Life in Lige

I haven't posted in a while- we didn't have electricity in the village for two days this week, I guess a power line was down. I'm still living at the guesthouse. As I think I mentioned in the last blog (can't remember) I asked my friend here if they could suggest someone who could work with me regularly every day. They insisted they could help, but it hasn't been that successful. The person, though well-intentioned, does not find time every day and doesn't prioritise my work, so it is regularly interrupted or doesn't occur at all. Furthermore, he is quickly bored and don't have any interest himself, and there are clearly gaps in his knowledge of the language. He is often unclear and not very precise, which is not helpful when trying to learn a language. Now I just have to figure out how to seek someone else out or leave or whatever without offending him. The interpersonal aspect can be great but also very difficult. A girl I met in the last few days, suggested someone from a nearby village so I will be walking down there tomorrow.

I am currently feeling frustrated about the whole thing- hopefully I will be optimistic and motivated again by tomorrow. mmmm.

Not that much hilarious stuff happens down here. Life seems more orderly- or maybe I'm getting used to it. Oh! two days ago, my friends asked me to keep an eye on the guesthouse for a bit, they had to go out. I was working in the dining room of the restaurant anyway so I said "fine". Naturally, ten minutes later a buffalo wandered into the yard. I waited a minute, hoping it would go away, but instead it started munching on a tree in the courtyard and nearly kicking over the brick garden bed surrounding it. I had to act so I wandered over there and made a kind of "shoo" noise. To my great amazement, the buffalo mildly turned around and strolled obediently back out of the gate. Well, I guess if my fieldwork is a failure, I may have a future as a buffalo herder- can't say the same for my skill with chickens.

Yesterday I had organised to go into Yongning with my friend, ostensibly to pick up a few items at the shops. Then a whole heap of guests showed up and they wanted to go to Yongning too. We all ended up going straight through Yongning to the hot springs. This is not as attractive as it sounds- just a large, somewhat dirty indoor pool filled with warm water where locals go to bathe occasionally. I couldn't resist the thought of a bath though so in I went. There are separate sections for men and for women- the women wear underpants or nothing at all and sit there washing there hair and scrubbing each other's backs. Being the only foreigner though, meant that fifteen pairs of eyes were riveted on me as I undressed and got into the bath. I'm used to being stared at, just not when I'm undressed. It was a little unnerving realising I had the biggest bottom in the room. But the girl who was with me had strange cartoon characters on her underpants so that must have drawn some attention away from me! I'm certainly not losing any weight here though. The food is so fantastic! And they encourage me to eat so much of it! And it's cold so I'm hungry all the time. Well, I can't afford to go up a dress size- My legs are too long to find jeans here that fit anyway, so I have to stick with the things I brought with me.

Did more washing in the lake this morning. Apparently I'm Lugu Lake's newest tourist attraction. All the tourists stop to watch me washing my clothes. Actually, so do the locals. I'm going back to the guesthouse, now. I think I'll go straight to bed though. When I left, the lounge was full of buddhist monks watching tv.