Culture Clash

The area I am in is interesting because it is like a cross between the Jungle Book, Grapes of Wrath and LA. Sometimes I feel like houses grew up out of the forest just like the tree next to that house. Not only does it look like the city and the jungles are jumbled all together into one new environment but the people are the same way. The city here is one of the fastest growing cities in the country with more people pouring in all the time; this is creating a new way of developing and interacting that I have never experienced before. I live in an apartment building and my neighbors live in a long bamboo hut that houses at least 6 families. On the other side of that hut is a house that is in the middle of being built- the cement frame of the house is done but the roof isn’t complete and no one is living there yet, beyond that house is a small field some more one or two story houses then another 8 story building that is half finished. And we are not far off one of the main roads of the city. It’s like, if you can find some land, you can build on it- however much you can afford at that time. I feel like everything is half completed and people are always working on construction. Almost nothing is done by machine- everything is completed through man power. People, cars, animals, nature… they are all a part of the city in their own right and they are all a force to be reckoned with here. When I look out my window from the fourth floor, I see mountains on all sides trapping us or protecting us, and I see a round valley full of trees with houses popping up here and there. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, yes it is very crowded here, there is not a lot of open land, but what land there is, you can be sure there are as many trees as possible in that space.  To me, it looks like an abandoned city that the jungle has overtaken. What is really happening is that the jungle is being overtaken by the city; its just that the new buildings look about 50 yrs old- they don’t paint the outsides (or insides for that matter) so everything look solder than it is.