Monday, July 6, 2015

Things I've seen in a week

Cows. It’s not an urban myth, there are cows in the big cities. Until today I hadn’t seen any except in a couple of empty lots but this morning on the drive to the office, I saw two ambling along in the middle of the street by the concrete divider. Then tonight I saw another one.

Horns. Car horns here almost form a language of their own. Everyone honks—cars, motorbikes, motorized rickshaws—everyone. But the horns aren’t as loud as in the US. I don’t know how to quantify it any other way except to say its how the drivers all communicate. I’ve seen a lot of very close calls but no accidents, all the drivers just sort of weave in and out like a bizarre, elaborate ballet dance.

Today I saw my first man peeing in public. Granted, he was in a fairly empty lot with his back to the street but still it was clear what was happening. I just turned my head.

There’s an empty lot by the hotel (which is nice, by the way—clean, quiet, just a normal hotel room) and I realized yesterday that was I thought was two small cinder block storage cubes are actually homes.

We have kind of frequent power outages although that’s a really grand term for what happens. Basically the power goes off for a minute, maybe three but so far no longer than that. And then it comes back on.

I’ve been using the electric kettle in my hotel room to boil tap water for coffee in the mornings. Sometimes it’s a bit brown so I toss that water and start again. I figure brown is bad when it comes to water, and remember my dad’s comments about how health in the US dramatically improved as we all started getting access to clean water. I’m glad the water comes to a complete boil, I’m glad I had my typhoid vaccination and I’m really glad I live in the US where we take clean water for granted.

Mostly I drink bottled water though.

1 comment:

KD said...

I know clean water is something we Americans take for granted, and am trying so hard to explain to my children how it's not "normal" for water to be so clean. Thanks for sharing this. I'll be sure my kids get to see it.