In the end, Esther and David turned out to be in Ramnad so we did have lunch with them after all. The whole family was there, including the Brother in law (David's) and his clan. They brought some mutton down from Madurai (3 hrs on the bus to keep it fresh and warm), which went into the mutton biryani we had for lunch. We ate on the floor off banana leaves and it was great! She didn't put any chilli in the biryani and not so much cardamom or whatever it is that makes it taste like perfume¹. C. hates biryani in any shape or form and even he said it was okay.

There was no big celebration though and after I'd been on the roof to take some pictures we found ourselves back on the 'normal day' routine with little to talk about. So after a real Indian=style lunch we came ack to the hostel to face Yesu and everyone again. I threw them out and went to sleep for a couple of hours.

The lack of a party atmosphere was what really got me down – in England, the party starts in earnest on Christmas Eve after the Christingle service. We go to the pub until midnight mass. In the morning, the service starts the day and it's a big family celebration until Boxing Day. Presents, mince pies, lots of food and decorations everywhere. Everyone's happy² and festive even though it's freezing cold. There's such a big build up starting with the shops in November, television in December and lights in the streets. It's England's biggest festival and is fantastic.

Here, there are stars outside the Christians' houses and only the rich people have Christmas trees. Because there are so many festivals and so few Christians, it's just yet another one. Nothing special. I thought Indians were incredibly social people but there were no real get-togethers. Yesu spent the day away from his parents, with his friends. Deepavali (The Festival of Lights) is one of the biggest festivals, almost like bonfire night (which of course, is exclusively English).

We went to watch Yesu playing cricket out on the marshes in the morning, we sat in the shade and still got sunburnt. It was so hot yesterday that I almost got sunstroke and half of C.'s face and neck are burnt.

I woke up at seven and C. gave me some gorgeous cappuccino he'd been sent from England. Rajesh, Kumar, Muthu and Arun came round for a bit and we were grateful for some almost adult company. At ten o'clock we went to phone home and I talked for twelve minutes, which cost twelve quid! Apparently dad had faxed me on Monday,³ having finally managed to suss out the system. It was wonderful to talk to them all, I even enjoyed J's Cello playing in the background! C.'s parents weren't in, which was a real downer. But he got through today so it's okay now. Just any normal day. New Year should e good but I refuse to get my hopes up after Christmas.

C. said last night that he was beginning to wonder if we're not perhaps too young to participate in the EE Programme. Seeing as we've effectively wasted our first two months here as far as teaching goes. But was it wise for us to have spent three weeks of 'Orientation Time' in Madurai instead of Ramnad? We then had a week getting used to Ramnad during which time we discovered how much they wanted from us and how little had actually been organised. We were forced to buy ourselves more time and here we are. The only place we're actually getting anywhere with is St. Andrews, teaching the girls and attending the various functions. I've had some involvement with Schwartz Matriculation doing music, etc.

Why didn't they know we were coming? Why doesn't anyone know who CC is? Why didn't USPG try to find out more about what we'd e doing? C. knew he was coming do India in January, twelve months ago. Surely the Bishop could have come here to prepare the way, to find out what they wanted and even just to say we're coming. Or he could have got Athisayam to do it. Instead, we got a fax that said they'd be glad to have us. Who? The Bishop? Or had he told anyone at that point? Why didn't anyone tell us anything? We've come here blind, we knew of two of the schools, neither of which we can do very much in and they didn't know about us.

So is it our fault – are we too young, inexperienced and ignorant to do anything here? Is it like this for everyone else? Let's look at cases. There's A. in Zimbabwe, she knew about the school, there are two missionaries there already who sent her loads of information. The school knew about her and began to plan in advance. Remember that I nearly went there so I know I could almost draw the place from memory. She's got a counsellor in Bulawayo, only twenty minutes away and B.'s there as well. So she's busy. S. in Zambia was told what age group she'd be teaching! We knew there were two and a half thousand girls and one and a half thousand boys.

We don't have a counsellor! I thought it was almost unheard of for USPG to send EEP's into the field without one. Thus we have no-one to turn to but ourselves. Not much help, really. Athisayam would just say yes, yes and go do something else. The bishop's too far away. Athisayam said he'd come here every day and as he's the nearest thing to a counsellor that we've got it would have been ideal if he had. He doesn't even come ONCE a week! Sometimes we only see him on Sundays – in the pulpit. What does he think we are? Experts on India? We're learning the hard way and that's a fact. His brief must have been to find them somewhere to stay, introduce them, then leave them.

What can we do? We're going to write to the Bishop and see if he does anything. I'm going to try and find somewhere to work, to do anything, not just musical which is all that the Rev. seems to think I can do. When we first came he told everyone that C. was English and I was Music. Talk about first impressions, that buggered up everything before we started. I could have taught physics but no matter what I say now, they have this idea that I only know music and that's all they think about. Never change the subject when you're talking with an Indian, they just don't follow it. We can't do anything until New Year anyway.

It feels as if out of all of the EEPs, we've got the toughest assignment. We knew so little and we're in it up to our necks. We've no-one to talk to and our only form of communication is the post, which takes a week at least to travel both ways.⁴ We didn't realise how wrong things were going to be until it was too late – how could we? All we could do was to trust in our organisers and hope that they knew best. We couldn't start organising ourselves and dive in before we knew what they were trying to do. We came here in blind faith, lived here in blind faith and now have nine weeks out of the six months left to actually do something. Bunch of arse.