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Continuing the vein of using real estate investment to turn communities, neighborhoods and spaces around, it is time to consider some of the social aspects.

In America, classes have been segregated from each other. There are poor communities and wealthy ones. There is truth to the statement that when generations of people do not find work, they come to see the welfare state as a means of living. Sadly, when people do not have to invest anything in what they have, they often fail to appreciate it. This, in America at least, leads to destructive levels of neglect that lower property values and people's self-worth and helps produce things like ghettos.

Students in Florida who receive scholarships to attend private schools often report that being surrounded by the middle class, where work and college is just expected and value routinely been placed on education, changed their thinking and helped redirect their lives. An environment where poverty is expected and hope is limited or non-existent plays a big role in numerous social problems.

We need to mix up the pot. Raising rent to levels only the middle class can afford in school districts that are beyond undesirable in not a solution, it is financial suicide. So how so might we shuffle the deck?

Using my own city as an example, let me paint a picture of my proposal.

Decatur, IL is one of the most declined economies in the USA. In 2013, only Detroit was going down worse. The homeless population is high, as is vacant housing. It has been this way for a long time. Decatur is home to Archer-Daniels Midland's headquarters, a Caterpillar plant, two heavy polluters similar to ADM, and a very good private University. The Decatur Public schools are barely worthy of being called schools. There are two private high school options and three private elementary school options.

The adjacent towns of Forsyth and Mount Zion are predominantly white and middle class. Their schools are very good, as U.S. public schools go, and they serve several small farming communities nearby as well as Decatur's elite classes residing on the outskirts of town. So there are good schools around, if you live in the right place.

Thanks to Facebook page House Hunters for this photo

Starting as near to Milikin U. as possible but in the low income neighborhoods, begin a project that will have a food forest and renewables. Plant the trees and start making the food forest as soon as possession of the house is secured. If possible, so a quicker flip of another property to make a lot of money faster, and start adding the renewables a.s.a.p. Advertise with the campus rooms in a community house that has renewables on low utility bills. When the fruit and nut trees are producing, start mentioning that in the ads. Pay the house off, or perhaps refinance for lower payments, as soon as possible in order to offer students discounted rates over summer if they will help with the garden. When more than one property is secured, estimate the man-hours required and try to meet it by helping impressionable young tenants get through school - and give them some permaculture school in the process. This creates a captive audience of sorts, for permaculture classes. After the houses have generated enough income to pay for the improvements - especially the renewables - and the projects are complete (both, which may not happen at the same time) it is time to think about selling.

Thanks to Facebook page permaculture for this cool photo

Wait until someone who likes the house and understands/appreciates the permaculture finds a good-paying job locally. Offer the house to them a little below market value, or right at it if you expect housing values to go up, on a rent-to own basis. Draw up paperwork that locks in that price. Half the rent every month goes into the price while you retain landlord status and fix things and help solve garden problems if they should arise. They will still be responsible for damages caused by neglect or abuse. After a certain number of years (perhaps 3-5?), according to your contract, the buyer needs to pay the balance. This will give them time to reduce student loan debt and get in a position to take on a mortgage. The renewables and the food forest will help facilitate that, especially since they will be allowed to sell surplus production of the garden.

 These just-starting outs will not likely need to send children to school before they get into a position to be able to send they kids to the private schools, and avoid the appalling district 61 public schools. They will be incentivized to stay because of the food forest and the renewables and the affordability of the house. Their good job will allow them to handle the real estate taxes. Your continuing to reproduce this pattern nearby will create a mixed-income neighborhood, with college students, career people, Young middle class families and people who have been on assistance for generations. The higher property values will feed real estate taxes into the local schools, hopefully helping solve the problem. The relationship with the tenants could create opportunity to tell them about the issues with the local schools so they will be a.) aware they should not send their kids there when they have them and b.) hopefully inspire them to hold the local authorities accountable.

