saturdays are long

I smell gross. This is what happens when you sweat all day long. Today has been particularly sweaty, too. I regret having thought about cool drinks, because now they are all I want. Hm, koolaid. Hm, orange juice. Hm, ice water. Or, not a drink. What about a POPSICLE? That would be bliss.

Instead, a guest who arrived today gave me a gift of something almost as good: a small green apple. I have been in TLT for only a few days (there are some LOOOONG months coming), and already it was a thrill to hold that little round fruit in my hands and bite into it. It was crisp and tart and all those wonderful apple-y things. It wasn’t cold, but fruit kept in a shady place tastes cool even if it is room temperature. After some days of bland food, it was wonderful. All the food options here are rice and sauces. And then more rice. And oh! A sauce. The sauces all seem to taste about the same, even if some contain beef (which I ate, because, hey, it’s food) and some contain fish. Some salt helps.

The water, while drinkable, tastes a little iffy. This is largely because it is drawn from a bore-hole and then boiled. Sometimes it tastes like dirt. Sometimes it tastes like soap. Sometimes it just tastes off. The filter doesn’t work, although today I had an extended hand-motion conversation with one of the cooks about how to clean the filter by scrubbing it with a brush. When I went to follow up on the scrubbing, I found her scrubbing it with laundry soap, which I think might impact the taste of the water filtered through it just a bit. The problem is that we have no language in common. Neither of us can ask questions of the other. She was doing exactly what I probably looked like I was demonstrating.

In the absence of a filter to make the water taste better, and given that I am thirsty all the time because I am sweating all the time (hey! Thus the smelling bad!), I found a bottle of some orange concentrate, made in Saudi Arabia, in the mess room. I started adding it to my water and while it’s not exactly tasty (I’m sure I’m adding the wrong amount and it’s best served cold), it renders the water much more tolerable.

So now I sit with my water bottle, drinking and drinking and never seeming to have to go to the bathroom. I think I might be a touch dehydrated. The sun is starting to descend and the grass glows golden in its light. Cows are lowing and a child just shouted beyond the patch of corn. I can see the round thatched tukul roofs in every direction except that of our little houses, which are rectangular and have tin roofs that reflect the sun. Two goats come in and try to eat the little tree, but a guard chases them off. I have a touch of a sore throat.