Well, I can't believe it's been nearly a week since I arrived at the Trust....Time seems to be flying as each day brings another exciting new challenge!

The trust is amazing. The daily routine is, pretty hectic and involves getting woken up by the church singing/shouting dear Jehovah's work to anyone who cares about it at this un-earthly hour. Fortunately I seem to have become more used to this rude interruption and tend to get up at 08.30 for breakfast before teaching which is usually at the Kings school, although I go to the local government school to help/teach at least two standards at a time (about 50 students) at least once a week.

After teaching, we have about half an hour to get ready for a brief prayers time at 18.10, after which, we have "family time" which consists of us going into one of the houses and playing with the children for about half an hour before supper at 19.00. Finally, we help the children with spoken English for about an hour until 20.30 before finishing for the day....so there's not much time for relaxing!!

A week ago last weekend, I was approached to help the "Kings school" swimming team with a Sunday morning "open water swim" at one of the villages which, incidentally was affected by the Tsunami. On agreeing to this, I was quite unsure what exactly to expect, other than a swim in the sea.....of course! At 05.30am, a buss load of swimmers left the school on a 45 minute drive to the sea with the swimming coach, his two assistants, and the three volunteers, Laura, Lucia and I.

The village itself was quite small, with life being back to normal after the Tsunami, with only a few houses being re-built. On arrival, we all piled into two fairly dodgy fishing boats which took us 1km off shore, where the kids were either thrown off the boats, or they jumped into the sea, to start the swim ashore! Anyway, it was great fun and, after lunch on Palm leaves, it was time to go. Rumors are already circulating the swimming department that the coach is planning another trip so hopefully we will be able to go 2km off shore this time!!

Otherwise, all's fairly normal, apart from the number of volunteers has decreased substantially, from the 15 which were here when I arrived, to the five of us who were sitting round the table eating our toast this morning. Also, it seems as if there is a holiday at least once a week. For instance, there is one tomorrow, and last Wednesday we were able to go to the amazing mountains as schools were closed for the day!!

Unfortunately, there won't much to see in the mountains, apart from numerous monkey which kept trying to eat our lunch! We were a large group so stuck to the road, although three of us managed to track a family of three bears through the woods....a feat which was slightly scary when we heard one of the bears roaring a few hundred meters away from us!!

Best wishes from India!!

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