Rain drops keep falling on my head

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  Kegalle, Sri Lanka
Friday, September 15, 2006

The Monsoon season appears to have started, the heavy rain I talked about last week was in fact a very light shower! If you can imagine the heaviest rain you have ever seen, times it by 100 and then imagine you are also standing under a power shower you will close to Monsoon rain. It comes out of nowhere (well it comes out of the sky really) but one minute its lovely and hot and sunny and you have just finished hanging the clothes you have spent an hour hand washing onto the line and then bang down comes the rain and you have 30 seconds to get out of it or you may as well not bother.

2 days ago on the way back from teaching at the Temple school up the road it started to rain , as we mid way between the temple and MEF we decided to carrying on walking, Sri Lankans leg it when it rains. Then dive into shop doorways and hide under bus shelters and the sight of anyone walking in heavy rain is unusual and very (so it appears given the amount of sniggering) funny

2 minutes into our "stiff upper lip" walk in the rain we were totally and utterly drenched, every item of clothing was soaking wet and the water was pouring down my face so hard it was hard to see where I was going, I was now wadding through ankle deep water on the road and yet still trying to smile politely at the group of locals sheltering under the roof of a local shop when a bus came down the road at normal Sri Lanka speed (mad fast) and splashed me with a rather large puddle of water, my humiliation now complete I squelched down the final 200 meters before turning into MEF where I would love to tell you that every one was very sympathetic but I would be lying ( as they also laughed , a lot )

Not sure if I have mentioned that the showers here are outdoors? There is indoor shower but its so cold that it would give a penguin frostbite, the outdoor ones are also cold water but the pipes get warm in the day and although to call the water warm would be stretching it a tad (or a lot most days) its not bad and its possible to grit your teeth long enough to stand under and get a good wash. Often when it is raining I still go out and have my shower, its slightly warmer then and it's a pretty mad experience sort of like a top of the range power shower with multiple heads.

This afternoon I am off to visit the elephant orphanage at Pinnewela, there was a new baby born there on Wednesday so I will be taking my camera and hoping to get loads of piccies. Talking of which I apologize for the lack of photos, the machine I am using is windows 98 and neither my camera or USB drive will work and I have to use someone else's XP machine and USB stick, I can't down load the drivers directly (this machine point blankly refuses to attempt downloads and crashes) I am however planning to visit an internet café this weekend to get the drivers and then hopefully I can share more photos

Tomorrow I am going to Kandy for the weekend, I will be staying over night and I am lead to believe that the guesthouse has.........hot water. I won't hold my breath but I am slightly (read madly excited) about the possibility of a warm shower

So that's me, getting excited over warm water, I am still very excited about last weeks star buy of the extension lead and have yet to tire of turning the bedside lamp on and off

Hope you are all well

Sam

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Mummy and baby elephants

Pinnewala elephants in the water

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