in Malaysia: He found a girl at the airport speaking desperately to people in Hindi. No-one knew what she was talking about, so he went up to her and discovered that she had married a Malaysian without her parents' permission. The chap in question couldn't afford to take her back with him, so he returned home alone. She left home and flew to Malaysia without telling her parents, trying to be with her husband.

What's his name? Rev. Fenn asked.

Gupta (or whatever it was), and he's a doctor. That's all I know.

Rev. Fenn invited her back to the Rectory and checked around all the hospitals looking for Dr. Gupta's. he found a few and finally one of them said yes, he had married a girl in India, but was now remarried and couldn't possibly take her back.

But what about her? Rev. Fenn said. She can't go home and has spent all her money coming here. You married her so she's your responsibility.

Oh alright, she can come and live with me and my wife, if she doesn't mind. She didn't, so the doctor said he'd be down in half an hour. Then the Rev. realised something.

Hadn't you better tell your wife?

Oh yeah. So he did and she left him.

Problem solved!

We bought a chess set and a pack of cards. We're teaching Kumar to play Rummy. Between C. and myself, the chess score is C. two, me six and three stalemates. C. isn't very happy about this. Kumar loves C.'s Walkman and listens to it whenever he can.