On the other side of the coin, getting the low-income children OUT of district 61's mess and into a place where they are actually educated and prepared for life will take a different approach. Use section 8 to do this. In this area, section 8 does pay enough to cover the more expensive houses, because Decatur is zoned with a larger town that has higher housing costs than any of the neighboring towns. It is more likely to require some quick flips with very few changes made in order to jump start or speed up the project. Houses in low-income areas of Decatur are very cheap. Houses in Mount Zion or Forsyth, or areas of Dectur zoned for Mount Zion or Argenta-Maroa schools are NOT.

Thanks to Facebook page House Hunters for this photo

  During the summer, if you have students staying over summer, they can help work on putting in the food forest in order to cover the part of their rent. If you are certified to teach permaculture, they can put in extra time and get extra education there for free if they want the extra education; it would then be a work-study situation or an apprenticeship or something. This could alo open doors for people who just wantto study permaculture, they can work their fees off helping to change the town.

Thanks to the Facebook page Pushing through the Pavement: A Permaculture Action Tour for this photo

Again, start the food forest as soon as possible. Addrenewables as soon as possible. Pay attention to the Section 8 Guidelines. Baby-proof the place or design it with infants, pre-schoolers, and elementary school children in mind. Ideally, the house will have a space that can be turned into a bedroom, easily so that if another kid comes into the picture, the family is ready. If you can find one the housing authority will approve, put in a swingset. You want people incentivized to stay where their kids get better education and ther are more jobs available when the kids become teens.

You might have to make a summerstudent-house out of this for a few years. If they have a job they do not want to give up (in Decatur area, jobs are precious! You might not be able to get another one when you come back in the fall), being able to stay in the area over summer will help a lot. (The rent goes back up to full price forthat vicinity as of September 1st. That will almost certianly get the students planning to move out by the time school begins.) Obviously, you need to have flipped another house to about pay this one off in order to afford going with no tenants or discounted tenants until the food forest is ready!

Thanks to Facebook page Permaculture for this photo

After the food forest is ready, and the students are back in school, get it section 8 approved if you haven't already. Advertise through the the foodbank, and local homeless or battered-woman shelters, not craigslist or the newspaper. This one is not likely to be sold for a long time.

If a tenenat family becomes upwardly mobile to the point where they no longer qualify for section 8, you can, at your discretion, work something outwith them to rent to own the place, like in the case above. You might also accept work for part of the rent, in which case you can teach permatulcure to more people. Be creative. They might not, or probably won't though, if nothing else because minimum wage went up and low-skill jobs can be expected to be scarcer. Sadly...

These are basic, somewhat vague ideas that can be used as rough drafts for empowering small businesses and the people in various areas. Laws and situations vary, so a rough draft is better than a full detailed how-to for this purpose anyway.

Combating corporate control of fuel, especially for transportation:

Periodically deploy portable gas stations,like David Blume talk about in Alcohol can be a Gas, in Hammond IN and St. Louis - all around periphery of IL, especially near Chicago land.  Fight fake biofuel producers through undercutting. Let people know about permaculture, the laws, and the difference between ADM and real biofuel.

Prob do same thing in and around NYC as much as possible, and also L.A. which has already been impactedto some extent by homemade alcohol movements.

Combating corporate slavery at home:

Get into real estate investment and make houses as ecological as possible,

Put solar,wind, etc on them and rent them until solar pays for itself before selling houses and going on to next ones. Put food forests on as many as possible. Passive solar sunspaces or greenhouses attached to as many as possible, especially in cold climates. Try to focus on section 8 type neighborhoods and get houses cleared for section 8.

Advertise on craigslist in the headlines that there is renewable energy generation on it. Focus on one city or neighborhood at a time. Go until other investors start doing same thing in area, or until run out of suitable houses, then go on to other town/neighborhood.

Other investors may (hopefully will) eventually have to start adding renewables in order to stay competitive, because renters will want the advantages of the lower power bills. This will either lead to being able to start working in different area,or to more local investors selling their properties for a song because they cannot compete in the market.

In time, having more homes producing their own energy will cause the energy costs in the region to go down, because demand will decrease. Programs to help people pay their power bills, or "flat rate"programs may become unnecessary for more people in area. If people get small checks in the mail instead of bills, they may start trying to conserve power in order to get paid more,causing even more reduction in demand for power plant energy.

