Corruption and Incorruption

By Bobby Neal Winters

We are on a journey:  Each of us as individuals; our cities; our countries.  The journey is through space and time. We walk our own path, but do we walk alone?

I’ve been optimizing my paths as I walk here in Asuncion.  I take a walk every morning, and to give it a point, I walk to a place to have coffee.  I’ve got one particular place up on Avenido Eulogio Estigarribia that is my favorite, and I’ve been trying to find the best way to get there

I walk from where I am staying about 30 yards south to De Las Palmeras.  I then go east. I cross to the plumbing-contractor supply place and continue two blocks.  At the first block, I hop over some exposed plastic pipe that is laying on top of the ground.  I would say this was a temporary fix, but that’s what I said a year-and-a-half ago when I saw it when I was visiting them. When something goes wrong, you need to fix it as soon as you can afford to. If you put it off, other expenses will arise.  With possible exceptions, nothing gets cheaper; nothing gets easier. 

After a year-and-a-half, this above ground plastic pipe is a feature.  

A block past that is where I turn north.  This is a good street, but there is a large abandoned house on the corner. It was impressive in its day, but it’s been empty for a while now.  It has caught my attention now in particular because of a smell that is coming forth from the overgrown courtyard behind the impressive wall on the corner.

It is the smell of something rotten and it’s not fruit.

Something, some animal, is dead behind that impressive wall. It could be--and probably is--that someone’s pampered pet made its way back to go to its last sleep within the impressive foliage that has overtaken the once rich courtyard.  Very probably.

My problem is that I am a Law and Order fan. If this were an episode of Law and Order, the person walking along the street would climb the wall and find a dead body.  He would then report it to the police, who would detain him from going home until he was cleared of being a suspect.

I see a policeman who’s pulled a motorist over to the side.  Given what I’ve seen happen in traffic here, it boggles the mind what the motorist must’ve done to be pulled over.  I could tell him about the smell.

But...

This isn’t New York, and I’m not a character in Law and Order.  I am not hanging around until I’m cleared as a suspect.  I am getting on a plane at 2am on Saturday morning and going home.

I turn the corner and head north.  Soon the smell is behind me.

I’ve chosen this as the best way because the sidewalks are so nice. In Asuncion, as in many places, you are responsible for your own sidewalk. Some folks build a nice one when they build their house.  But there are two parts of anything, the building of it and the upkeep.  Just because you had the money and desire to build it doesn’t mean you will be able to keep it up.

What I’ve noticed is there is a correlation among the conditions of sidewalks in front of one house and the next.  If your neighbor has a nice sidewalk, you are more likely to have one. It’s called keeping up with the Joneses. But you come to an abandoned house or a house that is owned by people who’ve fallen on rough economic times, and its side walk has deteriorated.  There is then not the pressure on the neighbors to keep up appearances, so they let theirs slide. 

On this street, San Roque González de Santacruz, the correct socio-economic factors are in place that will allow me to walk on the sidewalks without playing hopscotch.

Here I see courtyards with well-kept gardens; walls decorated with art and statuary; sidewalks being hosed-down by groundskeepers, and swept by house maids; locked gates and armed gatekeepers.

No trash, no overgrown foliage, no mysterious, malevolent smells coming over the nicely painted, well scrubbed wall.

So different from the house at the other end of the street.

Who we are requires so many things: work; spirit; luck; the times we are in; the neighbors we have; and the people we know.  The road we are on has two ends to it.

Where will we end up?

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.