On Saturday evening Anup, Dan and I had sat about his dreams for the Mathieson Music school until quite late. His hope to raise the money to secure the land sooner rather than later, how the news of the school is broadcast to the wider world to give more people an opportunity to support it’s future and realise the dream. I think it is safe to say that I would very much like to be a part of this future as being here is like a little piece of heaven - a safe haven for children to grow and learn away from the awful experiences many of them have suffered before they got the opportunity to come here. It with with these thoughts in mind that I got up on Sunday morning at 5am to prepare for the service. There are some places, and times, where celebrating communion is a true honour, and I can tell you that this was most definitely one. Looking out over 40 Indian children, the Mathieson Music School staff and our Strode students sitting in the school’s dining room (a rather grand title for a shelter at the end of the building which is currently doubling as a class room as well). Because Anup has a preference for a more traditional church practice we had incense on the altar in an Indian style incense stick holder, someone also found me a bell to ring as the angelus bells and clearly there were candles on the altar. The crucifix was removed from the wall where it usually hangs and placed on a chair next to the altar. The pupils front the school provided accompaniment to the hymns which they had practiced the day before. As I looked beyond the children I could see the land, scrubland and part paddy field which Anup wants to purchase for the next stage of the dream — somehow this felt like a really holy moment. I think perhaps our students felt that too - they were moved by the service in a way that surprised one or two of them and it led to a interesting chat about how different church can be.

After a fairly gentle afternoon pottering around playing more cricket, catching up on practice for performances or sleeping Sairul took us for a walk around the local village. The area around the school is so beautiful with lots of paddy fields and open areas. The accommodation is very varied with some extremely expensive houses and then some little shack - often right next to each other. Spotty came on our trip and he was so excited trotting around the group with his tail held high. He did get himself in a little bit of trouble with one or two villagers because he tried to chase chickens and kids (baby goats not the school children). Dan did see a Krait which is one of the most poisonous snakes in the world - it slid into the pond that we were walking past and all the fish seemed to drop dead simultaneously. We also saw kite battles - this seems to be a common village activity with men flying kites on the longest strings you could imagine - it didn’t even seem like there would be enough wind to hold them up. There were two teams and they would have glass slivers on the stings of the kites and they would be trying to severe the other teams kites and retrieve the kite. I had downloaded the kite runner onto my kindle to read whilst I was here but I have been so tired each night that when I have fallen into bed I haven’t be able to stay awake long enough to read, but I think the book is about the art of kite battling. The last thing we saw before we returned to the school was a film studio - the school’s electrician just happened to be cycling past our group and knew the studio owner so arranged for us to go and look around an india film studio that has been built just across the road from the school. It was odd seeing an entire lighting rig hung on bamboo but since George (otherwise known as Encyclopaedia Britannica) informed us it is one of the strongest naturally grown materials I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.