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Total entries in this category: 51
Published On: Mar 07, 2006 03:02 PM
Total entries in this category: 51
Published On: Mar 07, 2006 03:02 PM
Fresh and Funky - Part 2
I can see now that there is a freshness in this
village, but it is the freshness of progressive change, not the freshness of the
startlingly new.
The other day, I scraped layers of newspapers from
the shelves of a teacher's kitchen, all caked with yak grease and smelling of
cat urine. We try to scrape down to bare wood before painting. It is a messy and
dispiriting job.
We have brought more than 20 big drums of paint with us, enough to fill the floor of the truck that carried our supplies on the three day trip to this village. This truck also carried our baggage, and every night, when we unpacked our bags, all our clothing smelled like turpentine. It got so bad that I almost preferred wearing the same sweaty clothing to the alternative of changing into something that smelled like a painting rag.
But the day after I scrapped the kitchen shelves clean, the smell of turpentine, combatting the stench of urine, was as sweet as spring flowers. It smelled almost antiseptically fresh, a chemical antidote to organic misery.
And it's not just the chemicals. Yesterday we hiked into the mountains and ran into a little girl tending cows. She was flitting through the grass and wildflowers, barefoot and filthy like most all children here, but with flowers woven into her dreadlocked hair. She showed us a little shrine she had built, with bright blue flowers surrounding a plastic Hello Kitty pin.
My foul mood the other day may have been a consequence of the aches and pains of acclimating to the mountain altitude. I am realizing that I must also acclimate to the mountain attitude, and understand that a poverty of resources doesn't have to result in a poverty of spirit.
We have brought more than 20 big drums of paint with us, enough to fill the floor of the truck that carried our supplies on the three day trip to this village. This truck also carried our baggage, and every night, when we unpacked our bags, all our clothing smelled like turpentine. It got so bad that I almost preferred wearing the same sweaty clothing to the alternative of changing into something that smelled like a painting rag.
But the day after I scrapped the kitchen shelves clean, the smell of turpentine, combatting the stench of urine, was as sweet as spring flowers. It smelled almost antiseptically fresh, a chemical antidote to organic misery.
And it's not just the chemicals. Yesterday we hiked into the mountains and ran into a little girl tending cows. She was flitting through the grass and wildflowers, barefoot and filthy like most all children here, but with flowers woven into her dreadlocked hair. She showed us a little shrine she had built, with bright blue flowers surrounding a plastic Hello Kitty pin.
My foul mood the other day may have been a consequence of the aches and pains of acclimating to the mountain altitude. I am realizing that I must also acclimate to the mountain attitude, and understand that a poverty of resources doesn't have to result in a poverty of spirit.
Posted: Sun - October 5, 2003 at 06:17 AM