On my way to work in the mornings, I pass a large checkpoint. The police pull over vehicles at random but since there have been two bombings involving vehicles in Colombo in less than a week, the checking has intensified. Normally I am not given a second look, or after I am given a second look I am waved on. This morning I was pulled over. I was questioned, carded, my car was searched. I've been pulled over a few other times but not questioned. I was partly annoyed and partly glad that they were being so thorough. Kind of like we all felt about the changes at the airports after September 11th. It's inconvenient and kind of ridiculous but at the same time, one can understand that efforts are being made to keep people safe.

Last Thursday it was in town. Monday it was right outside of town. Each of these events creates a healthy dose of extra caution, tension, alertness. Adaptation to the environment. A gentleman I work with was leaving the office today and told me his good friend was buying bread on Monday on his way home from work and was killed in the blast. We both muttered to each other, to the air, "very sad". After a quiet heavy moment, he smiled his big smile, turned on his heel and said, "BYYYYE Sara-miss!"

All kinds of things to say to that but nothing sounds right. I've been sitting here for about 30 minutes trying to come up with a close for this blog but....that's it. I'm out of ideas and time. I'm about to slide into bed and when I do, I'm going to picture laying on my back in that pool last weekend, and float into a peaceful restful sleep.

Wish all of you a good peaceful day.