It's hot here.
The apartments have no air conditioning. In the evenings, people sit outside, talk, try to catch a breeze.
I am lucky on teaching days, as there is a/c in the two police stations where I work.
The refrigerator in the apartment is not operational, but fortunately the tap water is fairly cold, and usually, once a day, my hostess brings forth a partially frozen bottle of water that she has pulled from an unknown source in the building.
I have learned that if I lie very still on my bed beneath the window, I will be rewarded with sporadic breezes which, compared to the dead heat surrounding me, are cooling.
Sometimes, I stick my head out my bedroom window and see the building across the way. I see other people's heads doing the same, facing my building. Shirtless men, women in tank tops. They seek cooling breezes and check out the goings-on of neighbors below and across. I see laundry hanging outside their windows. Today, I begin a pictorial study of the Building Behind Me.
I don't really know what my interest is in this. Maybe I'm trying to find beauty in a place that is decidedly not beautiful. Or to document evidence of thriving life in man-made structures that appear designed solely to warehouse humans. (Which, indeed, they were. These "new" Rustavi buildings were constructed about 50 years ago to house workers employed at nearby factories.)
The apartments have no air conditioning. In the evenings, people sit outside, talk, try to catch a breeze.
I am lucky on teaching days, as there is a/c in the two police stations where I work.
The refrigerator in the apartment is not operational, but fortunately the tap water is fairly cold, and usually, once a day, my hostess brings forth a partially frozen bottle of water that she has pulled from an unknown source in the building.
I have learned that if I lie very still on my bed beneath the window, I will be rewarded with sporadic breezes which, compared to the dead heat surrounding me, are cooling.
Sometimes, I stick my head out my bedroom window and see the building across the way. I see other people's heads doing the same, facing my building. Shirtless men, women in tank tops. They seek cooling breezes and check out the goings-on of neighbors below and across. I see laundry hanging outside their windows. Today, I begin a pictorial study of the Building Behind Me.
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| Building Behind Me 072711 |
I don't really know what my interest is in this. Maybe I'm trying to find beauty in a place that is decidedly not beautiful. Or to document evidence of thriving life in man-made structures that appear designed solely to warehouse humans. (Which, indeed, they were. These "new" Rustavi buildings were constructed about 50 years ago to house workers employed at nearby factories.)
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