Butterflies, toads and jumping frogs

I want to give my readers more of an idea about my life here, its all been a bit much but I am calming down, I am getting a bit more used to this relentless heat (42C tops so far) and 70-80% humidity (phew-ee), my pores have never been cleaner, sweat cascades over my skin all day every day. I feel happy though. I arrived in Kovalam on the 18th april and I had my 1st weekend off this last weekend. I have a room in the 'Protected Community' for 60 destitute women with varying degrees of 'Mental Illness'/mental health difficulties, or 'Mental Retardation'/learning difficulties, it has 24 hour security, but the women are free to go out whenever they want to, they don't though cos they are so institutionalised they are terrified of going out of their 'prison'. The women do not think they will ever live independently, there is no emphasis on recovery like in Scotland, which now seems amazingly advanced in its approach to mental health care. The community is quite remote, maybe 20 mins walk to the village, its surrounded by paddy fields and the pond opposite the gate has lotuses growing in it. In the village is the Health Centre, which is funded by The Banyan, its a community health project, and has a special interst in mental health, I am also paticipating (and innovating) here.

There is a lovely dog called Puppy who has recently had 6 puppies, they are gorgeous too, she comes with me on my morning walk, through the tropical environment where we see flocks of Parrakeets, Gheccos, Toads, huge butterflies/ Pathi Bouchie, coconut and mango trees, and the snake trails in the sand, in the moments before the sun rises high enough to scorch us.
I had a wee jumping frog in my drinking water tray last night.
Feels great to be so close to a tropical version of the natural world that I know so intimately.
Learning Tamil from scratch has been a wonderful and unique experience for me. Everyone is so pleased with how much I have learnt and encourage me heartfully and patiently. I can understand what the women say to me often now, but then aswell as having more command of the language I have developed relationships with them too.
A wonderfully rewarding experience.
I have a bike now too, which is a perfect way to get around, the locals love seeing me cycle past, as the only foreigner and a cycling one at that its pretty awesome. Getting used to riding much more sedately.
The heat is pretty much unbearable for me to do anything beyond sitting in a room with fan, its going to get hotter, May starts today and is referred to as the 'fire' month as it is supremely hot!! Uh-oh.....
I have all sorts of dreams about how I can input into these projects, and have found some ways of getting them across, which is very important of course.
Dreaming requires sleep too, and as I mention it..............zzzzzzzzzzzzz