Thoughts....

The more I am here, it amazes me how this country is a study in contrasts. Yesterday, I was in my taxi going to the mall to make some purchases and was shocked to see who was sharing the road. In less than a 10 minute ride on the "highway", I saw a Bentley with a lone man in the back seat reading the paper beside a motorcycle carrying 4 people. A mile or so up the road, I saw a buggy being pulled by a brahma bull alongside people on bicycles or better described as human powered trucks as these bicycles had beds on the back loaded with produce or building supplies or whatever else the rider was transporting. Attached are some photos that I took that also illustrate the contrasts. The indoor photos are all from inside the Park Plaza hotel, the outside photos are all taken from the rooftop of the same hotel. You can see the contrasts in the modernness of the hotel, especially when compared to the tent tenement across the street. Notice the haze in the air. That is smoke. It permeates the air most days I have been here.