Fire!!

Friday started out by removing the front tire of Bob’s motorcycle. It needs new spokes and he has a friend who may be able to find some new ones. Before we’re actually able to get the spokes, I have to remove the remains of the old, broken ones, and sand down the rough inner rim, like I did with the rear wheel on the same motorcycle. I also tried to fix Abdu’s bicycle for the millionth time. He and I, over the course of a few days have taken apart the rear set of gears, known as the cassette, on his bicycle trying to get it to ratchet in one direction correctly. There is a spring that is worn and we’ve done everything we can to try and get around that fact but nothing seems to work for longer than a few minutes. We’ll have to try to find a new part for it.

Around lunch time, a nearby fire spread very quickly. The people in this area purposely burn fields in order to cut them. It’s easier to burn tall, overgrown grass and shrubs than to cut them. They need to do this before the wet season really starts in order to clear fields to plant crops. The whole time I’ve been here, it’s been happening. You see a small fire here and there every once in a while. However, today was very windy and as a result the fire spread very quickly. It came within a few meters of Bob’s home and no more than two meters from Dr. Smith’s home nearby. I took picture while the fire was at its peak, oblivious to how close it was to the peoples’ homes. I was in a different area, not noticing people scurrying around, using branches to beat small fire and buckets of water and hoses to put out larger ones. I have some pictures I will upload to the internet as soon as I get my camera cable which should be in about a week.

Bob says the fire has never gotten this close to his house before and it hardly ever spreads this quickly. The fire originated on the other side of a river nearby but managed to jump over the river, I guess through firey ashes being blown in the wind. Joan said sometimes when people start these fires, they don’t always pay close attention to them, and they walk away. Usually the fires go out by themselves which is very surprising. This area is as dry as California during the peak of its forest fires, yet the fires always go out on their own. Today however, the wind had the upper hand in the situation. Luckily, no one was seriously injured and no homes burned as far as I know. Dayyibu got a few very minor burns from putting fires out but that’s about it. Hopefully no more major fires will happen again!