Did I tell you this?

The employees at grocery stores here hate me. There are a couple of reasons for this hatred: 1) I won't give them my bag to hold while I shop; and, 2) I refuse their plastic bags. The two things are related -- I need my bag to hold my purchased groceries. I also need my bag because it is my bag and it holds all of my money and other valuables. Besides the fact that I would be unable to pay, I'm not sure why grocery store owners expect me to trust some random person at the door with my things, but they don't trust me to walk around with a bag.

Yesterday was Poya. For this Poya (the Poson Full Moon) people gave out free food again on the road. I was told there would be free ice cream at the supermarket below the office. Today I was asked why I didn't come help give out ice cream. Yep, Sewalanka was giving out the ice cream. This small detail was, of course, not provided the day before.

Yesterday was also yet another goodbye meal for yet another of my friends departing the country. I had so few friends as it was, I really can't afford to loose more. Lindsay left the building yesterday (o.k. this morning actually). She has been out east with Vivian and Jim for the past month. The three of them are a lot of fun to hang out with and I was learning a lot about anthropology (Jim and Vivian are both here writing their Ph.D. dissertations). Jim is here for another month before he joins Lindsay in NYC. Vivian will be here for several more months. Unfortunately both of them will be out east for my last month.

The cleaning lady is here. I think I already explained that I have a cleaning lady because Sewalanka uses this house like a hotel and former residents complained about cleaning up after other people (which I would have done if we didn't already have a cleaning lady when I arrived, though this doesn't mean I don't clean up after others as I'm still expected to wash all the house sheets and towels). Does anyone else agree that it is crazy to believe she cleans this entire house in an hour once a week? I'm talking an extremely large, four bedroom, two full bath house! I couldn't clean my little 800 square foot dollhouse in DC in an hour.

I haven't had any gas for two weeks. Takes me back to my Kazakhstan days. I've been eating cabbage salads and ramen noodles. If we had brick bread here I'd probably be eating that too. My gas woes are not due to a country-wide shortage, just Sewalanka once again neglecting me. I physically brought in my balloon more than a week ago. Yet there it sits in the office, basically taunting me. Do they think I suddenly came into money and can eat out every night?

One more month...one more month...one more month....one more month....one more month.