Settling in

Right, the new schedule works wonders. It’s amazing what a little extra sleep can give you. We tried it for a week, and, although we’re still knackered, it’s a lot better. This week was intense though. Last Saturday we slept in till two pm, causing the AC to burn out, and that still hasn’t been fully fixed. The list of broken things in our flat is slowly building up. But luckily it’s nothing that’s too drastic. The AC is probably the biggest thing. I feel kinda bad for saying that because people living just a stone’s throw away from us don’t even have food to eat and we’re complaining about the AC, so I’m trying to forget the fact that things break.
Anyway, last weekend, hence the sleep-in, was very restful; the absolute opposite of this weekend. The week worked out very well. One thing I’ve found out is over here people like to do things on a whim. Like Tuesday night for example. After getting up at 5:30 we went to football (soccer) practice, came home, slept for like an hour, then had lunch and came to the office. There were people visiting the office from Oasis Bangalore, and as we were leaving the office at 5 ish everyone decided they would go bowling. We all went along and ended up staying up until about one (after buying Pizza Hut out of business). That was fine for me and Tom who had to be at the office at 9 but Laurie had to pull the 5:30 card. I felt a little sorry, but it fun to just hang out with a ton of people. The rest of the week was pretty normal. And when I say normal I mean the usual death-defying auto drivers, skin-frying heat, sweat-pulling humidity, and all round craziness of the Indian lifestyle. I love it. Thursday we had a games night at the local church we were at. The church is held at the Sparky’s restaurant I was on about and the owner, Thom (the guy American I talked about before. I spelt his name wrong before, sorry) held the games night at his house. His house is amazing. It’s like a bachelor’s palace. That was pretty cool. We got to meet a few new people and the food was AMAZING. We stayed till like 11 playing Beatles Rock Band. Good stuff. Then came the weekend.
On Saturday we woke up at 5:30 again to go to a football (soccer) tournament. The youth group we were going to invited us to join the team. The first game was gonna be the first time we played as a team, and also the first time some of us met. It was a knock out competition and we ended up coming fourth out of 19, which was pretty cool, seen as the majority of us weren’t expecting to get anywhere. The fourth place was 2,500 rupees for the team, which is about 35 pounds (about 20 dollars). Turns out we make a pretty good team. By the end of Saturday we were exhausted because me and Tom went straight to the church office to practice for Sunday because we were asked to play for the service. We ended up getting home about 7 ish after chasing Laurie down because he had the keys and had own little adventure. But we got back safe in the end. Sunday was pretty busy too. We managed to catch the Man United Liverpool game in the evening, and that was probably the first full football (soccer) game I watched since France should’ve beaten Italy in the 2006 World Cup final. It was pretty cool to be back in front of God’s game.
On Monday there was a birthday party that again lasted till about one in the morning. It seems lat nights are gonna be a theme for me, cause tonight’s gonna be one too. There’s a poker night at Thom’s house.
But that’s enough about social antics. The real reason why I’m here, is, as you probably know, to help people. That’s going really good as well. We’re running a music class, English class, and games sessions after school. We’re also gonna start teaching the staff of Oasis English and some girls that work in a company called Jacob’s Well. We’ll also hold after-school sports sessions in the school where we work. And, as before, we are still helping coach football (soccer). All in all we’re having a blast while doing probably the most good I’ve ever done.