Post Offices and Achilles Tendons

Been quite busy sorting stuff out for when I go travelling since I got back from the Leprosy Clinic. I decided I needed to ship a box of things back home because my backpack is heavy enough! It was more of an ordeal than I'd anticipated.....first I had to get a box to fill (which in itself is a big task). When I eventually got and filled it, I took it to the tailor's to get a piece of material wrapped around it and sewn up (not quite sure why that's so essential...). Then Emily, Natalie and I all went to the post office with our parcels where they said they couldn't deal with them and told us to go to the big post office. We ended up having to get a rickshaw there because its quite far, and the parcels were heavy! When we arrived, at 4:03, the man refused to help us because they close the "shipping parcels abroad" service at 4! He didn't even let us sweet talk him. I though I might as well post a letter while I was there so I asked to buy an envelope as you can only get them in post offices usually but they didn't have international envelopes!! I then asked for any other envelope and he said it wasn't possible because they are only 5 rupee envelopes rather than 15 rupees....and he didn't seem to want to let me stick a 10 rupee stamp on it to make it up tot he right price. Argh!!! He just said to go to the railway station post office at 6 that evening......when we got there I explained that we wanted to ship things and the man said it wasn't possible from there, and we should go to the main post office in the morning! I didn't give up though, I sat myself down so it would be harder for them to chuck me out and said that we couldn't do that blah blah and we needed to do it there and then. The guy eventually gave in but said we could only send one parcel because they didn't have enough stamps for more! (I understood once I saw how many they stuck on my parcel though, I was the lucky one). I said I didn't want to airmail it because it was too expensive so he asked whether I wanted it to go by sea or surface. Surface was a lot cheaper so I said that and then he said I couldn't because things can't reach England by surface...I don't know why I was given the option. So we decided on Sea. Then he started babbling in Tamil to some other men explaining what to do by the sounds of things saying "parcel", "surface" occasionally. I corrected surface to sea and he just said "cherry cherry (ok, ok), sea/surface same". Hmmmm, wonder whether I'll ever see it again! Sorry, that was quite a long rant!!!

I got to see quite a disgusting stitch up today - a snapped Achilles tendon!!! Dr Sigith was in his butchering essence so it was nice and gory. He even asked one of the family members to come in at one point to have a look (she almost fainted!)
I've just got back from Santha's house. Its pronounced Santa but she doesn't have a big white beard, she's just our housekeeper. The other girls have gone to Pondicherry for the weekend but because I've already been I'm going to Thanjavur with Sarah (from Leprosy) in a little while. So because I was by myself, Santha invited me to have lunch at her house with her daughter It was a reeeeeally lovely thali and I just about managed to communicate with both of them!