We have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing in India!! having said that, here is an attempt to merge together a few of the events of the last 3 days to give you some insight into what a typical day entails out here:5am: Wake to early morning call to prayer at the mosque in the next road. Kid of half wake/half sleep thing going on as I listen to the wailing cat (as it sounds to us)! That darn bird starts to do it's noise (hear it on the video below?) at this time too.
6am: Wake properly as it's so much lighter and noisier here. Dogs barking madly, milk guy coming along the street shouting that he is selling milk etc
I get up most days around this time as it's the best time of the day for me - for the brain to work almost normally etc and it's the time when the family are still asleep and I can hop on the PC and blog/reply to e mails and not be disturbed and be seen as 'Dad's on the computer again'!!
8am-9am: Family up and breakfast. Try to have it all together but sometimes kids get their breakfast and watch the TV.
After breakfast we have a quick family quiet time/pray. Not every
day but as often as we can. Good time to talk and see how we all feel about the day yesterday or whatever.
10am (or it's often agreed as this time but in reality is 10.30/11am!): I often am met at the house by Raj or catch a rick to TFT office to meet with Raj. Sometimes we will go for a coffee somewhere. We generally meet and talk about things like:
how things are going generallypersonal/relationship stuff i.e "Raj I am sick of you being an hour late...."!!
topic based stuff: finance, planning, reports, accountability etc
training and personal development (i.e timekeeping, planning, time management etc)
talk through the training we will be doing next month etc
12pm: Tend to go to an Indian restaurant with Raj for a meal/snack or sometimes go home for lunch.
1pm: Afternoons could be any one of 100 things. More meetings, going to train stations, visiting the Accept orphanage, preparation time for the training, meeting with contacts etc etc
5pm: Often come home and time with family. Chill for an hour or two
7pm/8pm: Tea. Often will eat out as we can all eat locally for £4-£6 and to eat at home with the food we like (mainly import food) it's as expensive! Some times we will call people to come and have a meal with us (Nandu/Raj etc) and sometimes we will cook for people and have a meal at ours. We are starting to do this more from now on.
9pm: If we are out and about (which we often are) we will go to the shops or just look around or depending on how tired we all are we may go back home. Most shops don't close
til 10pm/11pm so this is a good/cool time to shop.
til 10pm/11pm so this is a good/cool time to shop.10pm/10.30pm: Bed for kids and Sarah and I chill and chat. If we are not falling asleep!
11pm: I will often hop on the PC again to see who is on skype (6.30pm your time) or who has e mailed.
As I say, every day is different so this is by no means a typical day (!), but hopefully gives you a flavour of what a semi normal day is.
