The latest rage in the second of my worlds is proposals. I do not know where all the money is coming from, but everybody and their uncle seems to be writing proposals for funding. Even in the village they recently made a proposal for government funding to repair a roadside canal that has been leaking all over the road for the last 10 years, and to repair the road that has been damaged by the water.
A lady who teaches at a public high school said that her school had recently put together a proposal for a computer lab for the school. She had suggested asking for flash drives as well and they got them. Another village wrote a proposal for 2000 cacao seedlings and got them. This has now gotten them all excited about writing funding proposals for other things.
Friends in other areas though, were more gloomy about the current rage of proposal writing, citing many proposals wrtten, projects started and not finished, people neglecting their jobs, neglecting the maintainance of their farms or other livelihood because of the glitter of easy money through writing proposals. They fear a big let down when the free money stops, which inevitably it will some day.
A particularly hare-brained proposal I heard about at the provincial level is the plan to build a sugar cane processing factory in the driest village in the province which also happens to sit right smack on the main tectonic fault line. There is plenty of hot sulphur water available but not fresh water. There is currently no sugar cane available so the plan is apparently to deforest a large remote mountain valley and convert the whole thing to 10,000 hectares of sugar cane fields. That valley is currently only accessible by 5 hours of hiking from the end of the road so massive amounts of money will be required to build roads. Then all that sugar cane will have to be transported over major mountains to get to the dry village where the processing factory is to be built. Instead of building the factory on the coast downriver from the valley where water is abundant, they decided to cross over two ranges of higher mountains upstream and build it 30 km inland and then will have to transport sugar another 45 km to the nearest seaport.
The factory is also supposed to produce biofuel and other substances for a total of 7 products. Biofuel is the latest rage in the west and apparently there is big money available for funding. Usually the budget for road building is twice the actual cost because of all the pilfering that is expected to occur. So I can see the attraction of all that money and all that, uh, opportunity.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Monday, October 08, 2007
Fasting Again
15 September 2007
Once again it is the time of the annual fast. Economically, this time is a boon to merchants and a bane to household finances much as Christmas has been in the West. The local village market is already selling prayer clothes and Arabic-style month-of-fasting finery. Many people buy new prayer clothes at this time of year. This is sarongs for men and women, black hats and long-sleeved shirts for men and long white head coverings for women long enough to cover the arms too and leave only the face showing. Many people, especially professionals who have a lot of public events to attend this month, buy special Arabic-style finery to wear. This is ornate pantsuits with long-sleeved tunics or long dresses and fancy head coverings for women, and long fancy shirts for men.
Out in the village there aren’t many professionals so farmers at the local market would mainly be buying new sarongs, new headcoverings, new flip flops for everybody in the family plus a new outfit for everybody in the family but not necessarily Arab style. The women buy baking ingredients for the annual cookie baking: flour, sugar, shortening, eggs, spices, glass jars, cookie cutters and molds, maybe a new box oven to use on top of a kerosene burner. People often like to do home improvement at this time – paint the house, buy new appliances. Motorbike sales boom at this time of the year with special fasting-month terms of credit. Shops have later hours to accomodate the crowds.
It is the custom here to pay employees an extra month’s salary at their special holiday time. So Muslims get it now, Christians at Christmas, and other religions at their main holiday. But even so, people are scrambling for extra money at this time of year. So there are lots of door-to-door salesmen selling sarongs, prayer clothes, footwear, medicines, plasticware, and gadgets. Women have not been left behind. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of small stalls springing up where women sell cooked food in the late afternoon for the convience of folks who fast all day and don’t feel up to cooking. (Not only Muslims take advantage of the extra foodstalls!)
In recent years the government has started getting into decorating. Usually it has been lights, asking every household to put up a bamboo arch with lights or something of that sort. But this year they have lighted artifical coconut trees in the center of main roads! In the land of acres of real coconut plantations, it seems to me just a little bit bizarre! But what do I know? The locals seem to think it’s pretty cool.
Once again it is the time of the annual fast. Economically, this time is a boon to merchants and a bane to household finances much as Christmas has been in the West. The local village market is already selling prayer clothes and Arabic-style month-of-fasting finery. Many people buy new prayer clothes at this time of year. This is sarongs for men and women, black hats and long-sleeved shirts for men and long white head coverings for women long enough to cover the arms too and leave only the face showing. Many people, especially professionals who have a lot of public events to attend this month, buy special Arabic-style finery to wear. This is ornate pantsuits with long-sleeved tunics or long dresses and fancy head coverings for women, and long fancy shirts for men.
