Price of Gas and other Disgusting Updates

We have been hearing how high the price of gas is in the states. I think we are in for a rude awakening when we come to visit this month and have to pay over $4 a gallon! Ouch. With so much attention on fuel costs you would have thought this would have dawned on me earlier, but i'm a little slow:) Last week I realized that the price for our fuel hadn't changed since we moved here. We use diesel which is at 36 rupees per liter. This translates into $3.41 per gallon. Gasoline is around 54 rupees per liter...$5.10 a gallon. Ok, I hadn't done the figures until now...that's a lot:) But strange that it doesn't go up or down. Brian said the government sets the price and supplements the losses when fuel costs go above that. Diesel always seems to be less than gas which is a plus for us. But now that i'm looking at these figures it's probably even more expensive to drive here b/c salaries are much less here. Hence compact cars and few SUV's I guess.

On the Pest Control front...you may remember my phobia of cockroaches. I think I've seen about 3 or 4 of those huge babies in our apt since moving here...not bad for 9 months in communial living. Well, I noticed lately that these creatures have been hanging out at the back door just waiting for it to open so they can run in. I asked myself, "Are roaches really this smart that they know it's a door and they are standing guard to make a run for it when it opens?" The answer is yes and they are even smarter than that. Brian discovered (after I screamed that 3 were at the door!) that they had made a home under our kitchen cabinets (cabinets here are not built-in so there is aabout a 5 inch gap b/w them and the floor and a huge black abyss underneath for yucky things to hide. ). There is a piece of wood that we're not sure of its purpose and Brian saw one go behind it. So I bought some roach spray at the store and my hero husband sprayed last night. Ok, do you really want to know what the count of dead cockroaches was? You might think we are dirty, filthy people after you here it:) but really i blame it on life in apartments (not the dirty dishes i leave in the sink each night:) So far the tally is 35 large cockroaches and an uncounted number of babies. Thank the Lord i did not see one of those suckers!!! My dear husband and later our housekeeper swept up the remains. Ahhhhhhhh! That is so sick! To think we had no idea. From the other mom's i talk to at playgroup it's a huge problem here. Is there anywhere on earth where cockroaches and mosquitoes don't exist? I've never lived there--but want to find it!!