Good Food

Lunch with Sam -- friend of sixteen years or so -- and talked about the indefinable nature of relationships and experience, about the warring instincts of wholesomeness and sordidness. Riding in his new Cadillac SUV, we listened to Mobb Deep, hip-hop act of the mid-90s. Crisp production, minor key loops, light voices, light but menacing music. Good groove. You could sit in the groove, you could lie down in the groove, you could dance in the groove, you could contemplate the groove.

I will head down to the jazz festival again tonight and engage in the perilous games of my existence and the minor but significant pains they cause, the feeling behind the eyes. There are canoers out on the river. The river is no longer iridescent and the sun has receded slightly behind some clouds, although this would only be a partly cloudy sky. In fact, this is probably the epitome of a partly cloudy sky. The clouds have a gray film over the bottom, like they just ate a large order of McDonald's fries.

There is an inherent sense of the tragic in all experience because of the unavoidable awareness of time passing. Everything you do could be the last, or second-to-last time.

Trickster

I think Bob Dylan is probably some kind of prophet. Never have I heard someone without appreciable musical talent make music that is so affecting. Of course I'm not saying anything new, but it bears repeating. His lyrics are perfect. I'm probably briefly in love with him, and wish I had such jauntiness and bravado. If you'll send some over here, Bob, I'll take it gladly. Actually, I think I've got it already, here in my pocket. Thank you sir. I'll see you at the Hall of Fame.

George Orwell on Being Shot in the Neck

Everything was blurry. There must have been about two minutes during which I assumed that I was killed. And that too was interesting -- I mean it is interesting to know what your thoughts would be at such a time. My first thought, conventionally enough, was for my wife. My second was a violent resentment at having to leave this world which, when all is said and done, suits me so well.

in the night

The lack of electricity in my house in the highlands is less bothersome than one might think. I find the kerosene lantern soothing, its constant yellow flame a reassuring tongue of warmth in a cold, remote place. When it is not raining the stars shine gloriously, and the loss of electrical appliances seems a small price to pay for having all of the cosmos apparent overhead.

I'm fairly certain I would feel differently if the place was crawling with bugs. In the house I rented in rural Mexico I had electricity at the flick of a switch, powering my blowing fan and even a small refrigerator. Yet the place was awful because of the constant encroachment into my personal space by all manner of startlingly ugly, and occasionally dangerous, creatures. The Kenyan highlands, however, are far too cold at night to be so invaded.

There are, it's true, the occasional giant cricket-esque insect. They are quite large--let's say the size of a deck of cards (also, coincidentally, the recommended size of a serving of red meat)--and they climb the walls and scuttle behind my bags in a moderately alarming fashion. At first sight, I thought they must be cockroaches, but closer inspection reveals that they are entirely too crickety.

Generally we avoid each other, me in one of my two wooden chairs, the cockroach-cricket contentedly lurking on the wall. Once, though, it jumped off the wall and landed with a resounding thump. There is no furniture in the room other than my chairs and a small stained table, making the room amplify even the small of sounds. It is a delightful effect when I sing to my guitar at night, but a horrible one when it involves the thumping of an insect. Bugs should alight softly, never thump. Thumps are intolerable.

I sleep under an untreated white mosquito net. The villagers assure me that it isn't necessary, since the fierce cold at night reduces mosquito numbers to insignificant levels, but I use it anyway. It isn't for the bugs. I saw only one mosquito in my house during the time I occupy it, and although the empty concrete room amplified its gentle buzz alarmingly so that it reverberated throughout the night, the insect did not seek to feed. I use the mosquito net because it makes me feel safe. It is a torn, porous shroud, but it cocoons me into a manageably small zone of existence, walling me off, even if only slightly, from the dank gloom of my bedroom and the infinite glow of the galaxies outside it.

digression

Last night I was thinking (I have a lot of time to think these evenings), and it occured to me that "Panico en la Discoteca" would be a good name for an album.

