If you love reading, and love crimes, murder mysteries, books about children with disorders, then "before the storm" by Diane Chamberlin is a must-read!! It the quietness of today, I stormed my wait through the book from beginning to end, all in about 4 hours. The story takes place in North Carolina on Topsail island. Whether this is a real place or not, I don't know. There are 4 main characters, whom you read from their point of view, and switches between them, occasionally dipping into years before to give you a background understanding of the current story. One of the main characters is a 15 year old boy called Andy, who has Foetal Alcoholic Spectrum Disorder, but which only affected his mind and growth - he thinks like a child, very black and white; and is the size of a 10 year old.
So on this island, there is a big church where people are gathering for "lock-in", as the youth centre had a power cut. At this church, there is a huge fire which miraculously only kills 3 people out of the many people (I got the impression about 80 odd) that were there. The main exits were blocked and there appeared to be no way out. But little Andy found a way out of the building and fire, and rescued most the people there, therefore becoming a hero. As the story unfolds, more and more evidence about the fire is brought to light, and it's not until the second to last chapter where you find out who planned and started the fire.
A very very good book!! Had me gasping away at all the little (some huge!!) surprises. So yes. Definitely worth a read!!
So that was my morning spent. Again, there was only one person off school, for reasons unknown again (same girl as yesterday), so after my book and her shower, I went to find her. I did her hair (which she had kept trying to redo about 6 or 7 times), then we went downstairs to do some colouring whilst she chatted away. She's not the best at english, so a lot of what she says to me is actually in Nepali with a few English words thrown in and a "yes miss?" at the end of every sentence. I can sort of understand her though. She's very cheeky and hilarious!!
We then sat out on the front porch talking to some of the people there - the gate man, Shanti, and some of the people who were painting the fence. We waited til about 4, when the school bus came back, and I went upstairs to help with homework. One boy's homework was a crossword, and we spent about half an hour trying to find the words in the passage (all ending in -ly) to fit into the crossword. Out of 13 words he had to fit in, only 4 could fit in. 1 word wasn't in correctly, and 1 word we had made up to fit in. He told me he's telling his English teacher tomorrow that an English girl tried the puzzle and it didn't work. I'll wait for feedback on that one!!
After lots of homework it was rice time!! More tasty rice, dhal, and takari (curried veggies). They now give me nice portions, ones that I can eat fully without having to give half my rice away to the kids!! Oh, I forgot to say what lunch was. It was... Interesting. Traditional Nepali food, it was rice, hot milk, and spicy tomato pickle. An interesting mix. Tasted a bit like rice pudding (bleugh) with tomato instead of strawberry jam haha!! I managed to eat most of it though. At first it was interesting, then I got used to the taste, then I felt a bit sicky from it...
Oh another thing that happened today - Mark the other volunteer left. So I'm now all lonely by myself, the only white person in miles. The volunteers quarters seems so eery and creaky with only me... It's kinda scary but oh well!!
We also had a powercut which lasted a good 4 or 5 hours, and the internet still isn't working, so I guess you'll read this whenever!!