Epilogue

Just a few words to update readers on some of our more popular topics from the last two months:

One of the plants curled up and died (the others are healthy and flowering).  I think it may have been the victim of ant eggs, but I am not certain.  The tropical plant that sits next to it is thriving, so it remains a botanical mystery.

In mid November the cats were promoted from window duty to more permanent positions in the paper mache section of the shop.  This move has done nothing to make them more attractive.

The girl was taken from the front window display in late October and was later seen in the ally after being thrown out of the side window by one of the cousins.  She has since been rescued by the shopkeeper next door and is being stored with all of the other "good junk" that he keeps behind the curtain along the side of his shop.  I expect to see her on display again soon.

ATTACK OF THE FRUIT BATS

Hey everyone its Simon.
My mom has been very persistent that I start making blog posts- so here we go. I'll start with my morning, cleaning up bits of fruit from a mistake made last night. Margaret and I were very tired (relating to next blog post), so we quickly rushed through our nightly routine of closing up shop. As it turns out, someone forgot to put the fruit in the basket. I'm not going to going to play the blame game but it was obviously the work of Margaret. So when I got into work this morning, I found what was left of our bannanas, which apparently weren't good enough for our bat friends. Unfortunately, no remnants of apples were found, but the orange did turn up behind the counter covered in mold. Once that was done we had a uneventful day. So in regards to my day, "all in all, cant complain"-Mr and Mrs Kuthrapoli the big bang theory.

Kerala cooking class

Hey everyone. It is Simon again.  I don't know what to put here. Margaret arranged a cooking class for us at 6:30 pm on Tuesday night. As always we arrived somewhat on time. Upon our arrival the power went out, leaving us in the dark for the first half hour of the course which made things a little interesting. To my disappointment we did not get any fancy hats, although the chef had one. )''. The class consisted of 6 dishes, a palak (spinich) pakora starter, a plain parota for the bread, a dahl for vegetable dish, a fish marinated in something called pollichanthu (i still have no idea what it is), and finally coconut pancakes for desert (which were the highlight of the evening for me). Margaret took notes, while I slaved in the kitchen with an insane chef who must not have been able to feel pain. He stuck his hand into the propane jet of fire to light a single candle, had hot oil splash on him.

Here you can see the cook in action

cleaning up the mess I made of chopping

up onions, while crying.

Here is a bowl of hot oil with a handle

that clasps on, and is not very sturdy.

It also extremely hot next to the open

jet of flame which seems to get hotter and hotter.

This is my friend Freddy.

He had a very bad day and it's about to get worse.

Here I am grinding up coconut

for the rice and Freddy

Here we can see Fred all bundled

up in banana leaf moments

before he is thrown onto an

open fire.

Here are 6 of the 7 dishes,

(we had already eaten our appetizers)

Tomato onion masala rice, along with a 

tomato rose, nice touch by the chef.

Freddy in banana leaf with a tomato rose and

tomato flower with a candle inside, that almost cost

the chef his life when he used a jet of fire to light it.

North Indian dahl with, surprise surprise

a tomato rose.

Masala rice again.

Pancake desert minus the coconut.

Parota

Freddy still bundled up, only now hes been scorched in flame.

The class was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to choosing the next 7 dishes we will learn next time. None of this would be possible without our new friend David from Toronto, he watched the shop while were gone giving us a little freedom to enjoy a night out.

Goats'n'hose

Hey, it is Simon again. This post will be about the family of goats we pass each morning.

The goats are usually tied to trees by garden hose and have collars of hose- I don't know if its visible in these pictures.

The title is a movie reference.

teaser

This photo is a teaser for tomorrow's post (which I hope will be written by the model pictured here).

Powerless

Every day there are 2 scheduled power outages - a half hour in the early morning and a half hour in the evening - An hour without power every day to reduce consumption presumably .


We have had a wild couple of days on top of the regular insanity . The power was out almost all of Thursday - Simon says it cost us $ 4 . 00 in business . The back - up battery only runs 2 computers for an hour , so it was useless for most of the day . Yesterday there were several unscheduled outages and the lights flickered turning the computers on and off and on and off the rest of the time .

The first photo is of one of the power lines near the helipad and the second is a shot of the power lines in front of the cafe . Your eyes do not deceive - the municipality has looped the power lines around the tree branches .

Above is a photo of one of the switch plates in our house . Every socket has a switch to turn it off when not in use . On the left is the control for the ceiling fan ( it gets so hot you cannot touch it ). Up on the right is an emergency light that lights automatically when the power goes out . I was made aware by the boys that this  $ 14 . 00 purchase was considered a silly extravagance .

Today's Specialty: fried bat

My advice is - duck . If one of the bats looks like it is heading for your head - it probably is . Because they navigate through sight and smell and not echolocation, they are prone to mishap. This is Simon ' s yummy early morning photograph.  He is excited about the idea of it eventually falling on someone because he is a boy and naturally gross.