Sunny afternoon

cool breeze, the leaves are turning red and bronze, there are clouds across the blue sky. Rain? It seems not yet.

I could take my book to the Brazilian hammock ordered from Amazon and strung across the porch above the building parking ‘pad’, but no—because Chuck is on the ‘pad’ unloading 2 x 4s from Greg’s pickup, tying them to two ropes, which Greg pulls up to the roof and drops with a loud crash on the roof above my head. Hey Chuck, I say, ask Greg if he can set the wood down gently, I feel like the ceiling is coming down. No problem. Thumb’s up. The wood gets set down more gently and further away. Later, leaving in the pickup, they will have a laugh.

So I’m inside reading, because it would really seem rude to be lounging in a hammock (Brazilian red and orange) when they are working. And the sun will still be there, when they call it a day.

I am again reminded of when I was a young woman teaching in a Ghanaian school and went to Kumasi, the nearest city, on Saturday on a mammy wagon. There was no schedule: the drivers waited for the wagon to my village to fill up; when it was full it left. So I always had a book, but the other women looked at me curiously, wondering why I spent my time reading a printed packet of paper when there were so many other more exciting things to do. Like buying bananas off the huge hand of bananas a seller was carrying around on his head…