The rains arrived last night. In the past 18 hours we have had three downpours, overwhelming the storm water system. The streets have several inches of standing water as a result. But let me tell you, it feels so good to be almost cool! The rain only last 15 minutes or so but it comes down in buckets. We were watching ‘Gandhi’ on our computer and had to put it on pause due to the noise from the rain. The movie was made in 1982 and is still a classic. It was so well done. And the scenes from India haven’t changed from what we saw when we visited. We even could identify a couple of places.

Each day I read the newspaper and shake my head. I know we have written about how Sri Lankans drive but the accident reports are a true testament to how crazy they are behind the wheel. One accident today occurred when a bus tried to overtake a truck on a bend! A tri shaw driver was killed. Sri Lankans think nothing of trying to pass on a blind curve. Oy! Another accident occurred when the brakes locked on a bus and it ‘turned turtle’. The conductor died and 38 passengers were injured. The most aggressive and worst drivers are the private bus company drivers whose compensation is dependent on the number of fares they garner each day. So they drive like hell to attempt to make extra runs or to beat out other buses to get their numbers up. Every week you read about bus drivers who kill pedestrians and other motorist due to their reckless driving.

I have gotten several inquiries about the “Thai house”. Our friend, Nattawan, served as the liaison for the Thai project that Ron worked on for two years. Nattawan is from Thailand and has lived in the US since her university days. She accompanied the Portland team to Thailand almost every time they went there. On our last trip to Thailand for the project, Nattawan mentioned that she was building a ‘vacation’ home in Phetchaburi where she has family: an aunt, cousins, nieces and nephews. She invited Ron and me to live in her Thai home when she wasn’t going to be there. Her plan is to be there about six weeks a year. So we were ecstatic to receive such a gracious offer. When we started to furnish our house in Colombo, we suggested that we send the household goods from Colombo to Phetchaburi when we left here. So I hope that clears up any confusion you may have had from reading the blog. There will be photos of the Thai house at our photo website: www.rtsla.photofreeway.com We thought we had posted them but oops, guess not. Coming attractions….

We had a lovely, relaxing weekend with a lot of reading, an occasional nap, took in an art show of 31 contemporary Indian artists and had dinner with some neighbors. Now we are planning our get away after we moved out of the house on Nov 14th. We are going to take a long weekend and go to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. We had decided to go back to Pondicherry in India but when I started to apply for our Indian visas I discovered that your passport has to be valid for 6 months and ours expire in March. Bummer. So off to Kuala Lumpur. We will leave on the 16th of November and return on the 20th.

Then our 21st anniversary is Nov 30th so we decided to splurge and stay at The Sun House in Galle, a very romantic boutique hotel. We discovered it on one of our trips to Galle. We ate a lovely meal there one night and fell in love with the place. Check it out at www.thesunhouse.com

Saturday we leave for Dambulla where Ron will be on a staff retreat for a week. I on the other hand will be a tourist; revisiting some of the nearby ancient cities and going to national parks I have not visited before. There is supposed to be lots of elephants in one of the parks and great bird viewing.

Here’s another horrifying statistics from an article in today’s paper: there are 14 mental health specialists in SL for the 376,000 people known to be suffering from mental illnesses. Good god, and I thought the US was bad for lack of care for the mentally ill. “Because doctors do not choose mental health to pursue their higher studies the government has decided not to allow doctors to select courses on their own. Instead the government will determine what courses doctor’s should follow based on the country’s needs.” It’s a different world.

Yesterday I called a friend in Hugo Oregon and asked what time it was there. It is 8:15 p.m. She asked what time it was here and I told her 8:45 a.m. She couldn’t believe we were 12.5 hours different. My only comment was “Welcome to Sri Lanka”.