Lest anyone think we are getting completely soft in our new Peace Corps experience, I should mention that it's not all puppies and rainbows over here. Although we enjoy our new appliances (I'm making bagels right now, in fact!), the power and water still fritz out with a depressing regularity that will increase as we march into the hot, dry season. (If last year is an indication, it won't rain again here until 2010. Sigh.)
When I went running this morning, I was reminded that with the increase in potential running routes (instead of Robi's alternatives: To the left, or to the right?) comes an exponential uptick in stinky, leering guys, kids shouting "How are you!" and snarly looking dogs.
The streets here are peppered with broken people, like the kid who lives in the ditch by the Peace Corps house, the guys who stumble around wearing a shroud of plastic bottles and tattered sacks (there are several! You can tell by their unique collections of trash), and a deathly thin man I saw crawling down the road with what appeared to be a leprous foot. (I'll spare you the visuals since you probably want to eat sometime today.)
I mean, it's still excellent. But it also still one of the poorest places on the planet.
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