Out in the village there aren’t many professionals so farmers at the local market would mainly be buying new sarongs, new headcoverings, new flip flops for everybody in the family plus a new outfit for everybody in the family but not necessarily Arab style. The women buy baking ingredients for the annual cookie baking: flour, sugar, shortening, eggs, spices, glass jars, cookie cutters and molds, maybe a new box oven to use on top of a kerosene burner. People often like to do home improvement at this time – paint the house, buy new appliances. Motorbike sales boom at this time of the year with special fasting-month terms of credit. Shops have later hours to accomodate the crowds.
It is the custom here to pay employees an extra month’s salary at their special holiday time. So Muslims get it now, Christians at Christmas, and other religions at their main holiday. But even so, people are scrambling for extra money at this time of year. So there are lots of door-to-door salesmen selling sarongs, prayer clothes, footwear, medicines, plasticware, and gadgets. Women have not been left behind. In recent years there has been an increase in the number of small stalls springing up where women sell cooked food in the late afternoon for the convience of folks who fast all day and don’t feel up to cooking. (Not only Muslims take advantage of the extra foodstalls!)
In recent years the government has started getting into decorating. Usually it has been lights, asking every household to put up a bamboo arch with lights or something of that sort. But this year they have lighted artifical coconut trees in the center of main roads! In the land of acres of real coconut plantations, it seems to me just a little bit bizarre! But what do I know? The locals seem to think it’s pretty cool.
Bureaucrats-in-training
14 September 2007
Communication is difficult in this place. It can partly be blamed on a lack of great infrastructure. But mostly it can be blamed on the human factor.
News flies faster by word of mouth here than it does on the internet. Yet, how accurate is that news? It would make a great research topic.
A friend of mine here has been applying to become a civil servant for years. She has submitted countless applications with countless supporting documentation. Yet it seems there is never an end to it. What people need to submit in the application process seems to be forever in flux. In fact it seems to be passed down word of mouth from the national capital, much like the old game “telephone”. Because no matter how diligent they are to submit all the requirements they’ve been told to submit, inevitably there is always some other thing that wasn’t submitted that nullifies everybody’s application. Perhaps the local bureauocrats weren’t listening attentatively and failed to pass on the complete list?
The central government claims there is a teacher shortage. So it agrees to hire temporary teachers at ¼ the salary with the promise that after a year they can appy to be civil servants after which they will receive full salary. But the years roll by and they are still hanging, having submitted their “folios” several times. If one was conspiracy minded one might just begin to wonder if it wasn’t all deliberate to save the government some money, as these people struggle valiently on at ¼ salary ever hoping, and at their own expense filing application after application, having to even make their own copies of the application forms and the folders to store them in at their own personal expense. Every time there’s another announcement about submitting new applications they spend more time running around getting copies and signatures and standing in lines than they do teaching. The local provincial level of government is very adept at diverting funds from the central government.
Finally, after 5 years one friend has been told that several of them have been accepted and will have a 20-day training next month (which they must pay for – 8 months worth of the “temporary teacher” salary they have been scraping by with.) After the training, it is said they will receive their official letter. For another whopping fee no doubt.
This is how new bureauocrats are trained. Is it any wonder if they too seek to milk the system to recup their losses when they finally get accepted?
Communication is difficult in this place. It can partly be blamed on a lack of great infrastructure. But mostly it can be blamed on the human factor.
News flies faster by word of mouth here than it does on the internet. Yet, how accurate is that news? It would make a great research topic.
A friend of mine here has been applying to become a civil servant for years. She has submitted countless applications with countless supporting documentation. Yet it seems there is never an end to it. What people need to submit in the application process seems to be forever in flux. In fact it seems to be passed down word of mouth from the national capital, much like the old game “telephone”. Because no matter how diligent they are to submit all the requirements they’ve been told to submit, inevitably there is always some other thing that wasn’t submitted that nullifies everybody’s application. Perhaps the local bureauocrats weren’t listening attentatively and failed to pass on the complete list?
