You Just Never Know

Some days strike me as unusual, and some as just plain bizarre. Deacon likes to sit on my balcony and watch everything happening below. Of course, there's the typical water buffalo grazing and sleeping, piles of manure and ladies making patties. Then you have the guys with their oxen drawn carts, sitting in the declining Ganges, digging up the rich silty dirt. And every once in a while you see something not so common. Today it was a gang of dogs (and I do mean gang - they split the territory of my street) chasing a cow. At first the cow was putting up a good fight, showing them her horns and chasing back. But it quickly changed and it started running towards my house, with the dogs in tow. It then made a turn and went down Deacon's street and the dogs let it alone. I have a feeling they didn't like the cow nosing around their trash heap (some days they get along fine there). Then, on my way back from visiting a friend I saw something gruesome - this would be the time that young ones might want to stop reading. It was a dead dog (something I've seen about once a month), but a front leg and a back leg were tied to two different sticks (or trees - I was too shocked to look closer). I'm an animal lover and it makes me sad to see dogs treated so horribly. But, these aren't house pets, they are wild street dogs, and I've seen them get aggressive with each other, other animals and people. It still seems a somewhat horrible existence.

Home life is coming along. I've got all my ceiling fans hooked up (and they'll run on the inverter, so when the power is out I'll still have some breeze). All my lights are now working and I just got some fixtures hung for my curtains (rods will probably come tomorrow. It's been fun watching it all come together, though sometimes a little tiring, hard to schedule much around it.

I've got internet problems again. The USB modem stick I'm borrowing from Dan was supposed to be switched to unlimited time on Jan. 8, but for some reason it was shut off while they were out of country. Then he was told that I'd gone over minutes and owed a ridiculous amount of money (the equivalent of $60). He paid it, which meant I paid it and said that it was some overage from before the switch. I questioned this, but Dan said that's just how it was. So now I've been trying to upgrade things on my computer, catch up on downloads, etc. This morning as I was trying to connect to get online with an IT guy (we're working on the situation of lost folders and security/encryption), it did the same thing. Dan says they want more money, they I'm over minutes. How the heck are you over minutes on an unlimited plan? Needless to say, he's not paying this time (I'm glad, because I wasn't going to pay either) and he's trying to get it worked out. Nothing is quick here, so I will sit back and see what happens. God willing, next week I'll be able to get my own connection at home.