Hammock amok and variation

Another day goes by in the last bit of surviving paradise forest, as our hero Siva is trying desperately to make himself comfortable. The watcher has become the watched - thank goodness he's not a hunter. One eyewitness said 'he looks like he's doing alright', but she was looking at a brave face; one he had saved especially for tourists, because the reality would be too much to handle... Then again, it wasn't all bad...

"I hung my hammock up this afternoon. First attempt at two large treebranches, which had been broken off the tree, put up straight, supported by plenty of rocks, failed. Not enough rocks. Too difficult. Next attempt - balcony - large, srong, hold anything beams, two good knots. Chillmode! Attracted many pud-kes, about 12 stood, stared, spoke English to one another behind my back, but not much more than "hello, hello, how are you?", basically showing off. They would say "what is you name?" and another would answer, because he knew, "Siva!". [see video]

"One of my favourite parts is walking to and from the school. There's always someone to greet, especially pud-kes. Two of them followed me to school this morning and copied everything I did and said. I felt like I was in one of these commercials for a non-profit child welfare organisation ambassadored by a gorgeous big-lipped celebrity. In the end we were doing a silly walk and singing the pud-ke song. You simply repeat the word pud-ke as many times as you like, fast and slow, at different intonations and make other sounds too: choo-choo, click click, whiskey and soda - seriously, there is nothing funnier at that moment than to hear a 5 y/o scruff singing "pud-ke pud-ke, pud-ke, pud-keeeee... whiskey and sodaaaaa"."

"I'd helped Aama carry some large planks of wood from a truck down to the garden before chillmode, and it was done in no time. Cool thing was - a bunch of pud-kes were watching and kept showing off. One counted to ten about 100 times, one did colours, one chanted the alphabet at the top of his voice... over and over... I had made up my mind to do some exercises each evening, but between carrying planks and offering one of the neighbours to help build his wall, I figured that was at least something. I still want to go jogging at least once to see what that feels like at +-2200 metres above sealevel. Probably hard as hell!"

"Lunch variation! Rice! Nice! Speaking of which, I could have sworn there was some kind of meat in with the veg last night... I asked Lama, but he said it was something else. I couldnt quite make out what... both the cows and the dogs are still around... and so is the baby... I found out why it was crying the other day - it's teething. I think they got it drunk, coz first she (the mom) dabbed its gums with something - alcoholic of course - and then it actually stood up using a chair and started laughing at me. so I played peekaboo until it got bored. I wish someone would play peekaboo with me until I got bored... but that's a luxury."

To be continued...