Temple through the medium of cables, an art .installation

Big boys like ice cream too.

Yum yum, got to eat it quick in this heat

Peace man. Love your nits.

Thursday 2nd  April
Not quite so hot today thank goodness and a bit of a breeze.  We are setting off at 6.30 am tomorrow to get the Greenline bus to the Chitwan National Park, hoping desperately that it has aircon as it is a 5 hour journey.  It is much hotter there and of course, more humid. You are recommended to wear long sleeved clothes and trousers or long skirt, both day and evening. The mosquitoes are ferocious it seems, as well as malarial.  So I nipped out this morning before going to work and bought a hippy-type fine cotton, long sleeved top, a long gypsy style skirt and a Buddha printed scarf.  Don't laugh, I promise I won't wear them back in the UK.  Barbara tried a skirt or two on in a different shop but didn't like them,  the shopkeeper who had been oleaginous at the beginning, shouted after her, "You are a very confused woman."
Judy, the Montessori expert, has seen a doctor after coughing a lot and been diagnosed with bronchitis so she is staying at the hotel.  Luckily, she didn't book for the jungle trip.  So Barbara and I spent the day on paperwork so that we can make a start on weighing and measuring the little ones and trying to find out their medical history and background.  The administrator at the orphanage knows something of where the children came from and Naima, the head didi, knows some but can't read or write.  We thought that if either of these leave, then there would be no written record and how awful that would be for a child, not to be able to find out even the smallest detail of where he came from, should he wish to know.
The bigger children were late home from school so we didn't see much of them. All day we have heard police klaxons, on top of the ceaseless beeping of car horns.  On the way back, we saw about 12 mounted horsemen in red uniforms with plumes in their helmets, not unlike the mounted cavalry in London.  So we assumed that there must have been a bigwig in town or an important event.
I think we may have finally cracked the "safe" way of crossing the road.  First you completely ignore the drivers beeping at you.  Then you stick out your palm towards the drivers of oncoming traffic, which they in their turn will largely ignore.  The trick then is to venture into the road SLOWLY and once you have started, do not stop or waver.  The cars and motorbikes will either slow down or drive round you, so by going slowly, you give them the opportunity of making either manoeuvre.  If you dash, you will surely be mown down. This would be very bad as the trauma centre at the hospital is still not up and running after being completed 6 months ago.
Tonight we are ironing and packing and I shall be washing my hair with nit shampoo as headline are rife at the orphanage.  Next week we are going to buy nit shampoo in bulk for the children.
Photos today are of the children enjoying their ice cream and a rather artistic photo of a temple opposite the cafe, as seen through the telephone and electricity cables which decorate the street.
PS Good news!  The little boy found at the Monkey Temple at the weekend will be reunited with his father tonight.  More details next week.