You have to be here to understand the rain and humidity of the monsoon!! Last Sunday we had fourteen straight hours of torrential rain!! It has rained really hard for at least part of every day since we have been here!! Every time you go outside for even a short walk you feel as if you need to come inside and take a shower!! Thank goodness for air conditioning!!

But then . . . . yesterday afternoon a good deal of thecloud cleared away - there really was still blue sky behind it and the sun came out . . . a most exciting moment!! I suppose it is too much to suppose that this will last - but I am ever hopeful!!

On the other side of the coin, the flooding in areas of India within two or three hundred miles of here has been and continues to be quite appalling. Feet of water and mud have covered a huge area of Surat, a large urban sprawl. Thousands and thousands of people rich and poor, have been without water, food, services or help for days and days and days. How they are coping I really do not know. We understand that this is the worst monsoon season in this whole area of Gujurat for years. How lucky we are that we are north of the disaster area and each day most of the water is draining away.