Aucun être ne peut en sauver un autre. Il faut se sauver soi-même.
Herman MELVILLE


Day 57

am

pm (Hot rain)

Rides = nil
Arrival = Amarillo
KM travelled = nil
$ spent = $0.00
Time passed on the road = nil
km walked = 7


It gets really cold here at night. Even in the shelter the air was a bit too cool. In one of the corners of the dormitory there was blanket bin. You could take one and add it onto your bed if you were cold. I picked up this pale green flannelette blanket, not because of the colour, but because it felt really strange. The blanket was stuffed with things. Some were long and hard things, others were small and square. I tried to guess what was inside but I could not. I thought that maybe someone who had come to Sally Ann had hidden their treasures inside that blanket. I went to sleep holding the green flannelette close to my body. In the morning I went to the Sally Ann clothing store and came out with a free shirt (blue) and a free Bavarian Hat (beige). I also took the blanket along with me, draping it over my shoulder Latino style. My look was transformed and I felt good in it.



I spent the afternoon walking the streets of Amarillo. It was raining but it was a warm rain which was nice. I met a couple of people, Anne, the traveller from Switzerland who was born in Belgium but carried a French passport. Niles, a older guy who told me that I could easily hitch a ride on a freight train. The train idea was interesting enough for me to visit the yard. It looked difficult but possible to do. While pausing for a break from my walk, I opened my blanket with a knife and realized that the strange things inside, the treasure was in fact the apparatus of an electric blanket!

At night I had to find another shelter. It was not possible to sleep at the Salvation Army for more than 2 days. Somebody there said that I could go to the mission. There were a large number of people waiting for the doors to open, nobody was panicking like in Vancouver. The mood was dark and people seemed to keep to themselves. I noticed that there were many older men. Admission was done in a dark corner inside. The man behind the desk asked my name, my age and occupation. After this I went into the chapel, everyone filtered in slowly. A minister walked to the pulpit, opened his bible and started the longest speech ever. He was saying Amen all the time and everybody was repeating Amen. Back and forth. I thought they were saying Hey Man! It was confusing but funny. After the mass we ate and after the meal we all got naked for the shower. That was a first for me. It was not like going to the shower after the swimming pool. This was more like a Siberian camp. The room was lit with bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. We left our clothes on a long wooden table in front of two serious men. They had the job of looking through the shirts and the pants and the underwear for lice. If they found any they would push the items with a stick into a cardboard box for burning. There were also two other serious men overlooking the showers. An older man was laying on the floor moaning and no one seemed to be able to do anything to break his trance. I had never seen a old man naked like that. He had long white and yellow hair. He was just skin and bones. It was heart breaking, not the fact that he was old, but he seemed unreachable. There was something very depressing about this whole place. We were all lost in the hot steam.


- Daniel


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