donkey news

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Today we accidentally stole a donkey.

There is a system here where donkeys, followed closely by their owners, make the long trek up the side of our mountain, carrying whatever goods need delivering. It seems people can put stuff on and take stuff off at any point along the way. It's a good system.

Anyway, we didn't realise how this worked, and inadvertantly joined a path between a resting donkey and it's resting owner. When the donkey senses someone behind him, he walks, presuming the person behind is the owner and rest time is over.

The donkey walked ahead, we followed, the donkey stopped, and when we caught up he continued. This continued all the way up the hill, leaving the real owner oblivious to this far down the hill. the end.

Hindi continues to be learnt. We've just about mastered the script. Hindi has 10 vowels and 40ish consonants, which at first doesn't sound much more complicated that our western script. However there are 10 'vowel sounds' - a collection of marks, dashes and lines, that are added to any consonant to complete it's sound. I.e the letter k does not exist on its own, but there are 10 versions of k depending on which little mark you choose to add. think of the sounds in the words keep, kipper, kook , kalm etc.. Add to this the fact that almost any of the 40 consonants can be combined with any other to become a completely new conjunct character. All pretty hard to master.

We have had only one communication disaster this week. Tanuja, trying to tell the very friendly hotel man that 'we will be eating out tonight' managed instead to say 'GET OUT!'. Ha ha.

Power cuts are a regular part of himalyan life, and normally are of little consequence. Cooking is all on gas and everybody has candles. However I was slightly peed off when, after being surprised to find the FA Cup penalties on our little communal TV, all power disappeared with the score at 2-2. I still don;t know what happened.

Best shop in Mussourie is definaltely Mr Saleems 'Victory Egg Store'. And it's just that. A small shop that only sells eggs, and hundreds and thousands of them at that. Mt Saleem sits there all day surrounded by 36-egg trays. And it's a great idea - what's wrong with a shop that only sells one thing?

Monkey news (especially for Patrick) - we saw a big monkey/alsation face off yesterday. The big monkey was sitting on a car quielty eating it's banana when the alsation, obviously thinking that the big monkey had stepped onto his patch, started barking. The big monkey ignored the alsation, so the alsation barked again. After a third series of barks, the monkey finally stopped concentrating on his banana and looked menacingly at the 'brave' alsation. Alsation turned, trotted to a safe distance and then did one of those fake dog yawns that means ' I don;t care, I could have had him if I'd wanted'.

This is actually the same alsation that we have seen with his head and paws hanging out of an upstairs window, sadly watching all the local rough strays playing rough games. I think he's a bit wet.

That's all. more news soon.

D and T

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