My internet connection is still not working. I’ve been busy calling up various Airtel officials to find out what the problem is. And finally yesterday I managed to make contact with a local manager to has promised me that the problem would be fixed within 24 hours. I don’t know if I can rely on his promise. But the fact that he called me up to say this gives me some hope. If at all the system gets fixed tomorrow, then I will have been cheated out of 15 days or 50% of usage time.

I couldn’t make a blog entry yesterday because my laptop was not charged. I realized that it draws a lot of power and so don’t want to use the Intel battery to charge it. It’s a smaller battery than the one I use and so it wouldn’t last even a day! And since we have been having cloudy weather, keeping the battery charged is becoming a bit of a problem. I wonder what is better – cool weather or lack of power? Given the heat spell we have been experiencing, I’d opt for cool weather any day!

It’s been relatively cool today. The sky has been mostly overcast. But there’s been no rain. The humidity level is pretty high. But there’s a nice breeze and so it’s not very uncomfortable. It was quite pleasant during Assembly today. We distributed the empty cement and limestone bags to the kids so that they could keep their school books in them neatly on their desks. They normally wrap them up in newspaper.

There have been a lot of absentees today. There are quite a few weddings and many of the kids have gone to attend marriage parties being held near and far. Instead of the usual 86/87, we only had 67 today. There were only 3 students in class 4 because Raiman has taken leave and Anjana and Lalita are ill. Yesterday, I was told that Radha is ill. But when I asked her why she hadn’t come to school, she told me that she had gone to attend a friend’s wedding. So the others were obviously lying! Anyway, attendance is poor these days. If it gets out of hand I’ll have to do something about it.

Bhola went home yesterday. He’s been spending ALL his time on the project since I left for Bangalore last month. He has a home and family and also a business to run, so I agreed that he should now operate from home. He can come here every day if he can. But honestly, he’s of more use to us if he is based in Devdand because then he can “get things done”.

Yesterday was routine as usual. But I had to say a few harsh things to one of the team members because he has been retiring to his room after school and emerging from it only to have his meals! In fact, I suggested to him that he could go home and stay there and that if he is very desperate for money, I could send him his honorarium. He didn’t even have to come to teach. That did the trick because I see him working now. I’m disgusted that one has to once in a while verbally “flog” people to get them to work.

Yesterday Bhola and Nilambar went to Gaddaparom for their village visit and they met up with Suresh’s father and discovered that Suresh would be going away to attend a wedding. He had applied for 3 day’s leave when actually he needed only one day off! Have the kids stopped liking school all of a sudden? Why does attendance drop whenever I go away for a few days? Attendance in Paharpur used to drop because the teachers would goof off while I was gone. Is the same thing happening here too? I don’t think so because I saw that Bhola is very keen to teach. In fact, I had to convince him that he is more useful to me as a non-teacher. “Teachers” here feel that it is their only work at the project!

As I write this blog, there are a few kids out in the field playing football. Bansi and Nilambar are rubbing down the iron doors of the volunteers’ rooms with sand paper in preparation of them being painted. Khagen is painting the gate and Suman is getting dinner ready. In about 15 minutes Khagen will go and teach the kids some exercises. Good. Some kids obviously love it here and would prefer to stay here all the time!

I’m waiting for Bhola to come back from Chandna market. I wonder if he has been able to find a mason who will complete the platform for the first well. The guys who were digging the well are both ill. They were due to come today. But are still too weak to cycle all the way to the project. I wonder when they’ll show up eventually. The rains will be upon us soon and I am anxious to get the work finished before then.