As more low income people see the benefits of permuculture and food forests,it could spark interest,leading to demand for classes and workshops. If they are allowed to sell the produce from the food forests if they live on the property,they could be more capable of paying their part of the rent (assuming section 8). This could then lead to legal and beneficial product (healthy food) being sold on street increasing access to healthy food in these communities. Fruit and nut trees could be especially valuable in this.

When giving workshops,make people aware of laws that stand in way of permaculture takeover (E.G.gray water systems), and explain how to lobby for change (give contact info for state and local officials).

When community has fuel issues being addressed through community lobbying or better, when investors are adding renewable energy sources to rentals, and prepared groups are working on food forests here and there in the vicinity, relocate to other region or shift focus to other neighborhood until it takes off there.

In case anyone is confused, here is a link to an online permaculture class which I highly recommend: www.openpermaculture.com

It has been a very long time since I wrote about this. I spent about six months not involved in any online financial ventures whatsoever. These last few months I have learned a great deal. I have learned enough recently to make a few decisions about how to proceed, and here I will offer some insights gleaned from that learning process. Perhaps these insights will assist you in your own journey.

The most important thing I learned was, the internet is a good place to follow your passion in your work. Most of the more successful people making their livelihood online decided what they wanted to do or were interested in, money aside and began with that. In my particular case, I have several, and so utilizing them all will involve utilizing a variety of techniques creatively. Whatever your passion may be, it will likely take building.

I have come to a decision about microworker.com, I am not going to use it anymore, unless something pretty drastic were to happen and I would need to resort to that again. There is nothing really wrong with the site itself, The reason I will not use it anymore is it does not build up to anything, It offers little micro-jobs for micro-pay and no real chance for advancement. If you are new to sites like mechanical turk and are only eligible for $0.01 or $0.02 jobs, and not even that many of those, I recommend doing a little on miroworkers to have access to $0.25 and higher things, or at least $0.7 - $.10 ones. It will help keep your sanity while you literally work for pennies. Once you break 100 HITs and especially when you get close to 500, I would suggest cashing in your microworkers earnings, or work until you build up enough to withdraw and then withdraw it. Microworkers will retain about $0.06 no matter what, and that is a fact I just had to accept.

When I was working with mechanical turk frequently, I found I could make around $30.00 to $40.00 a week without having any real transcription skills when I had about 200 HITs accepted and a 98% approval rating. I got stupid though, and started experimenting with different kinds of tasks to see what all I could do. I found out the hard way not to do that. A few rejected HITs can bring your approval % down low enough you will only get penny jobs and $0.10 jobs again. I tried to do many short jobs to fix this and worked for an appalling requester called p9r. p9r does not communicate well, and if you make the wrong move, your HIT will be rejected and your rating will suffer. I knocked out several on their HITs and received enough rejections in a short time to be demoted back to penny jobs and it has taken me a long time to get my rating back over 97%. AVOID p9r unless you feel you can afford to take rating losses.

Elance.com has a complex system if you are an American. They have several forms you must fill out. Fill out your W-9, and your 1099 and a few others. If you relocate, it is difficult to change your address. In my case, I was told my W-9 info did not match what the IRS had on file. The IRS office told a different story. My information did match what they had on file, and Elance does not have access to IRS records. Nevertheless, Their finance office insisted they had discovered a discrepancy between my W-9 and IRS  files. Eventually, an exceptional customer service person talked me through every file and form Elance had, and we fixed all of the information on each file. After that, the finance team said my information "matched IRS records" which they probably never even saw. This was in addition to my adventures trying to get my address changed on my profile. Customer service had to escalate that all the way to the web programmers.After THAT was fixed I was able to change my information on the forms and expect the changes to still be there the next time I logged in or if I refreshed the page.

If I had it to do over again, I would go to the page that has all the forms on one spot and try filling them all out. Maybe I would have had less trouble, or maybe I still would have had a help request go all the way to the engineers. Either way, it would have saved me the trouble of dealing with the finance departments MISERABLE communication and service.

