April 30 Random observations (aka excerpts from letters)

I don’t remember how much of this has made it into earlier blogs. Please forgive any redundancies. :)

I can’t believe it’s been two months already. Where did the time go? Why didn’t I spend more of it studying? Eek!

I’m loving my village. It’s a high desert, with virtually no vegetation outside of the irrigated fields. It’s ringed by mountains that have been battered by repeated rounds of crashing into Europe and North America over the past 500 million years. And there’s no grass or trees to obstruct the view – just a few bramble-bushes. It’s a geologist’s dream come true. :) As an environmental educator, though, I’m concerned for what this means about drought conditions and local ecology. (Though it did rain for half an hour this afternoon) But I have months to work all that out, inshallah.

My village still doesn’t have internet access, but they promise that it’s coming. Sometime. I won’t hold my breath, but it’s possible it’ll be in town before I finish my service. It already has 1200 residents, three schools, a police station, a hotel, several hotels and cafes, a few markets, and two paved roads.