Happy Halloween..! my gawd i miss home tonight..they don't celebrate it here...musing, bout years of Halloween pasts in my life, the fun of dressing up with family, friends..last year in Brooklyn wiht Casey and Merit and years before, autumn leaves falling gracefully on cozy peaceful Creemore...of beleagured ghosts and ganders treading fearfully up the porch steps in pursuit of loot...being away - so far away, and for so long, makes you acutely aware of what's back there..time for reflection, remembering,nostalgic, sad sometimes...specially at night..days full of workshop planning..material getting, yes i found a great access to latex house paint for my workshop thurs and friday. Costs are crazy,a litre of paint going for $16., double what we pay here -tomorrow i will be mixing colours from 9 pots into 30 pouring into plastic containers: still hot in pursuit of our common kitchen sponge, and water spray bottles, they don't exist here it seem...but other than that set to go..great help from my project coordinator Mary Mesa who lives out in what is called the 'high density area' of Harare..a thirty minute busride from the city centre, ghetto she calls it...about a million people out here, sometimes 20 to a house..life is lived outdoors in the blasting sweltering heat of summer here, much like JUne or July back home on a really hot day, hot - arid, scruffy, not alot of shade..little plots of garden hopefully growing lettuce, cucs, carrots here and there, mainly red sand scruffy, worn with years of tread, well behaved children playing here and there sneaking a peak at me,odd looking, white, the only one here, and maybe the first one they have seen..babies glued to the back of their mom, tied with blankets, towels, wrapped tight around her chest, clusters of people attempting to eak out a living selling something anything, to someone, anyone on the side of the road. Here is where the highest density of Aids is..I'm told someone in every home suffers..with the rest of the family desperately trying to help..ICA is making wonderful inroads into this community - this one and five others surrounding Harares...
Mastered sort of, the public bus system this afternoon...crazy, hundreds of vans, busses, people squeezed in, on top of each other..music blasting - windows wide open, about 40 cents a ride..cheap to us, but a fortune to people here..
I'm glad to finally get the bus system. transportation is limited here..Yesterday, we ran out of fuel on the family car, had to take out its battery and hook it onto another vehicle to get the kids to school..sense of freedom to hit the road on my own..it's okay for me to take these buses, safe, I feel safe..
Happy Halloween...and for me, tonight, missing home..one of the other sides of being on the other side...have a good one!