"Red Sky at Night..."

Posted by Joe Deegan (Martin, Slovakia) on 30 August 2008 in Plants & Nature.

As my friend Phil, a professional photographer, once said, "Sometimes you just get lucky." I definitely got lucky with this sunset last night. It came breezing in through the window, demanding I shoot it. I don't even care about the noise in the darker regions, or how you can barely tell my legs and feet are there. I just like it.

Turns out that old maxim is true, by the way. Today it is glorious— bright and cool with severe sunlight and swift clouds. I can hardly believe that it will be September so soon, though I am excited about the prospect of autumn. There’s something about the season that makes me feel so very alive. Some of the trees by these buildings (Birch?) have begun to lose their leaves. I know it’s premature, even for a continental European climate, but I love the smell and sound of them under my feet. Yesterday I went out of my way to walk through them. Unlike home, I expect the mountains to remain green. They are covered in old-growth forest, the trees so tall you can see their trunks from my window.

My usual wanderings were more productive last evening. With time enough to really think, I convinced myself that I must do some small bit of good while here in Slovakia. It would be controversial, but I hope to do something with the large Roma minority in-country. This is going to sound utterly naive, but I was very angered by a CNN special I watched here. It detailed the involuntary sterilization of a group of Roma women by Slovak doctors. I would like to learn, maybe through my students, what the situation is like here. My teaching schedule will be very demanding. I want to find a way to do something anyway. I can’t help but think this sounds funny compared to the relative narcissism of the rest of this blog.

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