Photos of Chennai, Pondicherry and Cuddalore are now posted at www.rtsla.photofreeway.com

You have probably read about the latest violence here: a bus full of civilians was blown up and 66 men, women and children died. This is the worst civilian violence since the 2002 cease-fire agreement. The government responded by bombing the LTTE controlled area by land, sea and air. The two sides (the SL government and the LTTE) continue to point fingers at one another and there doesn’t appear to be any real leadership. Although the president say he will not be provoked into war, by the same token nothing has been done to improve the lives of the Tamils in the east and north. Talk is cheap as we say. We wonder if we will be able to stay until December when Ron’s contract is up. One of two things is possible. Either the violence will escalate and the war will resume full force or the violence will escalate and the two sides will realize how much is to be lost by their continuing the war. Already this year tourism is down. You wouldn’t believe how many luxury or boutique hotels have been built since the cease-fire. I wouldn’t want to be invested in any of them at this point.

So we are watching and waiting. Ron’s entire program in the east and north has been suspended for the time being. If the conflict moves into other areas or into Colombo I am guessing we will be outta here pretty darn quick. We have already read the documents we received from ICMA, Ron’s employer, about how to proceed if an evacuation order is issued. Being the planner that I have become in my old age, I have finished all my gift shopping and have sent the packages home UPS. It just didn’t seem prudent to wait until November to do that, particularly since we aren’t so sure we will be here in November.

Yesterday Veena and I went to an exotic plant sale. I insisted that I pay for the plants that we got. We bought one orchid ($2.), six mums, four plants I don't know the name of, 4 hydranga starts and one dianthus and I don't think I spent $10. Last night we had Mey over for her 13th birthday celebration. Her parents are in the US as required by the government for her mother's green card. Mey and her mom are Cambodian and Peter is an American. So Mey is staying at home alone this week preparing for her school exams. She will have two a day everyday this week. Then she will stay with us until her parents get back on July 2nd.

Today has been terrific. I couldn’t sleep last night so got up and read in the second floor sitting room, outside our bedroom. It started to rain and it sounded like someone up there was pouring buckets of water on the roof. We have a frosted glass atrium roof so the sound can get quite loud. I was delighted as it meant I didn’t have to water the gardens today. Since then it has rained about five more times, sometimes a real torrential downpour. It looks like the monsoons are here. I made hay so to speak. I spread compost (normally very hot work), I fertilized the lawn saving more water as I did it in the rain, harvested our first compost from our handy dandy compost bin, lifted weights and did some yoga. My exercise program has gone to hell here because it is always too hot to do anything other than our morning walk at 6:00 A.M. So I loved taking advantage of the cooling rains and getting so much done Yahoo!

Today we are going to a Hindi movie with English subtitles. Very few movies of interest play here. There are the usual action (violent) films like “Mission Impossible III” but not much else. We did manage to see “Water” when it was here and I encourage you to see it. It was filmed in Sri Lanka because the fundamentalist Hindus in India burned the set to the ground as they took offense at the portrayal of their customs. The director filmed it here under another name to avoid more controversy.

That’s about it for today. Pray for peace.