Photos at www.rtsla.photofreeway.com
Ron added more photos last night.

This morning I was watering the first floor garden. It is dense with mosquitoes so I wear a long sleeve shirt and long pants in order to minimize bites. Colombo has a problem with garbage collection and disposal and consequently there is a problem with dengue fever that can be deadly. Mosquitoes carry it. I hear a variety of birds every day here. This morning I heard a new sound and looked up to the third floor and there were three parrots perched on the exterior wrought iron stairs, singing away. I have seen parrots at a distance but never this close. Unfortunately, my binoculars were inside the house. When they flew off there were about 7-8 of them. They tend to hang out in groups I have noticed. This place is so special in many ways. I love the plants and birds that are here.

There has been a delightful breeze all day. If you are out in the sun it is hot, always it seems. Perhaps because we are closer to the sun at the equator. The weather reports here have a UV rating on a daily basis.

Have I told you about dogs in SL? They are all 14-18 inches tall. 98 % of the dogs we see are a mutt with pointed ears that either stand up or flop down. They are all shorthaired, long-tailed, dogs and in a narrow range of size. I have seen one boxer and two German shepherds since arriving. Dogs are much more common than cats. Many are dirty, appear to be street dogs and some have mange. Our friend Diane Hunter would be in constant pain seeing the street dogs.

Ron has been at a two-day staff meeting at work. Tonight Alix is hosting a dinner party for all the staff in their program (15) so I am making a very American loose-leaf lettuce salad with cashews, blue cheese and dried cranberries. I made balsamic vinegar dressing. By the way, olive oil cost $11 a bottle here. I about fell over when I saw what is cost. But when you consider what food cost in general, it all balances out. For example, a fresh pineapple here is 40-60 cents and mangoes are a dime! HA! So who am I to complain?

Although Ron’s employer pays for our utilities, our water bill was sixty cents one month and seventy cents the next. Our electricity bill when we ran the air conditioner every night to sleep was $33. I am interested to see what it will be now that we just use the ceiling fan. We gave up the AC and are happy about adjusting to the climate. Since we no longer use AC, we no longer need the duvet we were using so I went back to the shop where I bought the duvet cover and bottom sheet to get a flat top sheet. They don’t make them! I ended up going to a shop that sells bedding by the kilo. I found a flat sheet almost the same color and it was 288 rupees. That’s $2.88. I was told it was 100% cotton. The other sheets I have bought cost closer to $30. Imagine my delight at finding what I needed after going to three stores. Ah Sri Lanka, it is a great place, mostly.

I think I have mentioned that we have ants on all three floors. They ate tiny ants but let me tell you they are very special. If you drop any food on the floor, in a very short time there is a gang of ants gathered around for a picnic but the next time you walk by, the ants have left and the food is gone. It’s better than having a dog to keep the place clean and you don’t have to take them for a walk!

I have been asked by our language tutor to do some career development work with a group of young women with whom she works. Apparently, all of them have had some sort of tragedy in their lives. None of them live at home but in a group home/orphanage. They lost their family in the tsunami, had abusive parents or some other problem that required that they no longer live at home. It has been years since I have done much with career development but my friend Dee at PSU sent me some materials I will need. It’s been too long and I’m too old to remember all the details of the exercises we use to do at PSU. I am very grateful to Dee for her willingness to share and for email, making this material so easily available. It will be an interesting experience I am sure.

There are more workmen here today and will be here for a while. They fixed the toilet that wasn’t flushing properly, the sprayer that leaked (SL has a water sprayer by every toilet). I think they spray water on the seat after each use. But why would you want to sit on a wet seat I ask? They had to dig up Veena’s driveway to fix the toilet and have decided their original design wasn’t so good since it took a half a day to get to the problem under her driveway. Now they are re-designing the access. When that is done they will work on the roof, as there are multiple places where the walls are water-damaged. My understanding is this will take about ten days.

Guess that’s all for today folks. So long from Paradise.