All in a Day's Journey

April 6, 2008

Yesterday I made an early morning trip to camp and then returned to the city in the afternoon since I wanted to be go to the birthday celebration of one of the women on my basketball team. Through the course of my travels, I noticed a few interesting sights. First, as I was leaving camp I came upon 3 cows and a calf sprawled across the road in a semi-shady spot. Thankfully the shade extended across only half of the road so there was room to pass the cows. They seemed perfectly content and indifferent to passerbys so had they taken over the entire road, they would have had no intention of moving.

The second sight was as I was entering the town of Pinalejo. I noticed two children out in front of their house. One was a girl of maybe 2 years old and in her hand was a machete which she was using to chop the weeds. Hmm... not the best toy or tool for a child of that age but she seemed to be doing a pretty good job of trimming the weeds. The boy with her who I would presume was her brother, also had a machete in hand as well as a large knife. He may have been 6 or 7 years of age. I guess that the children of the village learn how to use such tools at a young age but I would have a little hesitation in allowing children to play with them.

As I drove along the highway, a third sight caught my attention. There was one section of the road where the landscape changed from partially green (it is obvious that the dry season is upon us because everything is turning brown) to a charred black. A large section of land had burned the week before and what remained was black soil, brown grasses, and trees that were half brown and half green, depending on the severity of the fire they had experienced. Barren was the word that came to mind. To have to drive through too much land with that appearance would definitely make me a little depressed. Thankfully the area was not extensive and I moved on to see greens again.

My journeys these days are a little hotter than normal because my air conditioner is not working right in the car. I plan to get it fixed next week since it is an essential at this time of year. If my windows worked so that I could get a cross breeze, perhaps I could survive without the A/C. Yesterday or the day before the temperature reached 110 F. I have been slowly melting. I look forward to leaving the city this afternoon and staying at camp for a few days where the trees and lack of concrete help to create a cooler environment.

I was very pleasantly surprised when Emily and I got our first electric bill and it was only $11. We had braced ourself for a bill of up to $100 because we had no idea what to expect except for what other people told us. Our bill was low enough that the government took another $5 off, bringing it to $11. We have not used our A/C very much and even last night when it was still pretty hot, I hesitated to turn it on. I think I will resort to using it soon though in order to get a good night's sleep. There are days when a fan is just not enough and though I will continue to work hard to conserve energy, I do need to sleep. Hopefully a storm will come soon and the temperatures will drop for a few days. Till then I will melt during my travels and in the no A/C moments.