7/19/08 Changes around us

CHANGES AROUND US
July 19/2008
When walking to and from the Mission Office, we take one route to and a different route from the office. Our route in the morning goes past the Neighborhood Agency office that's just to the right, east, of our building and across the street. Just past their second driveway we turn left down an unpaved street going north until we hit the street, actually a private drive, that runs long the southern side of our building. There we turn right and head toward Kirova Street, designated as "ul." which is like our "St." designation. At the southeast corner of the building we turn sharply left and left again to enter our office door through the outer, unlocked door and press the button to be let in through the inner security door, held closed by a magnetic lock. When the office is closed for the day, there is a gate that slides across the entry and locks just inside the outer door.

On the walk home we go out the door, turn right and right again at the driveway and go back down the way we came in the morning, but about 1/3 of the way we turn left, go through a narrow walkway that opens on another unpaved, or so badly maintained that it looks unpaved, road that leads past a baby blue government building of some kind on the right and a children's school further on the right, and on to our street for a right turn and on past the Neighborhood Agency and home.

Today, after exiting the office, Cindy said, "Lets go home the other way", so we tooks the morning route home. Every day I have been going to take a picture of the old, pre-WWII wooden house that sits on the corner of the private drive and our unpaved morning road, and every day I forget or don't want to take it with someone watching. (Explanation . . .it is illegal to take pictures of some buildings and I don't know what are protected buildings so I don't take many building pictures while people are watching.) Today I was prepared and was ready to take that picture, but was so nervous that I didn't let the camera focus long enough and it came out all blurry. I'll do better tomarrow. (It's tomorrow and there is the picture)

Anyway, here is a picture of our morning road. In the center of it is a storm-drain utility opening (it used to be a man-hole, but that's not PC anymore) with no cover. (a man-hole with out a man-hole-cover). We have sucesfully navigated this street now for a month and not fallen into the open storm drain. Someone stuck a board into the hole as a warning, but that lasted only a few days. The picture at right is the road as I walked behind Sister Simmons on the way home tonight. I'm so paranoid about doing something illegal, I'm even nervous about taking a pictureof a darn road. What a country!
DS

P.S.
Here is the picture of the open storm-drain in the middle of the street pictures at right. It's a little fuzzy because I rushed the picture, but you can get the idea. I cannot see the bottom of the shaft, but I'm sure it's not more than 10 feet.