The central government claims there is a teacher shortage. So it agrees to hire temporary teachers at ¼ the salary with the promise that after a year they can appy to be civil servants after which they will receive full salary. But the years roll by and they are still hanging, having submitted their “folios” several times. If one was conspiracy minded one might just begin to wonder if it wasn’t all deliberate to save the government some money, as these people struggle valiently on at ¼ salary ever hoping, and at their own expense filing application after application, having to even make their own copies of the application forms and the folders to store them in at their own personal expense. Every time there’s another announcement about submitting new applications they spend more time running around getting copies and signatures and standing in lines than they do teaching. The local provincial level of government is very adept at diverting funds from the central government.
Finally, after 5 years one friend has been told that several of them have been accepted and will have a 20-day training next month (which they must pay for – 8 months worth of the “temporary teacher” salary they have been scraping by with.) After the training, it is said they will receive their official letter. For another whopping fee no doubt.
This is how new bureauocrats are trained. Is it any wonder if they too seek to milk the system to recup their losses when they finally get accepted?
My favorite airport
September 10 2007
Well, I made it to the village about midnight. It took three flights to get here. The airport just before this place is one of the noisiest places in earth. Just sitting in it for 6 hours is enough to exhaust you for a week! People jabbering, suitcases clackity-clacking, cell phones ringing and beeping - all on extra high volume. People don’t seem to know how to change their ringtones or maybe they just all like the default so it’s easy to tell who has a Sony-Erickson, who has a Nokia and who has a Motorola by the tone. Because it was so noisy, people had to shout to be heard on their cell phones. In addition kids were screaming, televisions and radios blaring, and of course the endless announcements: “For operational reasons flight XYZ will be delayed...”. And don't forget the noise of the jets outside.
When I first arrived there was no place to sit. Several plane-loads of passengers were still sitting there, their flights delayed because the vice president had been visiting and was leaving and as a matter of "respect" no other planes were permtted to land or take off until his party had finished their leave-taking ceremonies and departed. So I toured the bookshops with my heavy carry-ons. The coffee shops were full too but finally I spotted somebody leaving and managed to scoot in and grab their table and was able to have some coffee and swap my cellphone SIMs around. Finally planes started taking off and I was even able to find a seat right in front of the air conditioner! (It took over an hour before I got cold enough to move.)
Not only is that airport noisy but it is minimally cooled. They have a special smoking lounge but the air seems to get recycled into the general atmosphere anyway. So it is not the most pleasant place to have to spend 6 hours and today my respiratory system is feeling it. However, there has been a small improvement, they painted the translucent glass partitions in the women's bathroom! It is no longer see through!
Well, I made it to the village about midnight. It took three flights to get here. The airport just before this place is one of the noisiest places in earth. Just sitting in it for 6 hours is enough to exhaust you for a week! People jabbering, suitcases clackity-clacking, cell phones ringing and beeping - all on extra high volume. People don’t seem to know how to change their ringtones or maybe they just all like the default so it’s easy to tell who has a Sony-Erickson, who has a Nokia and who has a Motorola by the tone. Because it was so noisy, people had to shout to be heard on their cell phones. In addition kids were screaming, televisions and radios blaring, and of course the endless announcements: “For operational reasons flight XYZ will be delayed...”. And don't forget the noise of the jets outside.
When I first arrived there was no place to sit. Several plane-loads of passengers were still sitting there, their flights delayed because the vice president had been visiting and was leaving and as a matter of "respect" no other planes were permtted to land or take off until his party had finished their leave-taking ceremonies and departed. So I toured the bookshops with my heavy carry-ons. The coffee shops were full too but finally I spotted somebody leaving and managed to scoot in and grab their table and was able to have some coffee and swap my cellphone SIMs around. Finally planes started taking off and I was even able to find a seat right in front of the air conditioner! (It took over an hour before I got cold enough to move.)
Not only is that airport noisy but it is minimally cooled. They have a special smoking lounge but the air seems to get recycled into the general atmosphere anyway. So it is not the most pleasant place to have to spend 6 hours and today my respiratory system is feeling it. However, there has been a small improvement, they painted the translucent glass partitions in the women's bathroom! It is no longer see through!
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Rants from the mayor
The mayor of this city has a weekly television appearance where he can rant about his current annoyances. It is kind of like giving public warning. Since the show is on Sunday afternoons that means that the Monday paper has a rehash of the highlights.