For those who do not know, "Panico en la Discoteca" was a short novella we read in high school Spanish class under the tutelage of gay Senor Kutz. It was written with small words and short sentences so that even we novice Spanish speakers could follow the story. The gist, as I recall, was that a handfull of teenage friends go to enjoy themselves at the discoteca, but their night of revelry is cut short when the discoteca catches fire. The eponymous Panico ensues.

A digression from this digression: I remember being required to improvise a scene culled from the exciting mid-section of the novella, in which two of the friends attempt to escape the fire by climbing through a skylight or trapdoor or somesuch. Details escape me, but let's say I was supposed to be Raul. My friend was played by my actual friend Pablo. That was his real name, but let's say it was also that of his character so that this admittedly weak story isn't also needlessly confusing. Anyway, during the course of this escape Raul becomes increasingly frightened by the smoke and Panic and says "I'm scared," or "Tengo miedo." Only I misspoke and said, "Tengo mierda," which means, "I have shit." After an unrelated episode involving a particular vitriolic excuse for an absence from the community-service organization (which, despite its hilarity, will not be printed here) of which Senor Kutz was also the advisor, he would later threaten me with the words, "Nacho, I know your mother."

"Panico en la discoteca" is more striking than either its authors or Senor Kutz could have intended because of the poignant juxtaposition which it contains. The book is written like one intended for small children, since high-school Spanish students have roughly the same vocabulary. "Raul sees his friend Pablo. 'I am scared,' says Raul. 'The window is very high.'" The elementary prose lulls the reader into assuming that the book really is meant for naive tykes, making it all the more jolting when several of the teenagers die at the end from smoke inhalation or being trampled to death during the Panic.

I found the intrusion of these dark themes of realism into the happy "see Jane run" story to be disturbing. "'It is a nice day,' says Jane. 'Let's go to the discoteca.' 'Yes,' says Raul. 'It will be fun.' 'I can't feel my legs,' says Jane." The result is shocking because it is not intended to be as such.

Waking In The Morning

The morning after my first night at the jazz festival, I cut through Ann Arbor and away from the north side of town, driving along the Huron Parkway Prarie, cattails in the middle. In the space of a mile I've seen six or seven joggers, people biking with their little children in tow, some orange construction barrels. Trees abound. I pass a high school, a recreation area, expensive cars, more trees. The sky is blue, clouds are scant, sun is shining. Now I'm going over a bridge over the Huron River. From this elevation I see the sun iridescent on the water. The water opaque in the sunshine almost. I pass a golf course, most people finished with their early morning rounds. There's a lone golfer walking on a path. I wonder if he is that unskilled, or just woke up late. Another jogger. Greenery, greenery, trees, greenery. I'm driving slow, enjoying, taking in the morning.

philanthropy is

I have become very tired of people asking me for money.

I knew that it would happen, but I thought it would be easy to say, "Look, I'm just a student. True, I have white skin, but that does not make me inherently rich," after which the supplicants would leave me in peace, disappointed but understanding.

I did not forsee that those who would come in hopes of a handout would almost invariably be those who did not speak a word of English. It turns out that it's difficult to describe one's poverty to someone who doesn't speak ones language when one is dressed in nicer clothes than they and is carrying around a laptop. Further complicating my determined no-handout stance is the amount of cash requested: a boy initially pleads for five shillings (one shilling is approximately 1.3 cents), until my stonewall refusal has him bargaining for one. A young man, sans several teeth, comes reeking of alcohol and hopes I will give him the equivalent of a quarter. This request follows intense negotiations, none of which I understand. They include the laborious writing of the words "cita misonae," "unisaine," and finally "mainti," in a shaking, spidery script, which I belatedly realize could only mean that he is asking for money to buy booze.

