Oops, I forgot to post this. I wrote it 6-22-06.
Only in Sri Lanka. The satellite company is suing the government because the cable companies don’t have a satellite license. So since June 15, no one in SL has had cable access. Welcome to our world where nothing can be counted on in the way of consistency: you can’t count on your favorite grocery items being on the shelf, you can’t count on any retailer to have the items you need although they may have had those items last week (I have tried to buy compost twice in the past two weeks at the garden shop and it isn’t available right now and won’t be for another two weeks!) and now we can’t count on having cable access. I am curious what they will do about billing us given this scenario. We haven’t seen any news consequently. Perhaps we need a little more Buddhist acceptance!

We will be moving into a very busy three-week period starting Friday. Mey, a 13-year-old Cambodian girl will stay with us until her parents return from the US on July 2nd. We are looking forward to it as she is a delight and quite mature for her age. On Saturday a consultant who has become a friend arrives for a three-week period so we will be hanging out with John during his stay. Next Wednesday three people from the City of Vancouver WA will arrive to help on one of Ron’s projects so we will be entertaining them during their two week stay. Ron is planning a huge conference for local authorities with 500 invitees to be held July 12-13. Between now and the 14th of July, we will be flying, so to speak.

Our saga with WAMU continues. Ron still doesn’t have a PIN number although it was promised two weeks ago. It has yet to be mailed. I was promised a new ATM and PIN to be Fed Exed June 7th and it has yet to be sent. We have decided WAMU gets the prize for incompetence and misrepresentation of what they say they are going to do. Believe it or not Ron is working with the head Customer Service person who reports directly to the Pres. It’s truly amazing the difference between what she said she would do and what she has actually done. So Ron has had no ATM access to his account since May 3rd. And is he ever pissed! We have submitted paperwork to open an account in the US with an international bank and were told it would take 4-6 weeks. And you thought government was slow.

The monsoons have arrived. Boy oh boy, when it rains here, it pours. I think I had forgotten. This morning at 4:00 we woke up to a ferocious wind then a deluge. It was amazing. It has rained hard at least twice since then. I was getting ready to leave the pharmacy when it started so I just waited about five minutes before getting into the trishaw. That is the good news, it is fast and furious and over in 10-15 minutes. You could drown out there. But it is cooler usually when it rains-not always but usually. The only problem is trying to get clothes dry. I don’t think they have clothes dryers here. I will have to be careful to be here once I hang clothes out or I will have to spin them again. Geetha saved the day today while I was out and brought in the things I had on the line.

This is short and sweet but so are we! I wanted to get this out before I got too busy with company.