Swimming bugs and Precious Cargo

Wednesday, January 29

Well, Modern City isn't the palace that it was last week.  Last night was a little rough (compared to last week's stay here, not compared to bats, bugs and baboons).  Air conditioning is a must at 40C, and it wasn't quite there last night.  Then there was this little thing about bugs....I got some water on the floor of the bathroom and was wondering what all these little red dots were.  From somewhere (and I don't know where) in the bathroom floor a zillion (yes, that's a number) little red bugs or spiders came marching up to either splash in (or get out of) the water on my floor.  They seemed to be swimming, but they were quite tiny so I couldn't tell for sure.  I spent the night in the room anyhow, but when the water shut off in the middle of shampooing my hair this morning it was enough.  Time for a new room. 

As an aside, that is one thing I think we are learning here.  You have to clean yourself with intention not leisure.  It seems that, if there is water, you may or may not have some in the next 5 minutes.  But the key learning on this is that you can get shampoo out of your hair with baby wipes.  And if you miss a spot with the baby wipes you get a second chance to get clean when you use the insect repellent wipes before you venture outside.

I'm not really sure that I've gotten away from my little red swimming bugs because the hotel only moved me into the room next door.  Perhaps it will be OK, it would be a journey for them to get here (although it's really not far) and I'm going to assume that swimming tires them out the same as it does us.

TCCCU location on the second floor
 

We are spending our second day with TCCCU today.  I love learning about the women's groups and how well they are doing.  We asked if there are any men's groups at all, and were surprised to find out that they used to allow men's groups to join but they have since stopped that practice.  Men's groups had higher delinquency and they also were more difficult to manage because of the infighting.  It's reverse gender discrimination but totally acceptable here.

Speaking of totally acceptable let's take a look at motorcycle laws.  Or lack thereof.  I need you to close your eyes for a moment and imagine more vehicles on the road than you have ever seen.  Now, throw in hundreds of motorcycles in the middle of all those vehicles.  If you have a motorcycle here you can drive pretty much anywhere, in the middle of lanes of traffic, on the walking paths, on the wrong side of the road....it's all good.  And you can take pretty much anything or anyone with you too.

 

 

Precious Cargo

 



Your toddler

A passenger with a window

Your wife with your baby tied onto her back

A live guinea fowl for dinner



 

These scenes played out in the big cities and in the rural areas, motorcycles are a means of transportation that some people here can afford and they certainly make the most of it!