Neighborhood happenings

Here are a couple of photos from my neighborhood. The first is the water pump just up the street from my house. I took this photo really fast from across the street this morning, but you can see all the water containers lined up waiting and the cluster of people are taking turns hand-pumping. For my water supply, I get a water cooler-sized bottle delivered each week for drinking water--for the month of July I used 5 bottles and I paid $3.50, so it's definitely worth not having to boil everything! Plus, there's lots of arsenic in the water here, so the bottled water is filtered (at least that's what they say). When we get some chemistry instruments set up in lab, I will most definitely be testing it!

The next photo is an update about the bridge outside my window. The first day I arrived they were just pouring the concrete on the bridge. You might remember (if you're a loyal follower) a photo of all the workers as they broke the old road apart and hauled the pieces and the dirt away in small baskets on their heads. Well, their progress has moved pretty fast, especially considering all of it was done without machinery!
Here is the photo of the newly-painted bridge and the terrible traffic that now occurs. I think I preferred it when the bridge was closed and under construction--the honking noise is almost unbearable in the evenings and I have to close all my windows, which is not ideal in this heat! The people walking in this photo were moving faster than the traffic....
And here's a self-taken photo of my rickshaw ride home today and me trying to shield my apparently huge nose from the blazing sun. :-)