The Martin's Blog

 Helen – This is their independence day, celebrating their split from England in 1948…funny that it should also fall on the 4^th only this time six months different from ours.  Tom had to go into the university to catch up on his classes and I stayed home to clean the grout from the bathroom tile and floor where the new water heater was installed.  It looks to be a new added on bathroom and the grout was left to dry on the tiles and globs of it everywhere including the floor.  While Tom was showering I got on the computer to finish up some on the diary so he could send it off and while I was doing this, the caretaker scared me again by coming into the house unannounced and standing over me as I typed.  He can be spooky at times.

Sri Lankans enjoying their 4th

This was also the day the carpenter was coming to put another lock on a set of doors, and the electrician was coming once again to try to fix the fan in the dining area, change a few light bulbs, and loosen a few sticky light switches.  I was watching them and running in and out of the bathroom trying to get both things done.  The electrician said that I needed another fuse for the fan and he had to go to get it…seems whenever he comes (this is the third time) he always has to leave to get more parts even though he is told ahead of time what he is going to work on.   He helped me hang the netting in the spare room (where we use the beds to lay out our loot) because I couldn’t reach the hooks without the ladder.  By noon they are done and gone and I am getting lunch ready for Tom.  He comes home and asks where my cell phone is.  I answer, wherever you left it after calling the girls last night.  He said, I left it on the table, did you move it??  Here we go again!!!  The cell phone is missing and so are two large plastic bags of candy which we brought here from the states for the children.  Reanalyzing the situation again, we see that Tom’s phone went missing when the electrician and ground keeper were in the house last week.  It seems to us that one of them took it.  Lots of phone calls back and forth with the owner of the house (they hired the electrician and carpenter) and it was decided that his worker from the dairy who speaks English would go to the police department the next morning to file a complaint and then bring them here (DOES THIS STORY SOUND FAMILIAR???).

We were to go to the physics professor’s (Kanthi) house for dinner that evening.  She called to confirm our plans when I told her what had happened.  She was quite upset, in fact, she called the lady (Kamala)who represents the owner and asks her to look in the ground keeper’s living quarters.  Kamala comes over by a tri-wheeler and goes into his sleeping quarters but cannot get into the kitchen area which is a separate room. We try calling my phone to see if it rings but the voice recording says that the party is unavailable now and to call back.  The phone must have been turned off and we never turn it off.  She leaves and when Tom returns he calls the owner again about having a report made and the police coming to the house the next morning…we think that it is settled.

That evening, Kanthi and her husband are really concerned about our location.  They said they had this concern as soon as they saw where we lived but rethought their objections when we told them we were supposed to have a security guard…which we don’t.  They call Kamala again that evening to confirm the plans for the morning. Things look even bleaker when we discover that there was a robbery in the little house across the road just last month when an Australian living there had the window broken and his camera and laptop taken.  Kanthi said that she would go to the police station with us the next morning and thank heavens she did.