Once past the Catholic Church with its Christmas decorations, we walked a loop, heading west through the market, turning south along the river, and then east through a business district. At the end, we found ourselves back at our starting point in front of the Zhangs' building.
As we headed into the traditional market, we encountered folks who stopped Edward's parents to greet them and, briefly, to catch up. Sometimes we were introduced, but often we were just told how this person or that was related. These two boys couldn't take their eyes off of us, but their older sister (with the impressively colorful half-fingered mittens) and their grandmother didn't pay us any direct attention.
Although cars did not travel through this market, bicycles and scooters did, often quite fast. Pedestrians seemed to know when to step aside and when it was safer to let the scooter find a way around them, but those skills did not come naturally. Several times we were tugged or nudged to the side by our alert hosts.
Here and there little alleyways branched off of the market. We did not have time to follow them, but on another trip I would love to just wander the neighborhood.
At one point we came out from between buildings into a clearing that turned out to be a school yard. Faded lines marked out a field of play for several games -- soccer, I assume, and basketball. A pair of hoops without nets stood in this school yard. Boys who had been shooting hoops and other kids who had been running around stopped to look when we appeared. That was usually a signal for me to stop shooting pictures and act gracious.
Beyond the school we came to the river that ran along the edge of Lehu. The river bank had been improved with stone walls making a channel, on top of which was a new walkway and a new concrete road.
The houses across the road from the river walkway were squat, mostly two story affairs. They struck me as being not necessarily older than the town buildings we had just come through but more rural, more village construction.
For reasons that I can't explain entirely, I find myself drawn to virtually everything in this landscape, from the houses that could be described as boxes set one atop another, to the admittedly mundane color scheme (varied eath tones), to the window lattices, to the roof lines and roof tiles. I am draw to tools, especially traditional tools. I am drawn to more abstract things too, like colors, shapes, patterns. I love brickwork. In another life I could see myself as a stone mason. I love trees, especially when they are twisted or oddly shaped, like this sycamore that had been left to grow through the new sidewalk between street lights. If I remember right, the tree inhibited foot traffic to the point where we had to walk single file around it or step out into the street.
Here, too, men on bicycles would stop to chat with Edward's father. He would offer them cigarettes and they would converse while smoking.
Across the river was countryside. In the low space between the road and the houses was an open space, maybe 150 feet wide, that local residents had planted as gardens. All the gardens were neatly laid out and well tended. Often we saw people working these gardens. Everywhere we went we saw the same thing, cultivated open space. The houses might be cluttered or in poor repair, but the gardens always looked well-tended.
Then, as I have said, we reached a cross street and turned back into town.
But that's another story.
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