A few weeks ago he was ranting about the slow (ie non-existent) progress on replacing the bridge that collapsed last April. The latest word is that construction will start some time this month and will hopefully finish by next March.
This week the mayor is annoyed because a certain hotel in town does not comply with the mayor’s smoking ban which states that there is to be no smoking in public areas and that businesses must designate smoking areas. The hotel apparently has a lot of Korean guests and Korean businessmen are reputed to be big time smokers. So the mayor’s rant included coments about how Koreans also had to obey the law. Well, actually the hotel feels that it DOES comply with the law because it has declared the entire hotel a smoking area. Unfortunately for the hotel, the mayor is not impressed and has threatened to close it down if it does not comply.
The other noteworthy rant this week was against the boys who sell durien candy at the bus terminal. It seems these young lads have adopted a new business technique. They board the busses and sit in the seats with their wares. Then they insist that when the passengers board and wish to sit down they must first either buy a box of durien candy at double the normal price or else pay the boy a fee. I guess it is a seat warming fee? Anyway the mayor ordered the terminal officials to stop the boys’ illegal activity or the officials would face his wrath.
Remember that in this country, the mayor is king. Stay tuned for more rants from the mayor...
A few weeks ago he was ranting about the slow (ie non-existent) progress on replacing the bridge that collapsed last April. The latest word is that construction will start some time this month and will hopefully finish by next March.
This week the mayor is annoyed because a certain hotel in town does not comply with the mayor’s smoking ban which states that there is to be no smoking in public areas and that businesses must designate smoking areas. The hotel apparently has a lot of Korean guests and Korean businessmen are reputed to be big time smokers. So the mayor’s rant included coments about how Koreans also had to obey the law. Well, actually the hotel feels that it DOES comply with the law because it has declared the entire hotel a smoking area. Unfortunately for the hotel, the mayor is not impressed and has threatened to close it down if it does not comply.
The other noteworthy rant this week was against the boys who sell durien candy at the bus terminal. It seems these young lads have adopted a new business technique. They board the busses and sit in the seats with their wares. Then they insist that when the passengers board and wish to sit down they must first either buy a box of durien candy at double the normal price or else pay the boy a fee. I guess it is a seat warming fee? Anyway the mayor ordered the terminal officials to stop the boys’ illegal activity or the officials would face his wrath.
Remember that in this country, the mayor is king. Stay tuned for more rants from the mayor...
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
On-going saga of crashed plane
Remember the mysterious plane crash nine months ago? (See posts of January 5 and 25 and February 1.) Well, after months of dithering over who would pay for it, a US or Cypriot salvage ship (depending on the reporter) was finally hired by the airline to go retrieve the black boxes. The ship was equipped with sonar, underwater cameras and an unmanned robot capable of going as deep as 6,000 meters (20,000 feet). The ship arrived in the region last week. It took a few days to finish the last paperwork details before it was finally permitted to proceed to the crash site. It sounds like it was almost overladen with rubber-necking officials, local and foreign, as it churned its way to the site. Nevertheless it finished its mission in short order. Today it was announced that both black boxes were retrieved from a depth of around 2000 meters. Local papers mentioned that other wreckage assumed to be from the plane was also retrieved from the sea floor but that no human remains had been spotted. After 9 months I suppose not. The black boxes were immediately sent to the US and some reporters opined that they would be read within the week and analyzed within a month. I’m not holding my breath, but I am very curious as to the findings.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Sina's Feet
In case you were wondering, Sina's feet are better now after having kept them wrapped in banana leaves all week. Hmmm, maybe we could patent it???
Another war
There’s a war going on south of here, with government troops fighting against rebels. (Actually this sort of off-and-on skirmishing has been going on for years, decades even. But a couple of months ago the rebels beheaded nearly a dozen soldiers so the government sort of feels it can’t just let that go. Thus the current war.) We are told that the rebels may try to take it out on civilians so we should expect security will be tighter here too.
They took the unusual precaution of starting to check baggage on passenger ships now. For their efforts, the other day they found a guy bringing a sack of bananas and sweet potatoes on a ship travelling to the capital. And deep inside the sack was also a grenade and another explosive. It’s part of the local culture to bring a gift, especially food, for those you are visiting or for those at home when you return from a trip. But not usual at all to bring them explosives.
