Tourists evacuated from Machu Picchu end of January after heavy rains left them stranded. The tourist site will remain closed off for at least the next couple of months. ((AP Photo/Martin Mejia) (Martin Mejia - AP)
I just got back in from plowing the driveway after our latest snowfall. It took me all of about 45 minutes to clear, putzing around on our garden tractor. It’s not a chore I love, but it’s part of winter here in Colorado. And this year I think I’d have to give the snow trophy to the Mid-Atlantic for all that the Rocky Mountains have the rep for endless white winters.
And then I see this article about the Andean alpacas and how the heavy rains are impacting alpaca farmers. Resulting mudslides have washed homes away and left people with little closer to nothing. Bronchial pneumonia is felling young crias and threatening their main source of income.
CHU (Containerized Housing Unit)
This week I received an email from a former co-worker of mine. He was deployed this past month to Iraq as an officer on the team working on Iraqi training. He sent a picture of where he was living, called a CHU (containerized housing unit), which looked like a metal box dropped down in a spot with one opening carved out for a door. It looked like that because that’s what it was. But he was thankful, because he had a wet-CHU – one that had a shower, versus a dry-CHU, which doesn’t. Rows and rows of these CHU’s make up “CHU-ville” which looks eerily similar to District 9 (if you’ve seen the film of the same name).
So what are Colorado snow, heavy rain in the Andes, and a CHU in Iraq doing in the same blog post? Let’s just say that as I grumbled my way back in from the snow, shaking off my wet shoes and peeling off my Carhartt’s, they all flashed through my brain to remind me just how good I have it. My alpacas are all tucked away safe and sound in the barn, munching contentedly away, and I’m on my way to a hot shower in my own wet-CHU. I’m blessed and sometimes it’s good to be reminded of that now and then.
