TALK THE WALK. Decided that it was time to do my 20K walk again this morning. Tried something different...listened to my Ipod for the first couple of hours. First up was "Three 'Mo Tenors", which are three black guys who sing opera, jazz, spirituals, and most anything else. It's a great CD, and really helped me walk a brisk pace. One of the songs was "America, the Beautiful." The first time through they sang the 2nd verse in a contemporary arrangement, then they sang the lst verse like they learned it in grade school, so I was just a'singin' along with them, with a couple of tears in my eyes, I might add. "Crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea," and all that, you know. I'll bet the shepherds abiding in the fields (just love to say that, since it's true!) thought that American woman is getting crazier by the month!

My enjoyment of the cool day was hampered a bit by an awful stench...a big pile of garbage was burning somewhere nearby. Oh the trash. How I will NOT miss that aspect of life here! I stopped briefly at a cafe for a little coffee along the way. Then after about 2 1/2 hours, the old lower body started feeling the exertion (I was walking a 4-mile hour) big time. Strength training really does make a difference! I did have some Aleve with me, so stopped by a hanoot and asked them for a drink of water so I could take my pills. That is a common courtesy here. Of course, 10 other people likely have drunk from the same plastic cup.

I generally walk facing the oncoming traffic, although it really doesn't make a lot of difference which side one walks on. The danger of that side is when one vehicle is passing another, so often they don't honk to alert you and sometimes they nearly wipe me out. Happened twice today, once with a city bus passing another city bus, which takes up the entire (narrow) road.

Made it though, and had a little lunch with my PCV friend Rebecca who was just finishing up working with her club at the youth center. Grabbed some fruit and a taxi and got home just shortly before a HUGE rainstorm, accompanied for awhile by some small hail. Biggest rain we've had since I arrived. I heard the last country-wide rain storm was so severe (about ten days ago) that some flash flooding took a few lives. These rains are not the norm. No drought this year! Looks like the storm has passed over us here without losing power this time. This photo was taken from my front door. Usually in a heavy rain, there is runoff over a little spillway on the highway over the river. Here you can see it is just running off everywhere.