The next day everyone but Hannah and I went to this anniversary of some church a few hours away. Hannah and I played with the kids. Me more than her. I was taking a picture of a little girl who was about 8 and squatted down and then about a billion saw their opportunity and swarmed me. They struck me down and I ended up lying on the ground with about 100 little grommets all yelling and screaming asking for their picture to be taken.

Late that afternoon the others returned looking real haggled. They had had to sit through a service 3 hours long which had been spoken entirely in Mirati, the Indian language of the state. Apparently Zyg would hear the only English word spoken and would wake and cry with enthusiastic zeal, AMEN! before slumbering again.

I could just imagine if I was there. Me sitting in the church shifting position every 5 seconds.

“Muhum bahuma mada radi muhunda..” the India pastor.

“Pssst! Hannah?”

“SHHHHH”

“Muhum radi muhunda bahuma mada..”

“but I am about to die…”

“SHHHH” wack.

“seriously..”

And right about then I would die. I am sure my decision to stay back had saved my life.

The rest of the week was spent hanging around playing with the kids, and dodging the security ladies who kept telling us off for playing with the kids when they were supposed to be studying and doing stuff.

Some of the kids are such little cuties and are going to be stunning when they grow up. Some of the matron mothers and workers are in their early 20’s and are really pretty as well. If I didn’t have to behave, well they don’t call me Joaquin Casanova Castle for nothing.

I had a group of favourite girls. Mostly the cheeky ones that cheated at the shoe throwing, rock game. They were always on the other team so I got extra pleasure when my team would win and I could rub it in. Gods know they sure rubbed it in when our team lost. Even though they barely spoke English they sure knew how to keep score, in English.

It was quite sad to leave them all in the end. Some of them cried and they all begged me to come back and said they wouldn’t forget me. It was all very ego boosting. I knew it would take even Hannah a few days to get my ego back in control. I didn’t know what I would do without my daily dose of flowers. One of the worst thing about travelling is meeting people and then saying goodbye and knowing you’ll never see each other again.