Guess I have enough time to read the paper more than I have been. Here is a heart-breaking statistic: there are 119,775 students to have passed the A Level exams that are required to be admitted to universities in SL. There is enough space for 17,630. In addition those who graduate often have trouble finding work due to an outdated educational system that has created a mismatch between academic training and employment opportunities. Sometimes I get so down about SL because so much doesn’t work here and I have to wonder how will it ever change. Yesterday I was in a shop and the owner (a woman) started up a conversation with me. At one point she talked about how corrupt the politicians are and how they don’t even try to hide their misdeeds. I told her about our experience when we first came to SL and Ron read a piece in the newspaper about “good corruption versus bad corruption”. Good corruption is where a politician takes a bit off the top and pockets it but no one really is hurt by it! Give me a BREAK!!! What kind of culture has produced that kind of thinking?

News flash: a doctor ran over a policeman and didn’t stop. Some doctor.

Yesterday I went to HSBC to see how opening an account with them in the US was going. We started the process in mid June! Gayathri, the young woman who has been helping me, is a stunningly beautiful woman with full lips, come hither eyes, beautiful white teeth and a sari wrapped below the navel. In a word she is comely! It took her twenty minutes on the Internet to find the call center number and she couldn’t get through. She had no record of our paper work and where she had sent it after she had tried Portland. PDX has only a home loan office so our paperwork had to be sent to another branch. She had suggested San Francisco after I suggested Seattle and she said there were no WA branches. She is totally inept but beautiful. I guess that counts for something. So we called around last night and found our account in Seattle. We asked them where our confirmation, checks, and ATM cards were and they had sent everything to Vancouver instead of SL. Oy, are there no functioning banks in the world??? While I was waiting for Gayathri, I looked at her desk and discovered she had 14 rubber stamps in a little holder. What the heck are they for? It reminded me of the old movies about the British Empire where you see someone stamping papers with great authority. Some things don’t change much.

Saturday Oct 14
We are off to Habarana and Dambulla in a couple of hours so I need to post this. We have had rain every night this week except last night. It has made it a bit cooler and saved we watering every day. We will be gone a week and I have no idea about Internet facilities in Dambulla where we will spend most of the week. If I have access you will get a blog. I will be visiting ancient cities in the area and two national parks if all goes well. Ron will be attending a full staff retreat. Such a life here in paradise, five degrees above the Equator!