well another week in India does seem to have gone fast, as ususal iv spent my days reading and listening to my ipod, and im getting rather sick of the same music over and over! buttt this week i attemptd to learn a little bit more of written hindi. it is REALLY hard to learn. iv memoorised all the vowels, and half the constanats but its so unlike any other language as far as pronountication goes and wel i gues having only ever written in english all my life to learn to write is rather challening to.

there have been a few issues to say the least with the principal, 2 of the teachers are considering leaving because of her. but on friday and saturday nights elyse and i went and stayed in a dingy seedy and extremly noisy hotel in manali. dayel had come from shimla so weshowed him around the town in naggar, and spent the last 3 days in manali just wandering around. yesterday i went to my first christian weddin, india style. one of the teachers at Dar Ul Fazzal, the childrens home where celia and phillipa area was getting married to a canadian man. the service was in the mission hospital church in manali and the recpetion was held at the childrens home. the service was i gguess just an average wedding service but the reception was really good. all the kids according to their age group had to do a performacnce wehter a traditional punjabi dance or a western hip hop dance, some of the kids performed skits and other sang. we met these 2 canadian guys and soon began talking and went out to a bar in manali after teh wedding.

well her are my 3 favourite things about india so far. (as im yet to actually travel anywhere i cant talk about those things)

1. The food: althought we eat only rice dahl, subzi and chappatis with barley anything in the actaul dishes themselves its incredibly tasty. i guess all the spices and flavourings are required in the dishes where as boiled veges and a chunk of meat at home doesnt really have spices added. the varitaion in the foods from all the states is incredible. you can go between neighbouring states and be offred completly different food.

2. the people (with the exception of the gross men): the people here are so welcoming and hospitable. for example last week when we went to Mehru's work we walked up to the temple in fojjal and a woman immeitaly came out and gave us big glasses of steaming chai. then another man who was sitting there gave us a tour of the temple, he didn't speak any english but was still keen to engage with us and show us aroudn. you meet the most wonderful people just walking down the street who are keen to know all about the little white girl in india. they might not speak any english but aer still keen to have a conversation with you.

3. the scenery: although iv seen the same view for 2 months now i can never get enough of the snow capped mountains. every morning just to wake up and look out the window at the thousand feet high mountains with snow on the top and tiny little houses perched out in the middle of no where. we have the same view from out batherrom so it realy is a loo with a view. i dont no where else in the world you would get this kind of view.

welll thats it for now, back to naggar tonight and school tomorow. as much as i dont like the current situation, the teachers and the kids are wonderful. even the little ones who talk at you in hindi who clearly dont understand that we dont speak hindi love us. their favourite game at the moment is footy and paper planes. theyare obsessed with paper planes and want us to make them ALL the time. some of teh grade kids run out of class to find elyse or i to get us to make a plane for them. the teachers are great too, they love to learn english from us and i think they like us learning hindi from them despte being absolutly terrible. best bit is lunch time when we sit in teh staffrom and share food (they always have such yummy food!)

well i guess ill get to the internet next saturday in kullu maybe or sunday in manali, miss you all and hope everyones well

lots of love alex

xxxxx