One week down!

Howdy all

Well its the start of the second week (Sunday is the first day of the week, don't argue) and work has finished in the village of Kottakudy. Im sure Glen will get the photos of the houses up, all 3 teams got the houses up to roof level and succeeded in finishing the floors.

Tired from the week, we worked a half-day on Saturday and took the rest of the day to act like tourists (bum-bags and all). First, we visited the two houses built by the 2007 team, with Glen, Hazel, Chris and Donald getting to see their hard work changing lives. we also experienced the joy that was the Indian dual-carriageway, in which traffic pretty much ignored all road signs and drove BOTH WAYS on each side of the carriageway! when its a bike or a tuk it's not as scary, but when a large lorry is flying towards you....

last night we also got to experience an Indian blockbuster movie, which (according to WInston and the hotel staff) India has been waiting for for a long time!! The film was entirely in Tamil, without English subtitles, and so my basic understanding was purely from what was on screen. So here is my synopsis of the plot:

1) The hero dresses up (and acts) like a Rooster, and goes around scaring criminals. Yeh. a Rooster. complete with crowing......
2) He is actually a head honcho of the Crime Investigation Bureau. He scares the villains into telling him where the money is. Next day, he turns up at the bad guys house, and uses a sledgehammer to take apart the house til he finds the money. Yeh. a sledgehammer... He takes the money, and distributes it to the poor people who leave prayers at Madurai Temple. He is effectively a Robin Hood rip-off
3) One bad guy doesn't like this. He pretends to haved a stroke
4) This guys daughter is a beautiful singer-type person. The father wants her to make the hero fall in love with her, so her can have revenge.
5) The hero falls in love....
6) They end up in Mexico. I don't really know why.
7) The girl falls in love with the hero. He actually uses her to clean out her fathers bank account. He gives all this money to the poor.
8) The police don't like this. They try and catch him out. They fail.

Amongst all of this there were a number of 10 to 15-minute long songs about nothing in particular, a guy who sells coconuts and is apparently hilarious to Tamil-speakers (not much use 2 us...) and a bunch of pizza delivery guys who get beat up....for no obvious reason.

Many of the group remarked that the best bit about the movie was the Mexican wave we started in the interval. What's that? Interval you say? Oh i forgot 2 mention...the movie is 3 FREAKIN HOURS LONG!!!!!!!!!!!

bring back Raghavan.......a DVD we watched on the bus about an old fat cop who goes around kicking bad guys in the head. That was also 3 hours long but was much, much better......