A good day

Today was the first day that I really felt at ease here. Up to now I have always been a little bit uneasy about work, food, water, and basically everything. But today seemed like a normal day. Because of the strike this past Monday we had to work today even though it was a Saturday, but it seemed like a normal Friday. Class went well. My trainees seem to be catching on and they are starting to enjoy it even though they are completely lost. I had a nice lunch in the canteen, including soup that sort of tasted like Chinese hot and sour soup.
This evening I went over to InOrbit mall and walked around and had dinner in the food court. I had some sort of chicken dish. It was the first meat I have had since coming here. Ramkumar does not cook any meat. Also, today I was told that Ramkumar is from Rajasthan, which is a state in northern India, and that he cooks traditional Rajasthani dishes.
Everybody in the mall seemed to be really happy. A mall is not taken for granted here. Being able to go to a mall, and even better being able to afford the things there, is a big big big deal here.
When I came home from work I invited the two women in the class to ride with me because they wanted to go to the mall and I go right by it on the way home. When they got in to the car the driver began talking to them in Hindi. Then one of them said "I'm sorry we don't speak Hindi." I had just assumed Hindi was the language they were speaking when they weren't speaking English but no. The driver evidently recognized their accent and asked if they spoke Tamil and they said yes and he began speaking to them in Tamil. It turns out that the driver speaks six languages. One of the girls said that she spoke many languages also and I asked her how many. She said "let me count" and started rattling off the names of various Indian languages. I don't know what the final number was but it was an impressive list.
Here are some photos.
Mr. Bean is a catoon here. It is the same idea as the TV show and just as funny.

Here are some pilgrims walking on the road in front of my building.