The midday heat is not a temperature at all. It is a slow thickness to the air that clings to the skin and collects as sweat. My clothes are soaked with it. In the mornings, we rise to discover that our sheets are damp from it. The heat is something that one needs to move through, like a swimmer through water. The people here do not seem to feel it, though they smile and nod sympathetically when we complain.
Deciding that the expected was more likely to happen than not, I ventured to the blacksmith again today in the hopes of actually seeing some smithing. We found the smith, Bangali, assembling a gun. I believe David said it was a shotgun, though it looked more like an old fashioned rifle to me. But then, I would have to admit that fire arm identification is not my area of expertise.
The amount of knowledge that the smith must have is staggering. Guns are pretty particular things. Anything wrong in their construction can lead to deadly mishaps, and he was so sure in his work that he assembled it almost without a pause.
In other news, the reactions of my peers to the bathroom situation here is worth commenting on. There are three nearly identical stalls behind our living quarters. Each has a door which opens into a cement room about 5 feet square. In the center of the room, there is a hole about six inches in diameter. Each stall serves as both toilet and shower, a simplicity that I find admirable. Showers are actually bucket baths, which use surprisingly little water once you get the hang of them. My peers’ reluctance to use the stalls as toilets seems to me to speak of a discomfort and unfamiliarity with their bodies. I think I would have been uncomfortable with the situation in high school, but I’m pretty over it now.
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