As it's Sunday and I am here ...as a long stay volunteer) I have been given the day off ... with short stay volunteers Ananda stipulate that you work 5 days before a day off .... so after breakfast (mango .. papaya ... pear ... yogurt .... wholewheat bread) I took one of the 3 bikes down the workshop and spent 3 hours trying to figure out the intricacy of derailleur gears which on this bike weren't working properly ... considering I have had bikes with this gearing system for 30 years or more I'm surprised I never learnt how they can be adjusted before now! .... but I did eventually crack it just in time for lunch which was good ... brown rice ... veg ... more fruit .... then went out for a bike ride ... its very different countryside here in Tainan County ... small scale farming .... narrow country lanes .... as I was using my OCR app waygo ... .... (unbelievably clever!) to translate a roadside signpost ... there was a toot behind me and a smiling middle aged local was pointing at another signpost which said 'Always Country Villa' and by gesture was indicating I should go there which I did ... it is a small Hotel in the middle of nowhere and all the family appeared to find out what this European on a bike wanted .... eventually it was understood that I wanted some tea which duly appeared and I was given to understand that no payment was expected .... I spent a very pleasant half hour with this family as we tried to communicate with their limited knowledge of English and my almost zero understanding of Chinese except for hello ... thank you ... goodbye! .... but when the rain clouds were looking particuarly threatening I said my goodbyes and thank you's and pedalled off at high speed fortunately reaching the yoga centre before the rain literally fell out of the sky.
The work here is interesting ... at the moment I am putting a false ceiling into a converted shipping container which will eventually be the new upgraded volunteers accommodation and yesterday evening after dinner the manager asked me to have a look at a sliding metal door which for two years has been screeching every time it was opened .... apparently many people have tried to solve the problem which looked to me as if either the frame had been put in badly or else the door had warped .... I took it off ... laid it on ground ... got the manager to stand on one end while I 'wrung' the other end to hopefully fit the frame .... it only took two minutes and it worked ... so on my first day I earnt a very high quantity of brownie points and "15 minutes of fame"!!
