Eleven Eleven

We decided to skip the group outing...call us wimps --- but we had two goals for this trip. Goal number one was to get Elizabeth and goal number two was to get back as safe, sound and healthy as possible. Besides Marty and I have done about 40 days of touring the world this summer and we have pretty much had our fill of touring.

We figure we can always bring Elizabeth back when she is old enough to understand what she is seeing.

A few other kindred spirits from the group had the same idea and we had in impromptu play date for Elizabeth and her friends in the playground on the roof of the hotel.

And what do you know...Catherine in our group went to the same high school as Marty did in Bethesda Maryland--Walt Whitman! She was two years ahead of Marty but he remembers her as one of the "pom pom" girls. Catherine turned red when he said he remembered that they wore their pom pom outfits all day in class.

Small world, I know.

In between writing this message I took a break and ventured to one of the shops across the road and let me tell you...I lived in New York City for the first 34 years of my life so I think I am pretty hardened to city street life--that being said--I can tell you that I literally stopped in my tracks and hightailed it back to the hotel when I tried to get across the overpass. It was not a pleasant scene with lots of beggars and scenes that were right out of a horror movie.

I must say it is pretty unsettling to be in this glamorous five star hotel and be faced with the grim reality of extreme poverty just outside your door. I saw it a lot in New York, especially in the 80's--but never like this.

For the most part people seem to be doing well here, but there is enough of a fairly tragic extreme to make you pause and reflect on just how darn easy most of us have it. The great disparities of poverty and weatlh just seem a whole lot more salient here.

Another powerful reminder of how very lucky we are.