Q&A

I've realized that I haven't done a very good job of answering questions posted in the comment section. Some - like "What's up with Mike's job search?" have been answered -but a couple of other's haven't and I wanted to cover those.

Q. How hot is it there?

A. It isn't as bad as it could be. I understand that in the height of summer it gets into the 120's. For the time I've been here -the high has almost never been below 100 and over 110 isn't unusual - but I don't think it has been over 120. What I really wasn't expecting for an "arid" region is the incredible humidity. The heat index is rarely below 120. The monsoon isn't quite what I was expecting. Elsewhere in India it rains. We just get waves of humid air. I can count the number of times it has rained while I was here on one hand. After a rain it is wonderfully cool (high nineties) for maybe a day and then the temp goes back up and the humidity is even worse. Mike's blog actually has a rather good description of the heat for those interested in his take. It is supposed to be cooling off now and next week it looks like the highs will all be in the high nineties with heat indices below 110. It is very exciting!

Q. How is Mike holding up without you?

A. As I'm sure many of you suspect - he is utterly devastated. He has been crying himself to sleep every night. (But don't tell him I told you so.)

I've been busy lately with village trips. I'm working on uploading pictures now. Currently I'm adding to the Raila album and then I'll start on new albums so keep an eye on my Picasa page over the next several days. (Link on the right hand side.) What with the slow / intermittent internet connection and my old computer- this could take a while...