Bus bombings in the rural areas occur all too often as well. A couple of weeks ago a local pastor was killed when a bomb went off in some baggage at a bus terminal. He was standing near the pile of bags waiting for his wife to return from the ladies’ room.
Two other bombs were found and defused this past week. Some of these bombings are thought to be related to extortionists who plant bombs in buses when their demands aren’t met. Only explosives experts can tell extortionist bombings apart from rebel retaliation bombings. For the dead and injured, it’s all the same. Passengers are mostly gratified to now have their bags checked before being allowed to load them on the bus.
They took the unusual precaution of starting to check baggage on passenger ships now. For their efforts, the other day they found a guy bringing a sack of bananas and sweet potatoes on a ship travelling to the capital. And deep inside the sack was also a grenade and another explosive. It’s part of the local culture to bring a gift, especially food, for those you are visiting or for those at home when you return from a trip. But not usual at all to bring them explosives.
Bus bombings in the rural areas occur all too often as well. A couple of weeks ago a local pastor was killed when a bomb went off in some baggage at a bus terminal. He was standing near the pile of bags waiting for his wife to return from the ladies’ room.
Two other bombs were found and defused this past week. Some of these bombings are thought to be related to extortionists who plant bombs in buses when their demands aren’t met. Only explosives experts can tell extortionist bombings apart from rebel retaliation bombings. For the dead and injured, it’s all the same. Passengers are mostly gratified to now have their bags checked before being allowed to load them on the bus.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Things I do not understand
There are some things I still do not understand.
Today I got a series of frantic text messages from the second of my worlds about Sina. Sina is semi paralyzed. 30 years ago she was playing Tarzan and fell off of a jungle swing and damaged her spine. She recovered to the point of being able to get around with two long sticks. But in recent years her legs have gotten weaker and she has more difficulty walking at all. She’s really into warm water compresses, pehaps it makes her legs feel better or maybe she feels it will have some healing powers. But since her legs have gotten weaker, she also has less sensation in her feet. She has burned herself several times with water that was too hot. Last year she burned her feet and decided to treat the foot with local herbs to make it heal faster. So she applied the herbs and wrapped the foot in plastic for several days. I ended up treating her for the beginnings of gangrene in the tips of two toes. Thankfully after two courses of Cipro, ands lots of exposure to the air they did eventually heal. (I don’t think you want to hear about the smell!!)
Well, it seems she has once again burned her feet. Although by now she has a lot of experience with how long it takes for burns to heal, she wanted it to happen faster. So she allowed somebody to come and try a “new treatment” on her: one liter of salt mixed with 1 liter of kerosene plus the equivalent of a liter-sized chunk of ice. They soaked her feet in it. They said at first her feet got hard like ice and then after the ice melted they swelled and blistered. So now her state is MUCH worse than at first and she is in a lot of pain. So they are texting me asking what to do.
Why, oh why would they do such a thing??!!! Did they think “magic” would somehow offset the innate characteristics of the ingredients??? Normal skin would blister with such treatment, how much more burned skin!!! My friend here says maybe it’s because they didn’t go to school. But I don’t recall ever having any teacher telling us not to soak our feet in ice, kerosene and salt, do you?
Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere about trying to force things along faster than they’re meant to go?
Today I got a series of frantic text messages from the second of my worlds about Sina. Sina is semi paralyzed. 30 years ago she was playing Tarzan and fell off of a jungle swing and damaged her spine. She recovered to the point of being able to get around with two long sticks. But in recent years her legs have gotten weaker and she has more difficulty walking at all. She’s really into warm water compresses, pehaps it makes her legs feel better or maybe she feels it will have some healing powers. But since her legs have gotten weaker, she also has less sensation in her feet. She has burned herself several times with water that was too hot. Last year she burned her feet and decided to treat the foot with local herbs to make it heal faster. So she applied the herbs and wrapped the foot in plastic for several days. I ended up treating her for the beginnings of gangrene in the tips of two toes. Thankfully after two courses of Cipro, ands lots of exposure to the air they did eventually heal. (I don’t think you want to hear about the smell!!)
