Darkness in the alley

Since I started blogin a few weeks ago, I have realized some bloggers tend to blog daily and there sites seem to fill up with interesting stuff and photos and such quickly.  I had intended to try to post weekly just thoughts and perspectives now and then. How much is too much and how little is too little.  If communicating is worth doing It should be done well but how well can a farm boy be expected to communicate.  I can make the sounds of dogs, cats,  cows, and pigs well enough but the arrogance to think I have something to write in a public forum that is something again. 

 I know I have written many Emails over the years since Diana Anthony Joshua and I first moved from our homeland into the unknown.  Some reported events were more interesting than others.  

One that comes to mind was the first t

ime my trash can was stolen from in front of my house.  It was a rusted-out 55 gal. barrel which had served to ship fuel to some remote place in the heart of the unknown and over time had rusted through.  It could no longer hold liquids but it was fine for trash.  In those capitalist run days in that nation the city still did a very nice job of picking up the trash weekly and the refuse workers were friendly and we thanked them with a bag of Mangos or some cookies from time to time.  All seemed right in the unknown.  

Until that fateful day when I put out the trash in the morning and by noon my trash and rusted out barrel were gone.  No big problem as I knew there were a supply of it's twin waiting to be converted from perforated, leaking, damaged, dented, cast aside barrels to wonderfully fresh orange trash cans.  It was a simple conversion requiring only turning the barrel over and cutting out the bottom.  They always leak on the bottom first.  Equipped with my new trash can I returned home and unloaded it by the handy little gate where the can slept.  By the time I entered the house through the 2 doors, 3 or 4 locks, and returned to the spot it had joined it's predecessor in the Bermuda triangle or similar land of vanquished, lost, and  wandering trash cans.  At the time it was kind of strange that people would steel a used barrel that had been used to ship AvGas which was rusted and had holes in it, from in front of my house in broad daylight no less.  Water from that barrel would be dangerous to drink it would always smell of 100LL avgas and it would leak so using it as a water reservoir for someone's home seemed unlikely, and who but a foreigner would bother with a barrel for trash.  Asi la vida I guess, such is life.  Our next trash can the "third brother Darrel" was attached to the wall with some aircraft control cable and thus saved from wandering the hinder-lands aimlessly for eternity with Darrel 1 and Darrel 2.  (names shamelessly pirated from The Newhart show long ago and far away)

Here we just carry the bags of trash to the spot by the building where the trash is left.  There are a number of recycling engineers there who promptly rip open the bags and sift though the refuse for any valued item we foolishly discarded.  They leave the rest for the trash truck guys to shovel into the truck.  Sometimes they burn part to keep warm at night.

Life can be hard and staying alive is tough, every bit of glass, plastic, metal, or bit with value is collected and carried off to be sold or traded to meet some need.  Men without an anchor wandering aimlessly without hope without a plan without a home.  One reacts with sadness and a helpless feeling.  Who am I to see people in this condition and not be able to help, to make a difference.  How dare I witness this without being able to feed, clothe, and heal.  Too many people out here in the unknown will never feel the global recession.  If it is cold tonight some will not make it through the night.  We read stories of our countrymen being reduced to living in their car.  Most out here in the unknown have never dared dream of ever being rich enough to own a car.  What do I have to offer, but this ache in my heart, this tear in my eye, this lump in my throat.  How do I share Hope with those who don't even realize that there is Hope and they too can know it.