Return to Gaya

Been back in Gaya for about a week. Had a good time out in James' village helping him get his world map project up and going. We got almost all of the painting done, save for the Pacific Islands. What a pain they are to paint. It's a fun project and one that has obvious and seeable results. The map looks great.

So today is a day that harkens back to Seattle: drinking tea, eating pancakes, listening to Nirvana, and watching the RAIN drizzle down constantly this morning. It stormed last night, starting around 4AM and it's now 8:39 and the rain has greatly slackened but still here. A good excuse to take a long morning, making a good breakfast and to have a warm cup of tea. I even took a break from my morning workout routine.

The only disapointing part was when my cat shat in my hamper because it didn't want to go out in the rain. Yuck. Not that my clothes smell great, but they didn't smell like cat poop. Now... well now they need to be washed even more.

Oh and the flies are also sheltering from the rain on my porch and they're never too much fun to hang out with. Too many of them.

Roof leaks in the kitchen and the back bedroom, will go talk to the prefet about getting it fixed.

Currently reading "The Corner" about inner city street life, drug dealing, and heroin addiction in Baltimore. By the same guys who write for The Wire TV show (So I'm told), which I've watched a bit of and enjoy. This book takes me back to the University days cause it's basically a sociological study along the lines of much of what I studied there. Makes me wonder how things are going there now. Cities in America have pretty much treaded water the past eight years as the nation's attention has become more externally focused with the threats of terrorism and all. I hope whoever is the next president will bring more light to the problems. More likely the democrats as Barak will have to pay attention to his black base or Clinton will have to pay attention to the working class base; both of which will definately have a stake in what's happening in the US's inner-city, post-industrial environments.

Definately, these places have to re-invent themselces as technology, turist, financial, service, and administrative centers in the new economic times. Seattle was lucky as our traditional labor hasn't totally changed. Timber has moved North, and Boeing is out-sourcing more and more work, but on a whole we're pretty well off. Better than Baltimore.... Detroit, D.C., Chicago, Flint.... these places are in need of jobs. It's a long book, I'll have plenty more time to think about all this.