Today is Pongal ! We have just witnessed the ceremony of boiling over a pot of rice heated over sugar cane leaves. We awoke to welcome and Pongal patterns chalked on our doorstep and in the sand, very intricate and beautiful. Pongal is the Tamil harvest - treat in store for Llanfaelog come October! I have jasmine in my hair - don't know where we'll find that in October!
The children have just gone for breakfast - peace for a few minutes! - then they will collect us for a day of celebrations - races, singing etc. - all accompanied by loud Caribean-sounding music. Gather this goes on all day and into the night. More later...

Later....

Just negotiated our first social engagement, John (Warden), Johnson(sub-warden) and Mr Kumar, the (?) Chairman of the Indian Trustees, arrived and took us to put a garland on Dr. Lesley's grave. This is a tile monument in an enclosure like a marquee with blue flowers growing around and up it. The ceremony consisted of taking off shoes, washing feet in flowing hosepipe water, then pouring water over the monument. The Chairman said a prayer in Tamil, then we stood there a bit awkwardly before retrieving shoes and coming back to guesthouse. Yet more food awaited. Idlhi (rice cakes) and a very hot chilli and garlic sauce, then a sweet thing of rice, fruit and ginger. So much food! Hope it isn't lunch time for ages! We ate with 'implements' and made more mess than the men who ate with fingers. More slghtly awkward conversation and silences, but fine, we think. Now we will go off to observe sports etc.