Here's how to do that:

In the upper right corner, click your username. A drop down menu will show up. Click on "settings."

Then, click on "Billing & Payment," in the left-side menu.

This menu will come up. You can see all the forms you have to fill out as an American. If you are not an American, it still is wise to enter here and check any boxes that tell Elance you are not an American and do not need those forms. The "Invoice and Tax," the "1099 information," the "W-9 Info" and "Currency," are all things you need to do before even messing with looking for work.

All that is if you want to do freelance work answering directly to someone else. As far as avialable jobs, at the time of this writing there were 25,313 jobs on all of Elance. 9,599 IT jobs, 5477 were Design and Multimedia jobs. 3872 were Writing & Translation jobs, 3142 were Sales & Marketing jobs, 1950 were Admin & Support jobs, 656 were Engineering & Manufacturing jobs, 408 were Finance & Management jobs, and 239 were Legal jobs. If those numbers do not add up to 25,313, it is because jobs were filled or more were posted while I went through the categories and recorded the number in each. I have found that many of the employers posting jobs here wants lave labor, by U.S. standards.

You must beware of sharks in the waters of the freelance market. I am exclusively in the writing and translation category and I have seen 500 to 2,000 words for as little as $1 USD. This is often because the employer is from a place like the Philippines, where $5 can buy a week worth of groceries or something close to that. I have seen Brits and Americans offer that little as well though, while specifically asking for native English speakers. Beware of those who are out to take advantage of you. When employers want "Price per word"or tell you how much they want to pay per word without telling how many words they want, I would not even bother. They did not read the directions. Elance does not allow less than $20 billed-to-client for fixed-rate jobs, or less than $3.00/hr billed-to-client for hourly jobs. If they are not paying attention to what they are doing, do not pay attention to them. You do not want clients who do not communicate well or consider the constraints you must bid within (or Elance will not even let you submit the bid). I have also found out the hard way not to work for clients who do not know what they want. If you submit a sample and an idea and they like it, they might change their mind later and expect you to be able to do something you never agreed to do. Also beware of people who want you to submit a sample in the form of doing a part of the job for them before they will hire you. That is either an idiot not thinking through what they are asking, or a scammer who wants to get the job done for free. Elance.com rules say that you are under no obligation to start work until a milestone payment has been submitted by the employer. That milestone is your insurance that you will be paid and they will not take the work you did and run without paying. I had a person needing 100 to 200 product descriptions written. He said, "price me per product." Of course the lowest you can bid is $20.00. After a long time, he asked me to write descriptions for about 15 products so he could decide if he wanted to hire me. I wrote two and sent them in, not willing to do up to 15% of the job for free. He probably did that to a lot of people and tried to get it all for nothing. I never heard from him again.

I worked for a lady who asked for my email address after she hired me, She gave me a 5-star rating and did indeed contact me for more work OFF of Elance. I did $50 worth of work, based on the agreed price,and was supposed to be paid in two weeks. Three weeks later I got two thirds of it, and after a month she was paid up. She is a freelance writer who farms out some of her work to others and pays them a smaller cut. This will never advance your career. Clients will know the persons who hired you are, but not you. The employer will build a reputation and grow their business, you will not. Off of Elance, you do not even have the rating or records to show you did anything. It will look like you have no experience from all that work. You will also might get less money than the person who hires you does. I did five articles for a very grumpy client that the aforementioned client outsourced to me, and I got $10 a piece. She went between us as a middle person so all the communication came to me through "the grapevine," and got very confusing at times. On their files, it looked like she was the one doing the work. On Elance, those articles would have been $20; it also was way too much work for $10 - or even $20, as those were terrible clients. If I take a job on Elance that says "there will be more work if you do a good job," I am going to let them know I do not usually do additional work if it is not on Elance, because Elance protects both of us in a lot of ways, and is worth the small percentage I must pay. In the writing field, I have noticed so many of the potential clients want content for a website or blog to get them more hits. Usually they want it SEO optimized. I guess some are bloggers who do not actually wish to blog. Perhaps they are wanna-be millionaire-bloggers who want to pay somebody $1 a day to write hundreds of posts as quickly as possible. A high volume of these jobs on Elance led me to investigate how to build up a blog. In the process of learning this, I realized I would be happier writing about things I care about and helping people who have similar interests or challenges. I also realized that such things take building and instead of working for low fees to build someone else's corner of the web, I should spend that time building my own. It will eventually pay better and will make me far happier. If you would not mind working hard to take others to the top and getting crumbs thrown your way for doing it, feel free to take those jobs.

