It’s Friday and hotter than Hades. After the suicide bombing, the military retaliated by shelling the east coast where the LTTE is located. About 10,000 Tamils left the area. It is a mess. Our newspaper did not even mention the shelling. I learned about it on BBC news. Then again I bet our paper is a government owned paper. See, it could be worse in terms of the media in the US. The government is pretending they aren’t breaking the ceasefire agreement, just the LTTE. Sometimes this stuff feels like children squabbling. The LTTE promises to retaliate and on it goes. It is quiet right now. Most of the killing takes places in the North and Northeast part of the island where we never go. Ron’s program has work in several towns on the east coast but work will be suspended there for two months until things settle down. Being a city manager type, he has asked his employer for a contingency plan should we have to leave in a hurry. Yesterday I contacted a freight forwarding agent to see what is involved in shipping household goods to Thailand. I feel much better now that I know what is involved.

At this point we feel safe. We get regular emails from the US Embassy telling us where not to go and not to attend any political rallies (duh), etc. They are in no way responsible for Americans living here but do play a role of giving critical information regarding personal safety. USAID, the grantor for Ron’s program, could pull the plug on the program and ask all concerned to get outta Dodge, so to speak. I decided I had better get all my gift shopping done now instead of waiting until time to leave so I started today although I didn’t get very far.

We leave tomorrow (Saturday) for Galle that is on the south coast of SL. Ron has Monday off. SL has more pubic holidays than any country in the world and we are grateful so are taking a little trip to relax. We will be staying in a fabulous old colonial hotel that was built as a villa for a family and that has since been expanded into a small (20 room) hotel. It sits right on the water so we will have lovely views. Think about us on the veranda sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them. HA! We return Monday and take off on Tuesday for Nuwara Eliya and Hatton where Ron has a few meetings. I am tagging along as it will be cool there and I have forgotten what it is like to not have my body glistening with sweat. We will return on Friday so I will write a blog in Nuwara Eliya at the beginning of the week but we will also go to Hatton and I really doubt there will be a cyber café there. These towns are located in Central SL.

We miss Mrs. Bakshi who has gone to the states for a year but today Veena brought me lunch that consisted of rice, eggplant, greens, an egg dish with a sauce to die for, lentils and a salad made with jumbola which is a relative of grapefruit only it isn’t tart/sour. I was overwhelmed. And saved some for our dinner tonight.

We have a movie date tonight, going to a facility that shows foreign films but it isn’t a regular theater. It probably seats 30-40 people. We will see Paradise Now about two young Palestinians who are devout Muslims and who have vowed to martyr themselves. It won Best Foreign language film at the Golden Globe awards and seems very timely, given our situation here. I understand it turns out to be a film about peace. I am not a religious person but have been praying for peace. So far it isn’t working so join me in prayer and maybe it will have more impact. Thanks!