So hot it melts bananas

It is so hot that we no longer take lunch to work as it disintegrates before we get there. Melted bananas make an unpleasant mess in the bottom of our bags. I have blisters on my bottom from my white hot bicycle seat. In the afternoon huge banks of cumulus clouds build up, tinged pink and black as the sun sets; there is occasional heavy rain at night. Morning cycle rides are made more hazardous by puddles obscuring the potholes and a mass hatching of chicks and ducklings. Baby goats prance stiff-legged in our path, watched by their prettily pink striped mothers. The Young Communist League are clearing the drainage ditches at the sides of the road, leaving black decaying piles of rubbish, but its more socially useful than some of their other activities. The shops in Main Road now have rain gear hanging outside; the newspaper reports monsoon flooding in India (and in England). We look forward to its arrival here.
We have both been at Janapath secondary school for the 6 – 11am shift two days this week. David has now seen every class and every teacher. I have been observing science lessons – no resources and no attempt at anything practical, but the teachers and students can draw beautiful diagrams! I have spoiled some of these by dripping sweat onto the students’ kaapis and making the ink run. In the afternoon I work at the ETC, cycling there along deserted roads while shopkeepers sleep in doorways and rickshaw drivers curl up under their awnings. Mad dogs and English women ……
I am gradually turning brown – a combination of sun and excessive consumption of mangoes. They are now 15p a kilo, and we eat them at every meal. Anjana, my only female colleague, tells me that I am starting to look like a Nepali, and she is trying to persuade me to grow my hair and dye it black. I am resisting this. I attempted to go to the ‘beauty parlour’ she recommended three times on Sunday to get my hair cut. Each time the hairdresser was sleeping and could not be roused.
Even the swimming pool water is warm, but it’s still good to stand up to our necks in water at the end of the day. The first shower of the day is cool, but the water is always hot by the evening. It will not be when the winter comes.
Friday: David arrived home at 7:30am as school finished early for the monsoon holiday. He was clutching the laundry (including starched napkins this week!) and a kilo of cheese. A delivery had just arrived from Ilam, after a week of transport strikes. I spent the day with science teachers on the last day of their training, when they displayed some of the resources they hade made with their students. Lots of charts and diagrams, but some good working models too. I especially liked the water heater made out of bare wires and razor blades, with a rubber band for insulation. The main excitement of the day was the publication of SLC (School Leaving Certificate) results in the national papers. A supplement listed everyone of the 274,226 students who sat the examination by their role number, and teachers were frantically trying to locate their own students. The pass rate has increased this year to 58.64%, a 15% rise. This is attributed to fewer days lost by strikes , rather than students' and teachers' work. Sounds familiar. David came for the English final presentations before our Nepali lesson when we grappled with the past perfect tense. Dinesh phoned to tell us he was back from Kakarbitta, and when we called at the shop we were delighted to find that he had managed to get our new sofa and two chairs back on the bus. He will varnish them this weekend and deliver on Monday.
We are supposed to go to Dharan again on Sunday for a VSO ‘eastern cluster’ security meeting, but we have just had an urgent message from VSO telling us not to attempt to travel this weekend. Meanwhile a hot wind is blowing, covering our wonderful marble floors with grit.