I give him the money he asks for and the next day offer an old man the same so that he can repair his bicycle. I give them money not because I am a good person, but rather because I want them to get out of my house. These transactions make me feel awful. The sums involved are so pitiously insignificant to me that it seems illogical to deny them unless I am obstinately steadfast on doing my best Scrooge imitation. Yet many well-meaning individuals have warned me that these sorts of minor handouts quickly snowball into hundreds of selfish demands.

A group of little girls comes to see me periodically dressed in their Sunday best. I am certain they want money, but they don't know the English words necessary to ask for it. As the days go by, I am also increasingly certain that their parents have put them up to it, which makes me angry. I think so because they are always dressed so nicely and are immensely shy, timidly hiding behind one another and staring at me fearfully. I greet them, and then we stare at each other for several minutes. Eventually I become uncomfortable, or at least even more uncomfortable, until I pass some vague threshold of uncomfortableness that makes me retreat indoors and draw the curtains.

One of the microscopists who works in the clinic assures me it's ok to turn the beggars down. "They don't understand you're a student," he tells me, corroborating my own thoughts on the matter. "They see you with your equipment and your white skin and they assume you're rich." I comfort myself by trying to think he's right. The boy who asked for one shilling--one goddam shilling--had been very friendly to me, and I ended up giving him a whole ten shilling coin. The look of astonished joy on his face was horrible.

I Wish I Was a Baller

We spent the first hour at the free jazz festival buying mediocre, over-priced food and drink. I had a forgettable gyro and Kim some kind of sausage concoction. She also had an expensive wine cooler, and I a beer. Twenty bucks and some mild indigestion later, we caught the end of David 'Fathead' Newman's tribute to Ray Charles, and promptly discovered that Fathead has the speaking voice of a woman. (He was portrayed as much more manly in the movie 'Ray'). Luckily, he plays saxophone. After Fathead we pushed our way forward and sat down on the grass twenty feet or so from the stage. A bunch of people joined us, and the Funk Brothers came on.

Apparently the Funk Brothers are really famous in the world of Motown music. This I did not know. They had a large band with them. For much of the show we thought the Brothers were two old white guys, since everyone else on stage was black and about a decade younger. Turns out they use the word 'brothers' loosely -- they're one white and two blacks. One of the blacks wasn't playing secondary to some kind of feud. The white guy has the look of a New Jersey pizza man, if you can picture it (fat, big nose, balding, eating pizza on stage - actually the last one is not quite true).

The band was mostly middle-aged musicians with ample soul and sagging jowls. There were three singers. One was a guy in a sequined, glittery, silver jacket who did a ton of smiling. One an overweight woman in a sheer blouse who sang quite well. And lastly there was a woman in tight black pants and a holter top whom Kim affectionately called a 'middle-aged hoochie mama.'

The show was a good, but a little too 1950s. It was like listening to a stretch on an oldies station. They played 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered,' 'My Girl,' and a bunch of Marvin Gaye, among other stuff. People seemed to dig it. I would say there were about 800 there, and many were dancing, old and young. I even got into it a bit myself at one point and started rocking back and forth.

An intoxicated man in front of Kim kept looking back at her and smiling and staring at her cleavage. Every time he did that I put my hand on her leg. Then this other dude turned around, said something to her, and touched her foot. What the heck? Then it happened again! By the end of the night I was conspicuously fondling her.

We left around 10:45 pm, sober and wholesome. What I needed then was an incredibly large Johnnie Walker on the rocks. In the car, at a stop light, we watched four men in green T-shirts, almost all with enormous guts, crossing the street. "Why are they all in green T-shirts?" Kim said. "That will remain to be seen," I said, "not by me."

On the way home this guy on a motorcycle riding next to us all of a sudden decided he was going to lie down on his belly while going 80 mph. He did so, and Kim said "Oh my god!" I gave him the thumbs-up, and a toothy smile, then stepped on the gas and left him in the dust.