Blogs need to be focused, or readers never know what tto expect from you or whether what you write will be any use. People do not get interested in literary Russian roulette. This particular topic will be found here, at erdavis01.tumblr.com, from now on. I expect to update this Tumblr blog once a week or more. Personally, I find that I have several interests I would enjoy writing about. Therefore, I write more than one blog, with focus aimed primarily at one at a time. I advise others with multiple interests to start with one thing and progressively expand, as you are able. Working online is a journey, not a destination. It is a road, not a doorway, into a new lifestyle. Enjoy the process. :)

When I read the back story of the Polysha Foundation, my heart warmed and at the same time it broke. It inspired me to write this story. This is not about Yves and Sharon Polycarpe, but their story did inspire this one. This is a work of fiction which is loosely based on the true story of Yves Polycarpe's family, found on the About Us page of the Polysha Foundation's website. I have done my best, through research and looking at numerous pictures, to make Bronte Lamarre's story resemble that of a woman in the same situation in Haiti today. Information on the daily lives of the poor are hard to come by, and where necessary I let my imagination lead the way. I recommend anyone moved by this story visit their page, and join the "Winner's Circle," and also visit and like them on Facebook. This story is not to make anyone feel guilty, but to see just how much can be overcome by the human heart if we choose never to give up, like Mr. Yves Polycarpe's amazing mother. The links in the story show you images, or at times videos, which I used to determine what my character's world was really like. They also serve as illustrations of the story. Enjoy!! 

          The sun shown hot and harsh in the arid afternoon. In the distance, the mountains were shrouded in haze. A few scraggly trees reached desperately for the sky out of the parched earth. Bronte Lamarre was hanging clothes in front of her family's house in Carrefour, Haiti. The house was about 500 square feet, the roof and much of the rest of the house sagged badly, like many homes in the Lemarre's neighborhood. The family was very thankful the house was at least still standing, as many homes nearby had collapsed in the earthquake and had never been rebuilt. Their humble building had once been white, but time had taken its toll. Now, it could best be described as gray.           Her very faded blue kerchief fluttered a little in the slight breeze. Sweat beaded on her brows and dripped down the her cheeks, where it mingled with the tears she had been crying, with intermittent success, to hold back. A sturdy woman of about 5'9, her face appeared wise and unusually hard for her mere 31 years. Bronte had already born eight children. The youngest, sixteen month old little Guerda, waddled over and tugged at her mothers skirts, wanting to be held. I can't let them see me cry, Bronte thought, They need me to show strength now, they need to believe it is going to be all right.

          It had been two days since her husband, Seydou's funeral. He had been making gravel when an avalanche was triggered. Seydou had been killed instantly, as he was the nearest one to the rock wall they were turning into gravel. She tried hard not to think about it, about whether or not it hurt, or whether or not it was anyone's fault. None of that did any good, and knowing the answers would never change anything. There was no way for her to know, really, and those thoughts made her anxious. Instead, she concentrated very hard on the clothes she was washing. Squeezing out the water, rubbing them together, pressing as hard as she could. She squeezed Emanuel's work trousers until her knuckles paled, gritting her teeth. She was almost done, and her fingers were starting to get sore. Despite her best efforts, tears began to pour down her cheeks again.

