Here's a random one for you...

It’s Friday afternoon. Thanks to the security guard, I took a new cow trail home on my way out of work. Just another example of how dependent I become on local knowledge when I am in a new city or country. It was the older guy in rubber boots who showed me the first trail which chopped my walk from the road to the Nehemiah Center in half. I remember I was hesitant to trust him. He came on pretty outgoing at first which is often my clue that something isn’t exactly right. They either want money or have ulterior motives. But I remember this guy’s motives were pretty genuine. He was headed down the same trail to the last house and why not point the gringo in the right direction?

Anyway, that trail worked well for a while. Cut out the worst part of my walk; the narrow gentle curve in road that dump trucks use on their way in and out of picking up a new load of dirt. I sometimes wonder how there can be enough dirt for their endless processions. They must have one heck of a hole going on. Maybe they are the guys who, when younger, believed their parents when they said China was only a matter of digging deep enough. And it’s not just an issue of one dump truck every now and again.

The trucks continuously rumble by, shifting gears while really not picking up much speed. Each shift throwing a heavy hand of gray smoke out of their charred stacks. It’s the kind of thick grey smoke that sticks to you, puts an invisible chalky layer on your forehead for the rest of the day. I have come to enjoy, if somewhat strangely, this kind of dirty grey smoke. It’s one of those immediate triggers to times and places of past, that I hold close to my heart. It’s also one of those very tangible things that remind me I am not in America. One of the uncomforts that makes the day to day more visceral, like the sweat that drowns my back while walking to or from work. This is all kind of my bent attempt at some kind of solidarity. Especially now as solidarity is not part of my job description. Whether the people I am trying to live in solidarity with actually notice my effort is another story. I mostly get looks like, “why’s the weird gringo coming out of the cow pasture with a backpack and sweat rolling down his temples?”

Should a tick so full of doggy blood that it looks like a grey raison gross me out? I don’t know. It looks more curious to me then anything. Its body so distorted from the other features like the numerous legs and head that protrude from it. The little head, so pointy with its two horizontal jaws still chomping back and forth, searching for the next meal that it has no room for. Should numerous swollen ticks on our tiled patio floor be worse than one? They are spread out like some kid threw a handful of small clumps of dirt, except they are little sacks of blood from the dogs, Forthy and Lucy.