Friday 3 February 2012

Day 8~Bring on the Beggars

Well I figured it was too good to be true and that eventually we would get hounded and today was the day. We decided to take a trek around our area. It seems like we've been out, but really only to go to a destination and we haven't really explored what is around us, so today we went shopping in our area. Everyone has a store here. I can't fathom how every little shop owner can possibly make a profit. There is a drugstore or a jeweler or a tailor or pillow maker (the list is endless) on every single block, sometimes a few of the same stores, right in a row. Crazy!!

I found it to be funny how Mike and I are interested in different things, for example, the padlocks catch his eye every time we walk by a padlock shop, granted there are some unique gigantic padlocks, but I'm so not interested in looking at a padlock. I was just kinda like "what do you need that for?", Mike's response "I don't know, but they're cool". I suppose he could say the same about me and the jewelry, but at least I can wear jewelry.

On our way back from shopping, a trio of young girls (ages 5-9) approaches us begging for money. I'm sure their mom probably sent them to us, but I didn't see her around, so who knows. Not sure where these girls are from because all of the kids around here are in school and they all are dressed in uniforms. These little ones must be from some outside village. Anyway, Mike was gonna give them a quarter, which wouldn't have done them any good anyway, but being the hard ass that I am, I said "don't do it, you'll be asking for trouble". So, we just let them keep grabbing at us, literally grabbing at our arms with their dirty little hands, until we got back to the next block, then they turned back. Now before you all think that I am a total jerk, let me say this, I think it is more appropriate to give out extra tips to the people that are working and doing stuff for us, but with that said I do have a heart and feel bad for some of these kids, so maybe on the last day when they won't see us again or rather when we won't be a target again, maybe then we can give some money to the beggars. Anyway, we got back to our room and proceeded to scrub our hands and arms. Who knows, those kids might've been petting a sick cow or dog before they were touching us??

Later in the day we hooked up with Hitesch (pronounced hee-tesch, in case you've been pronouncing it wrong, like I had been at first) and went to the C9. The interesting thing at the C9 tonight is the construction that is going on next door. Now the buildings that they have here are massive concrete complexes, it's not just shacks in the city. It's all done old school here, all by manual labor and I do mean manual. We watched in awe from an upper window at the C9. One woman, shovels the rock/sand into a big bowl and then she hoists it up on her shoulder and goes and throws it in one of those huge mixers, then after it is mixed and comes out the shoot, a man shovels it into another big bowl (I'm talking huge bowls that are bigger than what you are probably thinking). After he puts it in the bowl, he hands it to another woman, who then hoists it onto her head and walks with it to the guys on the ladder. The ladder guys then pass it up to the top ladder dude, who then pours it into the support column structure. This process is repeated and the next thing ya know, ya got a building, wow!

Another day down, how may more to go?? We'll find out where we are for egg retrieval on Monday. We are ahead of schedule at this point, so it's looking like Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. 

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