At Home

I keep thinking as I work here that I hear someone bouncing a basketball. My ears are accustomed to that sound—and thus is what I associate it with. But then I realize, over and over, in fact that it’s the sound of one of the guards chopping firewood. It’s warming up here—T shirt weather today for the first time—but the nights are still cold and there is always someone out there—tending the fire. I wonder when that sound will lodge in my subconscious as firewood chopping. Or when they won’t need a fire at night to keep warm.

Here's a picture of my desk and one side of our apartment.