Yesterday was a work day. Boring and regular. But you know how that goes—up at 6, breakfast, work, a short break for lunch, back to work and then return home a little after 5. It wasn’t until I got home that the day decided to vary.
I got back to the hotel and slumped down in my bed. I had chosen not to run, but my body still felt like I had just taken on a marathon despite sitting all day. My legs cramped, my back and neck were sore, my blister (I don’t know how this even makes sense because I was on my feet for maybe 30 minutes with walking to and from work) had gotten worse throughout the day, and finally I felt like I could sleep for the next three days straight. Given my condition, I was physically and mentally immobile, so I laid down and did some language learning for about an hour.
I concluded that I was done for the day, showered, and was about to get into bed when an email from an old guy named Grandpa Dave changed my mind. It was recommended to me, that to combat my boredom in the office, I push myself to explore the environment around me a little bit.
You may be scoffing at me for struggling to come up with this idea on my own, seeing as it was one of my activity fallbacks when in Ethiopia, but don’t be so quick to judge. I’ve found a routine that I really enjoy and that keeps me comfortable in a perfectly foreign environment. Life is much easier and not at all uncertain or risky this way. But. I’m not in Africa to be comfortable and coddled. It feels like I’m a broken record here, and I’ve most definitely said this all before, but it’s hard for me to make a habit of breaking my routine. Anyways, I needed someone to yank me out of the mind numbing 9 to 5 stupor—good thing I’ve got a great team looking out for me—and I committed myself to go for a walk and forced myself to absorb the environment by taking photos. I decided a theme for the photos, hoping this might be a recurring activity, and like a thief, I entered the dark streets and wandered, shrouded in shadow, scouting storefronts to steal pictures of.
Along my walk I took photos of stores that intrigued me for any given reason. There were some where I wish I had taken a picture (typically ones that interested me because of the bustle of people inside) but it felt awkward and intrusive so I let it go. This one here was pure opportunity—one of the first I passed and I felt comfortable snapping a flick of it.
I really like this picture. Here you can see the full progression of a storefront from its brick base to the fully painted and prepared facade. The natural lighting also really juxtaposes the different construction steps even though each stall is right next to the other. One of my favorites.
Along my walk I decided to get some peanuts to keep me busy. Although this shop is interesting in its isolation, it only slipped in the album due to some bias—it being the spot where I got my peanuts.
I really liked how the motorbike looked out front of this shop, but I unfortunately couldn’t capture it in the way I wished. Anyways, this shop is an interesting one. It is first and foremost a phone repair shop (from my understanding), but it also seemed to serve as a charging station. You can’t make it out in the picture, but when I got up close there was a wall of chargers with a few phones plugged in, and my theory is that the people sitting nearby just out of frame were waiting paying for a bit of phone juice.
At 8:00pm this vegetable stall caught my attention. Although it’s technically not one of the many storefronts, it’s still a shop where trade occurs, so I’ll count it. For me, it brings to mind the sharp contrast between the work life balance of here and back home. I truly don’t know when people sleep. It seems like I go to bed at 9:00pm, there’s still activity and motorbikes roaring all around. At 6:00am if I’m not woken up by my alarm it’s by the traffic and clamper on the streets. People are always hustling, always searching for the next opportunity, as demonstrated by this late night veggie stand.
The final shop I stopped in front of was this propane shop named Safi Gas Point, but I thought it would have been more aptly called Tinder Box. Just looking in on it made me uncomfortable, and I’m not sure the few hundred yards between the hotel and it provide me enough peace of mind.
Going back to the hotel I felt much better about myself. I was in a sort of world of my own. Unfortunately the first thing I saw was the great and mighty Trump on the hotel TV and it served to bring me down back to earth.
Anyways, I’m very happy I decided to go do something different with my day, especially because I had failed to take any photos up until that point. I got home at 8:30 after only 30ish minutes of wandering about and was ready for bed. Today I think I’ll get back to running, but if I don’t I’ll have to go out and experience life a little bit more again. Big thank you to Gramps for giving me a reality check!