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So it probably doesn't make the news at home but this has been a crazy week.  Water shortages, power shedding – including long power cuts, fuel shortages, and finally, a few small explosions to top the week off….ahhh life in Bangalore.

From what I read in the papers, the water shortages are caused by the fact that the monsoons have not really provided enough rain which in turn has caused the reservoirs to be too low thus, in an area heavily reliant on hydro, dams are not be able to provide enough power.  Not to mention, the pumps from the dam run on electricity!  We were without power at the house for 12 hours on Thursday :).  Additionally, apparently the city cut water supply for some reason – some say to clean the main storage tanks.   More info on water shortage  More info on power cuts

The fuel shortages, from what I can gleen from our driver and the papers are occuring because Bangalore is not a port city ie trucks supplying the fuel have a long way to go and the few banks have run low resulting in incredibly long lines at the gas stations (those that are open) and limits on what people can purchase.  By the way – gas is about $6.18 per gallon!!! As I am not well versed in the metric system, I garner folks are able to fill their gas tanks only to 2/3rds of a full tank.  Additionally, people are waiting hours (Shashi had to wait 2.5 hours to get gas on Tuesday) to get gas – think the gas lines of the 70's.  More info on fuel shortage

If that one, two, three punch was not enough….to top off the week, today at around 1:30 there were 5 (or so – the information is different depending on what channel you watch) explosions around the city.  Most here are nonplussed by the explosions but of course the media is trying to make the most of the incidents.  From the pics on the TV, the "bombs" looked like small maltov cocktails re the damage they did.  I am sure the story will grow and be spun as only the media can do.

On the bright side, it just started raining which means a few things – it is cooler which is very welcome by one allergic to the heat and I don't have to water all the plants I bought at the nursery – yee ha!  The plant deal I got at the nursery was awesome and the roof is starting to take shape….but need to wait till the rain stops to get some good pictures.