Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Aw Gross.... a reality check

The beach right in front of our house is beautiful... some of the time. About 60% of the time it is blue or turquoise and looks rather inviting. The other 40% of the time it looks positively disgusting. It will be a yucky brown color with a very distinct line at the deep blue part of the ocean where the nasty stuff the locals have been dumping has yet to mix with the gorgeous ocean water. On the days the locals do the dumping it will stay a yucky brown all day while the ocean tries to right itself. Like a lot of things here this totally frustrates me (aka dumping trash in streets, burning trash, hordes of 18 year old men with nothing to do but loiter). I usually vent my frustrations to Chris who explains once again that they are a developing country and don't necessarily understand why it is a bad thing to ruin there gorgeous natural resources or have the foresight that if they kept the beaches pristine maybe the huge hotel companies would want to come build hotels and help infuse the devastated infrastructure with much needed money. What they understand is that it is a close and easy way to get rid of unwanted waste. (See why we go to Dollar Beach 45 mins out of town?) Because of this I haven't even let the boys walk on the beach let a lone put any portion of their body in it. Sam often looks longingly out the car window at the local boys (totally nakey) romping through the waves.
Segue to relevance....
I have been wanting for a while to purchase a wide angle lens, a 24mm to be exact. My current lens can go to 24mm but only at a f/4.0, so I though why not pretend it is a prime lens and see how I like it before make the leap. I thought the beach would be a fun place to take some shots and try it out-- BAD IDEA. I don't know why I thought I would be able to keep the boys out of the water. Before our guard opened the gate I repeated over and over: "The water is YUCKY if you go in it you will get sick." Gates open- cross street-- two boys straight in the water-- laughing hysterically-- mom and che che freaking out-- Che Che in the water pulling Liam up after he jumped straight into a wave-- Locals staring as I repeat over and over that if you put your face in the water you will be soooo sick-- feel like an idiot-- let the boys play while che che takes Abby home after face planting it in the sand-- no pictures... well one:
lemersbeachproof
and he wouldn't even look at the camera-- such a naughty boy ;)
PS there was no dumping on the day of, or days prior to this incident thus helping me rationalize letting my boys play in the water.

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