People often write and say I have an interesting life. I suppose I do, at times, just like everyone else. It's my own fault I create this image as I write about what's happening in my letters to people. I just can't see the point in writing if I have to say, "I've got nothing to write about."
This morning I listened for a whole hour to a programme on the battle against pornography in India. It is spreading on people's mobile phones and they are generally using Whatsapp, which I learnt is owned by Facebook. What makes matters worse is the fact that most of the pornography is of gang rapes of very young girls. It was depressing, listening to the programme, because I realised that nothing is going to change if it's left to the police, the judicial system and the providers such as Whatsapp. In my mind it needs a massive effort to educate the youth while they are in school and so I'm going to share the programme with teacher friends in India.
One young man, from a slum area that had seen a horrific rape in their midst, had been to a workshop where he had learnt about life and responsibilities. He's ridiculed by people, especially the older ones, but he's decided he's going to help his sisters so they can go out and play rather than work all the time. He will not allow anyone to wash his dishes and he does his own laundry. I'm always happy when I witness a liberated man.
Did you know that the word processor was invented by an American woman, Evelyn Berezin? She's just died at the age of 93. Few people know about her yet she's the one who killed the typewriter. When I left school at 14 - or should I say, when I had to leave school, I took typing at night school. We had old "sit up and beg" style Remington typewriters and, when we sat down we had to wear a large version of a baby's bib. This tied around the neck and strings at the bottom went around the typewriter. For one hour we typed and never saw our hands. The teacher had an amazing machine that could play music at different speeds and so we mostly learned to type to Strauss waltzes. I'm so grateful for Evelyn who got rid of all those carbon copies, the Gestetner machine with the horrible pear-drop smelling correcting fluid. At work I used to have to make three copies of everything I typed so it was a performance correcting each page.
I kept finding my kitchen balcony flooded. It hasn't rained so I'd no idea where the water was coming from. Now I've discovered the plastic pipe, carrying the water away from the washing machine, is broken. Plastic doesn't last long here - I suppose it's a combination of the strong sun and heat. I'm getting a new pipe but luckily I'm not like Mother with her three wash days a week.
Samnang came over to cook dinner. Most of his family are away so he decided it was a good day to skip Chinese class. Instead we talked about his parents' travel agency office. He's got excellent ideas about how changes should be made in the office and how it should be run. I told him to talk to his dad but he said I don't understand Asian parents - they listen and do nothing. I said I'd tell his parents that I had a great chat with their son and that they should talk to him. Samnang said he'd kill me if I did, so I'd better not.
