Driving (not me of course)

I was hanging my arm and camera out of the land cruser���s window to try and capture some shots of our journey and the beautiful places we drive through. I still am surprised by how flat it is here. The sunset is impossibly far away. We drive through herds of cattle and goats. Sometimes we���ll see long pastures that extend forever with bright green grass, short like somebody���s front yard. In other areas the grass is shoulder high, only interrupted by an occasional tree displayed on a mound of dirt. Everywhere there are tokuls and children sitting near them, sometimes clothed, and men and women sitting in their small fields, cultivating land with a long stick and a flattened hoe at the end. They are hopeful that this year���s humble crop won���t be eaten by bugs, dried up by drought, or washed away by floods.

I���m starting to be more comfortable taking pictures. As I was saying, I was hanging my camera out of the window shooting the roads where we were headed. There was a pickup in front of us and when we got close I realized they were soldiers. If there is one thing soldiers don���t like, it���s pictures. You hear stories about people taking pictures near soldiers. Not good stories. I zipped up my camera in my backpack and stared off in a different direction, more innocent-looking than I have ever been. They didn���t notice.

But it was strange and uncomfortable following the soldiers--a voyeurish opportunity to observe and pretend like I wasn���t. They stare back, oozing confidence that comes from their department-store pajama looking camouflage and their AK-47. They were children mostly. Several were probably 13 or 14, tucked into the back of a pickup truck. These soldiers strike me as aggressively bored, overconfident, and too easy to incite.