Back in Ann Arbor, the contrast could not be more stark. College kids, partying on a weekend night, dressed up in their Sunday best or what have you, invariably white. The town polished and dull. I found my craving for large amounts of alcohol deadened by the young crowd, which made me feel like I was at camp. "But camp was fun!" Kim said (she was an earnest band-camper back in the day, still sort of is). Suddenly I was craving Diet Orange Tropicana Twister. This means we had to stop at Speedway, which is the only place I've been able to find the drink, and interact with the amusing man behind the counter. He's fat, bearded, and dirty. He's a cross between John Candy and a hobo, kind of John Candy gone destitute. Perhaps to keep his job interesting, he never stops talking, quite literally. He mumbles a lot to himself. Some people are distinctive without even knowing it.

I found my glee at the cold refreshing taste of the Twister sullied by an argument Kim and I embarked upon. I couldn't repeat details. Suffice it to say that it culminated in Kim yelling, "I'm not having your baby!" At this point my Twister was still half full. I closed my eyes and took a huge swig, savoring the artificial orange. In a perfect world there'd be no aftertaste.

Older and Wiser

Naivete and youth deceived my brain into depositing Nutella into the same little neuro-bin in which I categorize other foreign spreads that I never wish to consume, particularly Vegomite. Imagine my surprise to encounter a jar of the stuff in the pantry this week, not just to encounter it but to open it and to discover that it was, in fact, filled with delicious Italian nutty chocolate in convenient lickable form. Since I now admit to have officially dipped my index finger into the jar, I can clearly not leave it, contaminated, in the pantry, and have no recourse but to eat it all.

the Kisumu museum

So I made it back down to Kisumu with my cell phone as the only casuality. It was an awful trip and I plan on not repeating it. Back alone in my little house on the outskirts of this sprawling city, I found myself staring down the barrel of another empty weekend. To fill the void, I attempted to accomplish three goals. First, I went for a little run away from the city to a peninsula called Hippo Point. Lonely Planet remarks on its nice view of Lake Victoria, the eponymous hippo potential, and the nice little restaurant there that's popular with the expat community.

The view was clouded by morning mists, the hippos were grazing elsewhere, and the restaurant had burned down. Nevertheless, it was a pretty spot, and if I had the ability to disconnect that place from last year's shooting of the son of the researcher in whose house I'm staying, I might have lingered. The son is fine and does not appear emotionally scarred, but if the hippos weren't going to make an immediate and dramatic appearance, I was going home.

Second, I bought a new telephone. For those interested, the number is 0725 926 339, preceeded by the appropriate international and Kenyan codes. I'm not sure if the number will work, since immediately upon turning it on, I received a number of text messages clearly not intended for me (including one that reads "Baby gal am so grateful 4 wat u ave done 4 me ope day i get 2 repay u bt as always u wil always b in ma prayers gnit").

Third, I went to the Kisumu museum. The original museum building is a small room housing dusty exhibits of the sort common to dull museums worldwide. These included a number of stuffed birds and monkeys wired into unlifelike poses, a tableau depicting early tribal life, and a collection of ancient bowls and tools used for the storage and preparation of various grains. When I later left the museum, I wandered through the nearby marketplace, where wizened old women could be found selling clay and wooden bowls that were, as near as I could tell, identical in every way to the museum artifacts, with the distinction of being a thousand years younger.

More interesting were the various exhibits scattered around outside the museum proper. One was an avowedly accurate replication of a traditional Luo homestead. It featured a number of thatched mud huts in which a Luo man would live with his assorted wives and sons. Again, the exhibit was made somewhat less dramatic by the fact that the actual Luos living in the slums a few blocks away still live in very similar huts, albeit with less wives. However, I found the earnestness with which the exhibit was constructed to be touching. The inside of the huts were decorated with a few clay pots and other traditional artifacts, but were generally uninteresting; in one hut, however, I found one of the museum workers stuffing newly harvested bunches of bananas into the narrow neck of one of the pots. I can't imagine any of the handful of visitors to the very dark interior of the hut wondering whether there were any bananas still lodged inside the pots sitting in the corner, but I'm pleased to be able to report that the answer is yes. Other unexpected touches included the live sheep sitting in a huddled mass inside the traditional animal enclosure. I hope that they are taken out for grazing purposes at least on occasion.