          Little Guerda started screaming suddenly, and Bronte jumped. “Stevsin! Webby! Ee-wsie!” Guerda shouted, toddling off toward the road. “Oh,” Bronte sighed, relieved. She scooped up her excited infant to keep her out of the street, and called over her shoulder to her dearest friend, Fredeline, who was in the kitchen beginning preparations for dinner. “The other children are home!” Guerda's elated shrieks lifted Bronte's heart a little, making it easier to retrain her tears. At the door, they saw the Lamarre Brood coming down the street. Twelve-year-old Webster was carrying a big stick like a staff, swinging it back and forth in his right hand. His school-buy shorts, which were a bit short and tight, had a large tear in the left leg. How did he do that? Bronte wondered, more concerned for Webster than for the cost of the thread she would sew them with. Her eldest, Emanuel, looked serene, as usual. He stood tall resolute as he approached, like a king. He carried his worn pack with his school things in it. On closer observation, Bronte noticed he was carrying three other packs too. She wondered why.

          Stevenson, Elsie, and Leila were walking slowly toward home without their packs. Elsie and Leila had flowers in their hands. Ten-year-old Leila's bunch was at least twice the size of her sister's. Webster kept reaching out with his stick, holding it behind his younger brother to guide his wobbling gait and keep him on the road. He was not hitting him, though Stevenson's cheeks were tear-stained. They were bringing flowers they had picked along the road. Such flowers made Bronte sneeze. She supposed they were not for her. They were probably for Seydou's grave site.

          Bronte and Fredeline were in the house, at the table by the home's one window, discussing what the family should do next and cutting up vegetables while the children played or did homework. Fredeline had brought the vegetables from her garden, as well as some seeds for the Lamarre family to plant. She had attended a lesson for women's empowerment several months ago, when her husband abandoned her with their young son. She had learned about seed-saving there. “I have more if you need them,” Fredeline was saying, wiping her long, slender hand across her high, sweaty brow. A tall woman, almost as tall as Seydou had been, and so slim she looked almost frail, Fredeline had been Bronte's best friend since they were little girls. They had learned to cook and sew together, and played games together. They had been in each other's weddings, of which Fredeline's had proved to be a mistake. She adjusted her kerchief, “I have only one child to look after. You have eight.” Tears hung in Bronte's eyes, the pain was welling up again. Good thing it was only Fredeline here to see. “Thank you,” she said, tears trickling down her weathered face, “What would I ever do without friends like you?”

          “Don't mention it,” Fredeline said, waving her hand in front of her face for emphasis, “it's what girlhood friends are for. You would do it for me. Here, let me finish these for you. You rest for a few minutes, before you and your kids have to have your talk.”

  Over a dinner of rice and pork, prepared mostly by Fredeline with some “help” from four-year old little Ritha, Bronte told her family the plans she had for the future. The children gazed at her silently, intently. She knew this was hard on them. They sat around the table in order of their birth. Emanuel sat beside his mother, on the left. His expression unreadable except for the veins showing in his eyes. A mere thirteen years old, he was already almost as tall as his father had been. Webster was fidgety, as usual. The exact opposite of his older brother, and nearly as tall, he was the nearest thing Bronte had to a “problem child.” His grades were usually average, though sometimes they slipped a little. It was not because he was less intelligent, it was because he was less interested in his studies.

          Leila the ten-year-old, was slightly over-emotional at times. She made things more dramatic than they had to be, in Bronte's opinion at least. Sometimes this trait made life in the Lamarre house more interesting and fun, sometimes it made things harder than necessary. Little Stephane, age two-and-a-half, sat on Leila's lap, looking around inquisitively. He was too young to fully grasp what was going on, but he knew that daddy was not coming home again. It had taken a while for him to understand that, and he had been deeply upset for about two days. This was the first day he seemed to be back to normal. His large brown eyes looked around with interest. He had nothing on but his training pants.

           Elsie, who was eight, sat across from the pair, holding her little brother Stevenson's hand. Six-year old Stephenson was no longer crying, but his eyes were still quite red. His school-boy shorts were covered with dust that was going to be a challenge to get clean by morning. Ritha sat beside him, smiling as usual, too young to fully understand what faced her family right now. On Bronte's lap, little Guerda slept soundly. She was too young to have any clue what was up, and Bronte was thankful. It would be much easier to discuss plans with the others if the baby was sleeping.

