10th January 2019

The new coffee shop just outside the main RUHSA building- wonderful! Blue skies and rising temperatures here today. 

January 10th 2019 

How wonderful to be back here, with the rattle and whistle of the nearby trains, the late afternoon crowing of a cockerel, the racket of crows, revving up for their fly-in to roost at sunset in the trees on our campus; and just now as I write the discordant insistence of Indian music baring through a loudspeaker. The team this time is Pam and Brian Morris, Pam's sister Janice Wise and me. So, this year for the first time as friends here have said already ' one sir is missing'; no Andy, alas, and much missed by me already. 

Our journey here with Etihad was long, with a break in Abu Dhabi, so we are weary and resting up a bit today. Perhaps  older brains take longer to adjust to a new world and way of doing things! When I first came here in 1991 I was just short of my 43rd birthday and there were locals who thought then we were old to be rushing about on bikes setting up our first pre-school project. Heaven knows what they think of us now, when three of us are septuagenarians! 

We have already sampled the canteen fare, as ever, big helping of rice, samba ( a sort of veg curry), chutney, poppadum/ chapatti, and today some really nice smooth curd. In the south, Tamil Nadu where we are, people like their food hot and spicy, and yesterday's supper was very eye-watering/ nose-running for me! 

This morning we went to see Vinoth, the administrator, who has already organised our taxi for the airport at Chennai, our bottled water supply and other items in our flat, and who will now - after much form-filling in triplicate, sort us our WIFI-HURRAH! Back in 1991 we wrote long letters home and received replies weeks later if we were lucky. There was no phone link to the uk, in the village. Nowadays everyone has a mobile and the wifi connection in our room isn't bad at all. After Vinoth we bumped into Sekar, our oldest friend amongst the Ruhsa staff, then Jayraman, Jeffers and Ambaragan ( who used to be Mr Immanuel's gofer) Sekar will retire in June after being here at Ruhsa since it started in 1977, the inspired vision of Dr Daleep Mukharji its founder/ first director. So many of the young community workers recruited by Daleep to create his vision with him have retired in the last few years and a new group are now taking the work forward. Sekar spoke to Pam and told her that the new Director, Dr Shantidani, is very community-minded, so he is hopeful that the work of. Ruhsa will go forward. Everyone we have spoken to so far speaks in very positive tones of the new 'H.O.D' ( Head of dept), which is quite a turnabout from the last incumbent. Heaven be praised!