Clearly not taken out for any purposes whatsoever were the other animal exhibits. These included a snake pit, a snake house, and a crocodile pool. Gracing the crocodile pool was a sign titled, "Danger Crocodile" that admitted that despite the fact that crocodiles were "useful and valuable," the museum strongly discouraged use of the stagnant pools in which they were kept for purposes of playing, washing, or bathing. The museum hoped that such measures would help curtail the incidence of death, and advised me to warn my children as such. The crocodiles looked like they were unlikely to cause many deaths, since they lay unmoving in their pools even as the other museum-goers prodded them with branches.

The snake house featured species from around Kenya. All were marked as "very poisonous" except for the enormous rock python and a certain mamba, the later of which was instead labeled as having an "extremely virulent neurotoxin." In related news, I nearly stepped on a large viper of unknown species in the highland forest last week. I did manage to take a picture, so hopefully we can ascertain its degree of deadliness at a later time.

Vulnerability

Clearly, Sphere, you're correct that fear makes one unusually observant. I think it's all part of the stress response. I'm guessing the hypothalamus is to blame, but that's really your department. All I know is that slow-burning fear causes a steady hormone drip drip drip into dilated blood vessels, making your heart beat faster and your brain seize upon little details that it would have let slip by otherwise. Details like the deactivated speedometer in the cracked dashboard of the matatu that's hurtling you down the Nandi escarpment, or the quiet chuckles in the back that precede the information that you are to be wildly overcharged for the pleasure of that hurtle. These observations are usually welcome rewards the next day, when you sit in your kitchen, sipping tea, and ruing the loss of your borrowed cell phone. At the time, however, they are the unnecessarily taxing by-products of a daylong adrenaline buzz, leaving you a strung-out, nervous wreck by the end of the day.

Day - twa

We enter the Detroit streets. If you saw only this, you'd think us grand. The Renaissance Center towers above. It's bright and black. The river is less than a dreaming distance away. The evening sun shines dimly. On the corner of Randolph and Monroe we pass a place called "Chicken Bunchies Biscuits." Detroit. Wooo! I see the unlit lights of Comerica Park. The new Hard Rock Cafe comes up on the right and we start to come up on the festival. There are some white tents and people walking around. We're going to try to find some secure parking, so as not to get jacked. But there's also this sense -- Benny P in Kenya do you agree? -- when you go into a place that renders you a little bit more vulnerable than usual that you're not complacent and that you may see things you don't normally see. It's a question of travel. Plato was happy to sit quietly in his room. cf Bishop, "The choice is never wide and never free."

Beginner's Luck

All this also reminds of a trip I made into the city as a 16 or 17 year old with the expressed purpose of playing at a jazz club jam session. I think the place was called Bomack's. I was dating a girl named Molly Stout -- who was, oddly, a little stout -- and I asked her if she would come with me because I was a little afraid. When we got there, I was afraid to get my sax out of the trunk. We entered the club. We were the only non-blacks in the place, and there was a pretty full-fledged jam session going on. The stage was lit brightly in yellow and at the mike was a good tenor sax player of middle age, wailing away on a spirited blues / r and b tune. There was more than a handful of musicians standing around him, getting their axes out of their cases, sitting at tables with their glowing instruments in their laps and sipping on a cocktail perhaps to deaden the nerves, or ward off withdrawal. I wished for a spirit then. Molly and I sat down and looked at each other. She has a beautiful face, round like an apple, plump lips, diminutive nose shaped like a ski-jump, and well-tended-to, sandy brown hair that rises from the front of her head in a wave and falls quickly around her chin. She's got a warm, knowing smile. When I remember her now, I remember her face in that club, the dim light softening her features. Soon enough a big guy set down napkins on our table and brusquely asked for our IDs. "Over 21," he said, and we had to go. On my way out I passed a large table of teenagers digging the music. And that was my first, and I think last, attempt at playing jazz in Detroit. On the way home I think I touched Molly's hand and thanked her for accompanying me on such a silly brainchild. Still I thank her.

