To school

13th of October

The way to the school goes along a seemingly complicated but, when you understand it, fairly direct road. Maybe road is not the appropriate word, more a lack of houses, but it's called a road and since everything comes down to semantics is it just a matter of definition. The hard part of getting where you want is to define what actually is a road instead of a driveway, an animal path or something else. Not that it made any difference to the usage, but for your own safety, for example, was this very important. The way to school can surprisingly be quite elaborately described as "take a right and follow the road". It's then a question of defining what "take right" and "the road" really means. Then of course there's the problem, even if you have your definitions clear and ready, of getting overrun by a wheeled local.

Some would say that the motorcyclists here act almost Italian. I'm going to leave that definition pretty open for personal inputs and adjustments, just stating that the horn is the dearly beloved way to communicate with everything, even God (read Gods) and all creatures in his (read their) kingdom. It could mean just about anything, only depending on the context which I always lack. I sometimes wonder if I'm supposed to answer in some way, but then there's the question of whether it's "thank you" or whatever mean sentence I'm currently using. The main thing to remember is, just as animals, that they are more afraid of you then you are of them.

I got to school and sat down to wait. It was just five minutes until the kids would come running through that gate. I had found the school to look rather homely until someone said it reminded him of a Cambodian prison from the 1960s. At least this one got a basketball plan and pretty colors but the view was ruined forever.

There was apparently only one kid from the orphanage left at school and unfortunately she had to take me back home instead of the opposite. I clearly didn't have my definitions right, and it bothered me for a while. I had a cute idea about us skipping hand in hand like an idyllic countryside movie from the early 90s, but gave me a funny look of not understanding and went to her friend. Apparently I was obsolete and, not anymore shockingly, unneeded.

So I took a stroll a couple of steps behind on our way back to the orphanage. The sun had just been covered by clouds and the sunglasses, who in sunlight felt completely inadequate, actually made some difference. The dusty road, that really wasn't a road but more like just dust without houses, was calmer now with people going in a less stressful way. My feet looked almost native, with a deep brown sunburn covered with a thick layer of dust, but it's possible that the sunburn was confused with just an other layer of dust. However where they gonna be cleaned when I got back home. Probably the rest of me as well, just for the sake of it.

I'm sure that there was some bird singing somewhere, but my attention was on the raptors circling over our heads. There were probably no birds singing, not with these magnificent hunters patrolling above. The smell of this place I still don't know since I've had a cold for the past week from my trek. Of what I could see around was this only a good thing but you never knew. Maybe it smelled amazing, even thou previous experience would bet to differ. I looked up at the circling raptors again. Right now I only wanted to wash my feet, they started to dissolve in the dust.