This open road is bleak. It is dry, and the diesel from cars exhausts the once-breathable hot air. Mountains shade the background like smog, and the barren land empties away.
I am coming back from the village where I will live for two years. The road to it has no aesthetic appeal: desolate, eerily quiet. The land’s shade comes only from rusted oilrigs drilling through the hard earth.
It creeps from behind increasingly green foliage. In a village, far enough away from oilrigs is my home. With cows and chickens and geese to eat the mosquitoes, we have tomatoes, cucumbers, pomegranates and figs. We own a puppy, which they caught for me, generically named Toclan (a common name for dogs here) who I will rename Muzaffar, after my language and culture teacher. The shower and toilet are outside, but I can deal, though I wonder what we will do in the winter. There is a major river running through town, which means I can sit to read and write in the humidity and on the muddy bank. I move September 13. I am totally stoked.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment