Monday 31 August 2009

I suppose that the reason I’m writing this is so that my family and friends can share the feelings, smells, and tastes of being here. Hopefully, many years from now, I’ll also be able to reread this and remember things that I had forgotten.

Because of the constant dust, I always have kind of a dry, chalky taste in my mouth and nose. There isn’t enough water to wash it away and it covers everything, imparting a dull, opaqueness to the buildings, tents, and horizon. The soundtrack to this place, though, is what will stick with me. It is the sound of laughter. Despite the obvious challenges of being here, you hear laughter nearly everywhere you go. People laugh at themselves, at each other, at the discomfort, at ridiculousness, at situations they might never have imagined. They laugh at the Sergeant Major who runs down the main drag every morning from 0500-0700 flanked by two henchmen in complementary t-shirt colors, sending them out on missions to correct errant runners who may have committed the cardinal sins of wearing their reflective belts too loosely around their waists, or God forbid, their sunglasses prior to 0730 (when sunglasses are authorized). Anyone sporting a beard, of course, is immune from prosecution. They chuckle at the young priest with the flattop, who looks as capable of removing someone from this world as he is of preparing them for the next. Then, they’re moved to laughing tears as he tells the story of missing his younger brother with Down’s Syndrome, because he is a better person when his brother is around. The brother isn’t jealous, or boastful, or vindictive. He does, however, apparently have a slight stealing issue.