Sunday 22 August 2010

Good clean fun

The only link today is that I'm still writing Mauritius stories. I was amazed, frankly, to come across a scene like this there: a couple of dozen women thigh-deep in a river, shirts and dresses draped over rocks being scrubbed with actual scrubbing brushes. The grassy river bank behind them was almost covered with clothes and sheets spread out to dry, and their children were all playing together in and out of the water.

They did seem to be enjoying doing this menial chore so sociably, though, and there was a lot of talking and laughing going on, so I suppose it could have even been something that they looked forward to. It was just such a contrast with what we'd seen a short time before in the city, Port Louis, where there were fancy watches and handbags in the shop windows along the waterfront, and a live jazz band playing.
This is where the young people came to pose and parade, and in their modern clothing looked a world away from the women in the river with their skirts tucked up into their knickers. I've never seen so many carefully-spiked hairdos in one place before. The couple above is typically good-looking - the girls below, to be honest, less so (especially when glaring suspiciously at middle-aged frumpy white tourists pointing long lenses at them) but that doesn't mean they don't get their share of admiring glances.

1 comment:

Cindy said...

looks fun to me=)
This is a wonderful way of having community bonds!

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