Saturday, April 19, 2008

Humo

No, humo isn't short for humor or humorous. There's nothing funny about it actually. Humo means smoke in Spanish and I can't seem to escape it. Smoking cigarettes is very popular here in Uruguay and you can't walk down the streets without breathing someone's second hand cloud. Now, the sky has become hazy with smoke blowing in from Argentina. We spent what seemed like a solid month breathing smoke from forest fires back in Kalispell and it felt like such a relief when I got away from it. Except, you can't escape it: my eyes are itching again and I have to take my allergy medicine to combat it. The interesting thing about the fire is that it is coming from a forest blaze started by a group of farmers as a way of protesting something I don't really understand. But the fire has grown out of control and is now supposedly the biggest that Argentina has ever had. Lot's of forest and farmland is being burned, but hopefully no property or loss of life will occur because of a silly protest.

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