         “Alright, first of all, I want you all to know that we are not giving upon your schooling – that goes for all of you. Education is the pathway to prosperity, and in no way will I ever take any of you off of it.

          “I am going tomorrow to look for work. Fredaline is coming over with her son to take care of Ritha and Guerda. When you get home from school, we will be adding to our garden to try and grow more food. Fredeline plans to stay and help. She says she also has some extra seed and knows some ways to grow more food in less space. Now, I want you on your best behavior. She has walked a long way to help us today, and is going to do it again tomorrow. Any questions?”

          Eight of the most beautiful faces in the world stared back at her, silently. No one asked anything. With that, they began their dinner.

            The sun beat down on Bronte's head as she walked to the manufacturing district, looking for work. Dust hung in the air, coloring all she could see a pale, golden brown. She wore her best pair of blue jeans, and a slightly lighter blue shirt. She had embroidered a flower on the collar, it had taken her almost a month. The air smelled vaguely of garbage as she got further from her house. As a lower-class, uneducated woman, she had few prospects, and none of them paid well. She would probably need more than one. If someone would hire her on for sewing, she could probably do that on off hours from any job in the factory.

          It was a dangerous trek, walking by herself across town. Bronte's somewhat exceptional size would not help much, either. Most men were at least her size and still much stronger. The majority of the men in her areas were decent, fiercely protective and law-abiding, like her beloved Seydou. Nevertheless, there were also many evil men in Carrefour, and all it would take was one. There were a few women she knew of who had been infected with AIDS in an assault. Not a hazard to take lightly.

          She plodded along, eying every corner and every empty doorway with apprehension. There were many people camping on the roadside, homeless. Bronte and others had always helped when they could. Right now, she was not able to do that. She was in the season of receiving help right now, as they were, but her needs more more forward-looking while the needs of the homeless around her now were more immediate. Seydou had repaired the house with a group of his friends, who had in turn fixed their own houses with his and Emanuel's help.

          Occasionally, sounds and smells from cafes in several locks away tickled her nose, making her mouth water. She remembered the unseasoned pork and vegetables she had eaten last night, prepared lovingly by her very dear friend, and she was thankful. The people eating in those restaurants did not have so much love in their food. The cooks would not serve them for free, or hod their hand while they wept. Though she was indeed very poor, Bronte Lamarre was also unfathomably rich.

          It was a dangerous trek, walking by herself across town. Bronte's somewhat exceptional size would not help much, either. Most men were at least her size and still much stronger. The majority of the men in her areas were decent, fiercely protective and law-abiding, like her beloved Seydou. Nevertheless, there were also many evil men in Carrefour, and all it would take was one. There were a few women she knew of who had been infected with AIDS in an assault. Not a hazard to take lightly.

          She plodded along, eying every corner and every empty doorway with apprehension. There were many people camping on the roadside, homeless. Bronte and other had always helped when they could. Right now, she was not able to do that. She was in the season of receiving help right now, as they were, but her needs more more forward-looking while the needs of the homeless around her now were more immediate. Seydou had repaired the house with a group of his friends, who had in turn fixed their own houses with his and Emanuel's help.

          The pain was welling up again, How badly she missed her beloved Seydou! She fought down the tears, Not NOW! She shouted within herself, I cannot show weakness now. No way, not at all. She took slow, deep breaths of the putrid air. Some vagabonds had evidently relieved themselves in an alley near here. Something had also died nearby, by the odor of it. The stench was terrible, and Bronte was frightened. She remembered the eight precious faces staring at her after dinner last night, raising no questions, no doubts. Convinced that she could do as she said. She had to keep going, she had to.

Hemenway is a frequent teacher, consultant and lecturer on permaculture and ecological design throughout the U.S. and other countries. His writing has appear...

Hemenway is a frequent teacher, consultant and lecturer on permaculture and ecological design throughout the U.S. and other countries. His writing has appear...