Sunday, November 21, 2010

Day 101 Thursday November 11th The cleaning lady. Colorful India.

I first see her hunched over on the floor bashing a shirt against the marble floor as she washes it. Whites go in the machine but coloreds get bashed against a rock. It’s hard to tell but she looks about 50 and is too shy at first to offer eye contact. She has a red dress of some sort with a blue top and then a very colorful sari wrap over all of that. She is barefoot. She has a gold colored necklace and earrings and a dime sized nose stud of white diamonds and numerous bracelets to finish it all off. She doesn’t speak English and doesn’t speak the same state language as Ramesh and Lakshmi. Communication is difficult. Over the next few days I gradually manage to work on the eye contact and then some smiles and then, after a few days, she comes over to ask if she can make us anything to eat-all with sign language.
Indians love color and it’s all bright primary colors as well. As we travel East on our 8 month trip everything gets more colorful. (Take a look at Day 70-“Crete” to see why their national color is black and their songs mournful).

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