Ron has been great about posting new photos so if you haven't checked out our photo site lately, do so now. www.rtsla.photofreeway. com

I somehow thought we were leaving today for South Africa but realized yesterday that we leave tomorrow. That gave us a day of rest. So we cleaned our first floor window screens this morning. It is a simple task as they are screen cloth held on with velco. So we took them to the roof top, rinsed them in a large plastic tub we use as a beer cooler for parties and hung them out to dry. They were filthy. Remember we have been in the house since Thanksgiving but the air here is quite dirty plus we live on an unpaved lane. The combination makes for a whole lot of dirt. Makes me wonder about my lungs! Veena and her mother invited me over to see how to make chapatti and then gave us pumpkin curry and a curried cabbage dish for luch to go with the chapatti. On my goodness it was delicious! Later we took a little nap. Such a life we have here.

Yesterday was St Patrick's Day. As most of you know since 1994 Ron and I have had big St Paddy's Day parties at our house where we bake potatoes and serve salad and dessert. Our guests bring toppings for the potatoes. This year we had Veena and Mrs. Bakshi over for our usual fete. They brought Ron's favorite dessert-rice pudding. He was so pleased. It was quite lovely to sit and visit with them. Mrs. Bakshi sang a tradition Hindu blessing for us before we dined. It was very sweet.

So we really leave tomorrow for Cape Town/Paarl South Africa where we will stay with friends we met in2000 when Ron did an exchange with a city manager from Paarl. We are so exicted to be going back to Africa and to see our South African family. We will be there until Friday and then we fly to Johannesburg where Ron has his annual International Commmittee meeting. It is unfortunate it is in Jo'burg as it is known for its street crime. So we will be cautious. No cameras or flashy jewelry or big wads of cash. On Thursday we fly to Mumbai (formerely Bombay) where we will stay until very early Monday morning, April 3rd. I think we leave at 3:00 a.m. Who booked this flight anyway? Ron and I have wanted to go to India for about five years so you can imagine our excitement. So excited that when he gets a break about two weeks later we are flying to Kerala in SW India to visit another part of the country. All this means blogging may be somewhat more sporatic than usual, all depending on Internet access. Bear with us. Til next time, Mama gehing ennang. (I'm leaving now)