Having stated my thesis; I have been on self imposed isolation (which means I grounded myself from Facebook, email, twitter, and whatnot) for about a week and a half now (with a very few exceptions) and as usual; I began to notice things.
The image of our former house in Kang hasn't yet had time to dull, nor have my years yielded knowledge enough to answer all of the riddles in live, but this said; my memories of Kang were recently vivified my memories and caused me to realize two things.
Yesterday, my dad and I went running. The path was fairly straight forward (or as much so as a square can be), and my dad asked if I could make the distance, which was two miles. I thought I could and I told him so and with that, we were off.
We ran. Passed the bergade, the high school and the several blocks of houses. But I didn't really look around though I was trying to keep up with dad. I went the entire first stretch and felt fine, it wasn't until about half way on the second leg that I began to feel tired. But at that point I was in the middle of nowhere.
I walked along for a while before I really bothered to note anything at all. Then I felt creative and soon had spoofed Jonathan Coultan's "still alive".
By the time I had finished that, the village has begun to creep up with a similar fashion to that of the new tendrils on a creeping ivy, but it was not the same kind of village I am used to. The houses weren't much more than four gum posts, dipped in tar, wrapped in shade net on all but one side- which was plywood; all topped with corrugated tin roofing. As for the fences that surrounded them; they weren't much more than thorn bushes strategically placed to keep the cows away. The yards were swept clean and the cook shelters were smoking and the scent of corn mush was on the air. I stopped and observed the family that lived there. The children were shod, poorly so but shod none the less; the clothes they wore were worn, and worn through in some places; the children had dirt in there hair I could not have told when the last time they bathed was, nor when the next would be. And even as I studied the deplorable conditions in which these children lived I was neither moved to pity nor to charity nor yet to indignation.
They were happy.
The children were happy.
They were running and playing, laughing and smiling while speaking to each other in Naro.
Turning away, I walked a little farther until I saw a more traditional Rondaval. No one was here, the yard was over grown and the stench of death wafted from the premises.
Turning away a second time, I continued to walk until I saw a brick building, that looked as though it had never even heard of a right angle. The yard was well kept but again there was no one home.
As I got closer to the part of the village that I live in, I saw a block of houses that was a hodgepodge of the three yard types afore mentioned, and I stopped to observe the woman who lived in the rondaval arguing with the man from the stone house in a most heated way. I began to wonder to my self just how trivial what ever they were talking about as I realized that my dad had pulled up beside me in the baakey, I got in and we drove home.
I don't know wether or not it's worth noting that the run physically exhausted me, but just in case it is: the run physically exhausted me. Now, I had gone to close the gate, but I took a step back.
What I saw disturbed me. I saw a house that was built by the hands of a professional, whose beams were 2x4s instead of tar dipped gum poles, the walls of said house were made neither brick nor yet the earth itself, but of gypsum boards! Honest to Goodness gypsum boards! And even then from where I stood, I could hear my brothers and littler sister arguing over who was first player on the Wii.
I can find no logic in my observations. Did you realize the same things that I did?