Steeple and Skyscraper

Driving into Detroit is redolent of my romantic youth when I was in love with cities and wanted to run away to New York or wherever. As you come down I-75 and get into the city for a few seconds in front of you there is a church steeple in front of the Renaissance Center -- the city's tallest building -- and they are perfectly aligned. The steeple is green as if it is copper and the skyscraper is a gleaming black cylinder. As a high school student on a night out, feeling gritty and a little bit on the edge, I had this sense as I saw them shadow each other that everything would work out swimmingly. I always had that feeling. It was a moment of --- what do you call it --- confluence? Synchronicity? Of course things always changed, the structures again fell dolefully out of sync. But for a minute there I was benevolent and brave.

On the Way to Detroit You Pass a lot of Trees

And empty space, and grass. I see a flock of birds, patchy, flying over the cars. Kim is brushing her hair. It's a beautiful late summer evening, highway in shadow, highway now in sun. The working title of this journey is "Jizz." The word jazz, in fact, is rumored to originate from this word for semen or sperm, or cum, load, sausage-grease, spew, other stuff. My reasoning is that I would like to go forward with as much force. Not backwards into jazz history, or backwards into a decaying city, but forward into Detroit, into today's music.

7:05 pm, September 2nd. 2005.

Going to the jazz festival in downtown Detroit. Sunny evening. Minimal cloud-cover, patchy cumulus. Sun beginning to set in West. Unattractive girl crossing street on evening jog. Kim is changing her bra and exposing part of her breast. This is the opening --- another jogger --- of a 3.5 day immersion into the life of Detroit and the jazz festival around the time of the early Fall and the recent arrival of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. We'll get a cup of coffee before we go. Ann Arbor is sunny and beautiful, pristine, heavily Caucasian, and heavily Asian on this North Campus. Houses are pretty. Tennis courts, slow drivers. Just passed some Muslims with long Bharkas. Feeling good, young, and happy.

Dissertations should be esoteric, right?

I have found two pieces of software that would allegedly be able to perform the land-cover classifications I hoped to do in the next couple days. One is user-friendly, blazingly powerful, and costs 3,600 pounds. Unless something alarming has happened to the economy of the UK, I believe that may be a lot of money. In a stunning triumph of academic freedom over corrupt capitalist society, the other program is open-source and free. As one might expect from such a piece of software, it is written in a manner that does not employ the mouse. As an added bonus, the instructions are only available in Portuguese.

in the Nandi Hills

The adjustment period to the astonishing rurality of Kipsamoite was rough but short, unlike the viciously bumpy truck ride up the Nandi escarpment. Once out of Kisumu, the countryside quickly turned verdantly tropical, and I was glued to the window as we edged out of the plains and up into the cascading highlands. Jenga nearly ran over a small monkey.

The research team deposited me unceremoniously outside the town's health clinic, near which I would stay in a small house. Unlike the other houses in the area, my house has very nice plumbing, complete with sink, shower, and toilet. Unfortunately, none of these items actually work. In the days to come they will lurk inside the house, taunting me, as I wash myself by splashing chilly water over my head from a red plastic bucket.

Chandy, the doctor in charge of the project, sat shotgun in the beleagured KEMRI vehicle. As I retrieved my backpack, he said, "I think you'll be very happy here." He said it looking through the front windshield, without making eye contact.

