Wash Day

Friday is my new Sunday. It is quite hard to adjust to this new time schedule now living in an Islamic country where Friday is the day of mosque and rest. I don’t complain on Thursday when my work week ends early, but come Sunday which is now the new Tuesday with me heading off to the weeks second work day , I am definitely jealous thinking of my US/UK counterparts recovering from their Saturday night haunts with a full day of rest ahead. Nevertheless I try to make the most out of my new Weekend and this past Friday, Greg and I went for a long walk along the river.

As we walked along the busy roads we followed the smelly, murky, trash lined tributaries wondering if they were actually run offs of the river or just open sewers, maybe both. At times there are sidewalks and I am instantly thankful for the safe demarcation from the rickshaw-motorcycle-car-truck-cow-goat-traffic but ever so often there is a gap in the sidewalk and that illusion of a safety sidewalk is actually hovering over a 10ft drop straight above the sewer tributary. I tense up and detour away from the edge every time I walk past a gap with the fear that I may slip of my bedazzled new culturally appropriate wedge flip flops and fall straight into the sludge. But then again can the water be that bad when you see boys wading through, treasure hunting for items that they can redeem for money to eat? It is bad and smelly and I would never want that job even if it meant I didn't have to work on Fridays or Sundays.

We reached the river and besides the interruption in the city skyline of blue sky, green banks and stretch of tan-green water, the sight of men washing themselves and women washing their clothes bring a patchwork of colour to an otherwise muted landscape. A red saree lays out in a perfect rectangle along the concrete bank which slopes from the path down to the bank. Orange baggy trousers and purple/turquoise plaid lunghis lie nearby. The dryer (Sun 365) is at work, beaming down rays and slowly wrinkling the cotton as the river water evaporates from the cloth. A group of men are washing their bodies, with wet heavy lunghis clings to their bums as they voices reach pre-pubertal pitches as they submerged themselves in the cold waters of the river. One man from the opposite bank wades into the water calmly stirring up the mud and leaving a swirling trail behind him. It is Friday--while the devout are praying and while the rich are attending weddings, for others it is washday.