It was a desolate and alien place, looking more like a photo from Mars than any place that could be on this Earth. The vista stretched for miles in every direction, a rock-strewn blanket of baking, undulating tan, brown and bone white scree.
As desolate as this vista was, so, too, appeared the lives of the meager few who lived there in scattered small settlements in places about as far from 20th century technology as one could get.
Mechanical things, made of metal and plastic of different colors, were rarely seen. There were no children’s toys from Toys “R” Us, no bicycles, no rubber balls, no erector sets. The children were too busy gathering water from the town well, herding goats, scavenging for tin, wire and scrap iron. The women…
