My choir sang 'God Is Good' before assembly today and after my exertions of yesterday I made them sing it without me! I couldn't sing very very this morning and left them to it. I'm very impressed with them and have taught them quite a lot of songs now, which they all write down in their notebooks. Yesterday some Eighth Standard girls asked if they could join. There were about forty students and Juliet was mortified. Half of them aren't even singing! She said. I said at least they're not talking when the others are singing though, which stumped her for a bit. It must mean they're enjoying themselves and they like the songs.
...
I lost to Yesu [at monopoly] again and then beat his two friends but somehow it wasn't as satisfying.
...
At St. Andrews we took some music and played them Kula Shaker's Hindi songs which I think they liked, but they turned their noses up at Blur and Massive Attack. We played Hangman, a game that hadn't occurred to us until yesterday, when the girls chose words like 'friendship' and 'thank you'.
Our English lessons are turning into 'culture lessons' where we tell each other things. Today we talked about music - Indian film songs with dances being popular as opposed to our musical culture of bands playing gigs. They really don't understand why we would want to go into a sweaty little room and just stand there watching someone play! It's all about the dancing here. If there's no dance, there's no music.1
...
JP is actually a very interesting person (I've decided) and I've spent a lot of time talking to him about things I've observed and his ideas. It's really good for me because we can talk about a lot of things like Africa and the church at a depth which is impossible with C. because he has had no real experience with them.
He (JP) recognised the Tony Hudson picture of Lesotho (that my Godparents sent me for Christmas2) instantly, because he had worked there. But he is terribly English and calls dosai 'dohsa' and bhaji's 'badgies' and is still eating Indian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He'll have to put his foot down soon!
- Not true of the classical tradition of course, but these are teenagers we're talking to!
- This picture, somewhat abstract, gentle blues, a landscape of the mountains kept me sane and calm in the direst need. I don't know what I would have done without it and it still has a very special place in my heart.