Well, it seems she has once again burned her feet. Although by now she has a lot of experience with how long it takes for burns to heal, she wanted it to happen faster. So she allowed somebody to come and try a “new treatment” on her: one liter of salt mixed with 1 liter of kerosene plus the equivalent of a liter-sized chunk of ice. They soaked her feet in it. They said at first her feet got hard like ice and then after the ice melted they swelled and blistered. So now her state is MUCH worse than at first and she is in a lot of pain. So they are texting me asking what to do.
Why, oh why would they do such a thing??!!! Did they think “magic” would somehow offset the innate characteristics of the ingredients??? Normal skin would blister with such treatment, how much more burned skin!!! My friend here says maybe it’s because they didn’t go to school. But I don’t recall ever having any teacher telling us not to soak our feet in ice, kerosene and salt, do you?
Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere about trying to force things along faster than they’re meant to go?
Sunday, August 12, 2007
What is normal?
I was writing to a friend who is in the US for a couple of months and told her things seem normal here. But what’s normal?
Normal here means that you expect to have your bag checked every time you go to the grocery store, the hospital, malls or any biggish store. When things are “tense” you might even get a pat down at the malls. You can expect as many as four searches (two x-ray and sometimes up to two hand searches of bags) at the airport not including the security check of the car you arrive in.
Normal also means that if you should bother to look up the weather forcast on the internet it would invariably say 60% chance of rain and thunderstorms. I am not actually sure what that means. It certainly doesn’t rain 60% (14.4 hours) of the day. But it does rain on far more than 219 days (60%) in the year. In fact it typically rains for at least a short while almost every day. So, I am not quite sure what exactly it means to say that there is a 60% chance of rain.
Normal means you can spend a fair amount of time standing in lines at ATM machines because most things are still paid for in cash. Some big stores take credit cards but since the system is off-line so often, it is usually much faster to pay cash. You also spend a fair amount of time standing in lines to pay utilities. They do not have a system for mailing checks or automatic deductions, but the telephone company does have a cool touch screen machine you can use if you pay by check.
Normal means that the rich have body guards – even when they go to the dentist.
Normal means that aside from the school year, you keep track of the passage of time by what fruits are in season.
Normal means that your doctor keeps your medical record on index cards. Normal means that you can get lab work and most tests done today, or tomorrow at the latest, and you can pick up the results the same day or the next.
Normal means that traffic flows better without traffic cops.
Normal means that at least one of your neighbors raises roosters for cock fighting. (So you never need an alarm clock.)
Normal means that somebody in the general neigborhood is having a party with BIG speakers on any given evening, though a recent city ordinence has limited most of it to before 10pm on school nights.
And normal means that it is not smart to use illegal drugs in this town. Killings of drug users and pushers still occur weekly by mysterious perpetrators.
Normal here means that you expect to have your bag checked every time you go to the grocery store, the hospital, malls or any biggish store. When things are “tense” you might even get a pat down at the malls. You can expect as many as four searches (two x-ray and sometimes up to two hand searches of bags) at the airport not including the security check of the car you arrive in.
Normal also means that if you should bother to look up the weather forcast on the internet it would invariably say 60% chance of rain and thunderstorms. I am not actually sure what that means. It certainly doesn’t rain 60% (14.4 hours) of the day. But it does rain on far more than 219 days (60%) in the year. In fact it typically rains for at least a short while almost every day. So, I am not quite sure what exactly it means to say that there is a 60% chance of rain.
Normal means you can spend a fair amount of time standing in lines at ATM machines because most things are still paid for in cash. Some big stores take credit cards but since the system is off-line so often, it is usually much faster to pay cash. You also spend a fair amount of time standing in lines to pay utilities. They do not have a system for mailing checks or automatic deductions, but the telephone company does have a cool touch screen machine you can use if you pay by check.
Normal means that the rich have body guards – even when they go to the dentist.
Normal means that aside from the school year, you keep track of the passage of time by what fruits are in season.
Normal means that your doctor keeps your medical record on index cards. Normal means that you can get lab work and most tests done today, or tomorrow at the latest, and you can pick up the results the same day or the next.
Normal means that traffic flows better without traffic cops.
Normal means that at least one of your neighbors raises roosters for cock fighting. (So you never need an alarm clock.)
Normal means that somebody in the general neigborhood is having a party with BIG speakers on any given evening, though a recent city ordinence has limited most of it to before 10pm on school nights.
And normal means that it is not smart to use illegal drugs in this town. Killings of drug users and pushers still occur weekly by mysterious perpetrators.
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