I am making friends! My 17 year old roommate Sankar speaks English as his fourth language well enough to help me with my Assamese. He finished classes at Parijat last year and currently attends university as a commerce student, but today he taught English to the kindergarten class when the teacher was gone. Each of the last 3 days we have walked to the local town, Pamohi, to buy vegetables at the market or yesterday to buy me a mobile phone. The shop wouldn't sell sim cards to a foreigner so Sankar generously loaned me his...but now I am getting calls for him! On the way home he helps me with my Assamese and explains Indian things. (I did not ask about the man running the jackhammer in bare feet. I didn't feel his answer would clarify the situation.) I taught him and the other boarding students to play baseball on the rice patties and Sankar and I played cards and dice games together yesterday.

Today a girl in class 8 brought me lunch of chips and chocolate wafers and then invited me to play fist-cricket-baseball.

Uttam's father, Mayaram Teron is a retired train driver, now mostly blind. I asked his name aapunar naam ki? before dinner today and he quickly opened up, increasing my vocabulary with all the words that he also knew in English. He has a wonderfully wrinkled face and a big old man grin that broadens when he teaches me a new word. Now I can say hello, thank you, good, bad, tea sa, Assamese tea lalsa, ask someone's name, ask "What is this?" and say "no more," na lagai when I am full and ask for more rice and more potato. It's a good start I guess.