The transition from the relative luxury of Kisumu to a small farming village lacking running water or electricity was eased by the kind hospitality of my neighbors. Peter, 31, is the head field assistant on the project and small shopkeeper. Like everyone else in Kipsamoite, he grows maize and vegetables. He also keeps goats. He leads me on lengthy excursions around town, pointing out traditional crops and points of interest as we walk. We cover remarkable swathes of land, hiking miles each day over the hilly terrain. I learn about the process through which millet is grown; the proper technique for holding a knife while harvesting, as well as how it can be seasoned in a sack for several days to give it a darker color and richer taste. Maize is ubiquitous, and no family goes without. Tea is the prime cash crop, planted in neat rows of shiny green shrubs. To harvest, only the top two leaves and the bud are cut, since addition of the older, less delicious leaves would decrease the crop's value.

My next-door neighbor, a doctor named John, brings me a plastic thermos of hot chai each morning, for which I will be eternally grateful. Sometimes in the evenings, just before the heavy rains begin, he makes a millet porridge for me. The Lonely Planet guidebook, somewhat more accurately, calls this concoction "gruel". Some days I find it difficult to stomach the lumpy gray-brown substance, but on the colder evenings I find it delicious.

standardized testing is futile

On the drive in to the KEMRI facilities this morning, the woman sitting next to me was holding a copy of last year's School-Based Evaluation Test, which I believe is a national exam given to primary school students here. Last year's exams are supplied to those interested to help prepare children for the ones that are upcoming. Admittedly, I don't know how old the students who take this test are, but one can only hope that the Leave No Child Behind legislation will produce such rigorous tests.

I could only note a few questions without becoming ill from reading during the fabulously rough ride, but they included the following. The actual multiple-choice answers are provided. I do not have answers.

1) Bleeding gums are (brown, sick).

2) Wheels can make work (easy, hard).

3) The eye has (two, three) colors.

4) One can use clay soil in (modeling, planting).

5) The book of God is: (the Bible, Primary English, Mfufi).

I don't know what Mfufi is either, but for some reason I imagine it involves the adventures of a mischievous rabbit.

welcome to the western highlands

I've been hanging out on the front stoop of my little concrete house in Kipsamoite, watching the livestock brave the absurdly pouring rains. Rains mixed with knuckle-sized hailstones which, perhaps due the (literally) religiously enforced alcohol ban, I can't help think would look really nice with a martini poured liberally overtop.

Usually accompanying me as I wait for the rains to cease are a variety of pint-sized street urchins. Think of "urchin" in the most Dickensian mold you can imagine. No shoes, filthy, ripped clothing, wide-eyes. When I write this there are six of them. I made the grave mistake of talking to one of the little urchins my first day here, and he, encouraged, returned faithfully each day with ever increasing numbers of comrades.

The little street-kids are ostensibly here to mind their cows. The cows graze dejectedly in the pasture in front of my house, the hailstones pinging off their soggy hides. Some have abandoned even the pretense of grazing during the downpour and instead stand forlornly, their heads drooped. I feel sorry for them.

The urchins like to stroke my hair. They have none, as if every one of them suffered from leukemia. They have no arm hair either and so they like to touch mine. Only the boy I met originally speaks any English. He uses this skill to ask, periodically, for money.

My second grave error was to allow the English-speaking scamp and his toddling little brother (who I am told thinks that I, as a white man, may eat him at any time) to enter my concrete home on the second day they visited me. They rummaged through everything I owned, touching, pressing, manipulating, and generally making me anxious and irritable. They particularly liked my flashlight. I am not clear what the attraction was, since many people in the highlands own flashlights and mine was not a particularly paramount example, but nevertheless they fought over which one of them could aggressively turn it on and off or drop it the hardest.

Now that the numbers of urchins are increasing like bacteria, I am determined not to let any of them into my moderately clean home. If I leave them alone on the stoop, however, I will eventually hear the door slowly creak open and see a mud-daubed, curious face peer around the corner, perhaps to see if I am currently turning my flashlight on and off. So I stand out on the stoop, writing, and watching the rain pour, accompanied by the little rascals.