Yesterday I paid our electric bill. It was $56.00, which is how much I pay Geetha every month. It made me wonder it she even had electricity. I know she lives in a place called “Good Luck Projects” but I don’t know anything else, like does she even have electricity?? Our water bill this month was $0.73. Seventy-three cents! That’s pretty amazing isn’t it? Speaking of water, I was humbled today as I was leaving the neighborhood to go shopping. Near the end of our lane is a spring where many people bathe. I think I have described this before but in case I didn’t, it is a small spring that has been bordered by a concrete wall that is starting to deteriorate. Bathers stand outside the concrete wall, fill a bucket with water and pour it over their heads. They soap up and then rinse off with multiple buckets of water over the head. They are standing on the ground so I am assuming their feet get dirty in this process. Many will then wash their clothes, using a nearby concrete pad. Mostly I see men there but occasionally I see whole families and sometimes a lone woman. Today there was a woman who had finished her bath and was standing across the road behind a tree that was in front of a residence wall. Almost all residences in SL have 7-8 foot walls surrounding their property. She was attempting to put on her bra while still in her sarong yet trying to preserve her modesty. What a chore! So I was humbled, thinking how we just turn on the tap with hot and cold running water and step into the shower not giving it a second thought. Here many don’t have that privilege. They have to walk to a place where they can bathe and then go through gyrations to remain clothed while bathing because they are in the public eye yet modest. Any time we travel within SL, we see people bathing in the streams and rivers, which of course are polluted. Usually they bathe with a sarong on but we have seen men bathing in shorts or their underwear. I always look away as we pass, assuming this isn’t a spectator sport and realizing I wouldn’t want anyone staring at me if I were in this situation. But sometimes bathers come into view and you see these things. It makes me wonder how many people throughout the world lack bathing facilities in their homes. I certainly wonder about how many people on the planet have safe drinking water. They say the wars in our future will be over water. And I’m not talking about a long way off. It is predicted that by 2025 there will be dramatic water problems on the planet. For all you North westerners who are thinking ‘we’ve got the mighty Columbia’, let me remind you there is a huge radioactive plume at Hanford that is heading right for that precious river. Gee this is depressing.

On a happier note, Ron is fully recovered from Dengue Fever. I guess he is lucky, as we have heard horror stories about people being sick for six weeks with Dengue or having problems with their joints for three months after a bout with Dengue. There are four strains of Dengue so maybe it makes a big difference which strain you get. All I know we run when we see mosquitoes!!

Tomorrow we head to Phetchaburi, Thailand, where a new home awaits our inspection. Our dear friend Nattawan has built a vacation home in Phetchaburi, about two hours south of Bangkok. She has invited us to be part-time residents there. So each year for part of the year, we can vacation there. We are so excited to see Nattawan, Thailand and the house we can hardly stand it. We need a break from Colombo and Thailand will be a great break. We will return late Sunday night so I won’t be doing a blog until our return. We are taking some things we have bought for the house: towels sets, wall hangings from SL and Kashmir, watercolor paintings from India and SL. It will be fun to see the house and think about how the furniture we bought here will fit into the house there. Hopefully all of it will go well there and there won’t be much else we need to buy.