Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Rustavi: Heat

It's hot here.

The apartments have no air conditioning. In the evenings, people sit outside, talk, try to catch a breeze.

I am lucky on teaching days, as there is a/c in the two police stations where I work.

The refrigerator in the apartment is not operational, but fortunately the tap water is fairly cold, and usually, once a day, my hostess brings forth a partially frozen bottle of water that she has pulled from an unknown source in the building.

I have learned that if I lie very still on my bed beneath the window, I will be rewarded with sporadic breezes which, compared to the dead heat surrounding me, are cooling.

Sometimes, I stick my head out my bedroom window and see the building across the way. I see other people's heads doing the same, facing my building. Shirtless men, women in tank tops. They seek cooling breezes and check out the goings-on of neighbors below and across. I see laundry hanging outside their windows. Today, I begin a pictorial study of the Building Behind Me.


Building Behind Me 072711

I don't really know what my interest is in this. Maybe I'm trying to find beauty in a place that is decidedly not beautiful. Or to document evidence of thriving life in man-made structures that appear designed solely to warehouse humans. (Which, indeed, they were. These "new" Rustavi buildings were constructed about 50 years ago to house workers employed at nearby factories.)

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