This has been a stressful week. Saturday we shopped till we dropped. We bought a dining room set, a cabinet for the dining room, a couch, a coffee table, and two nightstands. The dining set, coffee table, and cabinet were all delivered to the house that day.

Tricia came down with the flue that afternoon and has been wiped out ever since. Saturday night she had a high fever and lots of aches in her back. We had the hotel doctor come by to see her on Monday. He came with is nurse. They gave her about 4 different medications and the bill came to a whopping $27.00. The Dr. said she had classic symptoms of a flue that was going around, and that it would run it’s course in 4 days. She started feeling a bit better, but continued to be weak and slept a lot. She just didn’t feel like eating…. And so didn’t. On Wednesday, the Dr. checked in again, and because she wasn’t feeling all better gave her a round of new medication. Today at breakfast, she felt like she was gong to faint. I got her back to the room and the Dr. was called again. Tricia had very low blood pressure and he advised that she needed to relax, do better about eating, and not lay down so much. He gave her a B complex supplement to help build her strength. She seems better. Hopefully she’s on the mend now.

The lease has been signed for the house and hopefully my employer will make the payment tonight. The owner of the house is very nice and easy to deal with. She’s more than happy to let us store our things there while the last of the work gets done. The aircon needs to be installed, the ceiling fans installed, and a few other minor things. We’re shooting to be in by the 25. The key will be getting our mattress. Once that’s in we can move there. We’ll be so happy.

We still have more things t buy, like dishes, linens, flat ware, TV, a couple of side chairs for the Living Room, and a bed for the guest room. We ordered the mattress, but not the bed yet.

Today was Election Day for the President of SL. Historically thee has been violence the day after the election, so we’re holding tight to see what happens. Most knowledgeable observers are predicting that things will be calm. In any case, I’ll be checking on the status of things before I decide about going to work tomorrow. Again, most people are confidant things will be peaceful. There are 13 candidates running, but only two major ones. One has been very strident about the Tamil rebels while the other one is more conciliatory and pro business oriented. It’s really hard to follow all the details in the paper, because of the lowbrow nature of the reporting in the English newspaper. It reads like a Jr. High version of the National Inquirer. However, you’ve got to hand it to them here, there’s very little advertising in the paper…. And I do get my jumble.

Work continues to be a challenge, as we deal with a host of scheduling issues that require lots of adjusting due to a very strange sense of time here and not much capacity for workers to know how to follow through with assignments and get all the bases covered. Add this to the number of holidays here and not much gets done. There are 13 full moon holidays, plus 8 religious holidays (2 for the Buddhists, 2 for the Hindus, 2 for the Muslims, and 2 for the Christians). Plus other cultural holidays. Folks get either a half-day or full day off for Election Day, depending on whether they are voting in the area of the country where they work. Lots of people are taking the day after the election off too.

Here in the hotel we get lots of ambience. We hear all the Muslim calls for prayer, as there is a mosque not far from us and they use very high power loud speakers. We’re enjoying our adventure and wouldn’t trade it at all.

We miss all of you. As we look forward to moving into our own space, we’re excited about visitors. Plan your trips. So far the calendar is open!