It's been a long week, and I woke up this Saturday feeling like I was teetering on the edge of okay. It could go either way. I put Wilbur on repeat on a song I love, a song I need, and I talked to some people I love. Then I set out for one of this city's myriad Public Events. I have somehow managed to move to a city full of people like me, people who never quite left behind their eight-year old selves, which means lots of Public Events that would be called nice for the kids elsewhere but here we call them awesome for everyone. Heh.
I was supposed to ride with some friends, and then plans changed and I was supposed to take the train and meet them there, so I walked a long way in the shriveling heat from the train to the park. Fortunately, I learned some things in Southern Sudan (and don't whine to me, wimps. this 100 degree weather is nothing. try walking for an hour under full sun at noon four degrees north of the Equator in a tropical swamp and then we will talk). I learned the following: take water (although usually I disobey this one, myself, so maybe I haven't quite learned it yet), wear sleeves (nothing like a blistering shoulder sunburn to make life suck, as I learned first on the Equator in Kenya in university. 36 hours home on the plane resulted in a t-shirt that was stuck to my festering blisters. yum), put sunscreen on your head where you part your hair, seek out every bit of shade. That's pretty much it.
Come to think of it, it's not even that hot here. When you are comfortable sitting in the shade, it's not really that hot.
So, Public Event. It was fun. My inner eight-year old was delighted. But after a while, when my friends had left for other activities, I got a little tired of the crowd, and I wandered off to sit alone under a tree. I got bitten by a tiny white insect, a bite that itched for quite some time, and I had to kill a very large bee out of fear of being stung. I wrote for a while, and I watched people climbing past me to the main event. I listened to the cheers from afar. All was right with the world. I had forgotten how I need trees, and how sometimes seeing only the same six blocks over and over starts to get to me.
On the way home, I stopped at a coffee shop to borrow their bathroom and procure something involving ice. (This is another thing. Do you have any idea just how lucky we are to have ice readily available? Nothing, nothing, nothing is ever cold in a place with no electricity.) I had forgotten the cardinal water rule, even though I had a water bottle with me, and I slumped on the counter and said, "I am too dehydrated to think of what I want to drink."
I was supposed to ride with some friends, and then plans changed and I was supposed to take the train and meet them there, so I walked a long way in the shriveling heat from the train to the park. Fortunately, I learned some things in Southern Sudan (and don't whine to me, wimps. this 100 degree weather is nothing. try walking for an hour under full sun at noon four degrees north of the Equator in a tropical swamp and then we will talk). I learned the following: take water (although usually I disobey this one, myself, so maybe I haven't quite learned it yet), wear sleeves (nothing like a blistering shoulder sunburn to make life suck, as I learned first on the Equator in Kenya in university. 36 hours home on the plane resulted in a t-shirt that was stuck to my festering blisters. yum), put sunscreen on your head where you part your hair, seek out every bit of shade. That's pretty much it.
Come to think of it, it's not even that hot here. When you are comfortable sitting in the shade, it's not really that hot.
So, Public Event. It was fun. My inner eight-year old was delighted. But after a while, when my friends had left for other activities, I got a little tired of the crowd, and I wandered off to sit alone under a tree. I got bitten by a tiny white insect, a bite that itched for quite some time, and I had to kill a very large bee out of fear of being stung. I wrote for a while, and I watched people climbing past me to the main event. I listened to the cheers from afar. All was right with the world. I had forgotten how I need trees, and how sometimes seeing only the same six blocks over and over starts to get to me.
On the way home, I stopped at a coffee shop to borrow their bathroom and procure something involving ice. (This is another thing. Do you have any idea just how lucky we are to have ice readily available? Nothing, nothing, nothing is ever cold in a place with no electricity.) I had forgotten the cardinal water rule, even though I had a water bottle with me, and I slumped on the counter and said, "I am too dehydrated to think of what I want to drink."
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