Daily living in Mysore: After the handwashing…. the handwashing!

Dani’s post: We’ve had two days of ‘down time’ – feeling a little tired, Tai with a bellyache today, intermittent rain – which has left us feeling somewhat restored. The boys have not complained of boredom, suggesting that they’ve enjoyed just hanging around, reading tales of Hindu gods and goddesses that Tina lent us, and having the odd game of gully cricket with their new friends. The gully cricket was yesterday expanded to Indian ball games (one of which involved throwing a ball to each other with one child facing away and clapping his hands (??) and Australian card games (e.g. ‘Go Fish’). While Tai rested at home and I looked after him, Peter took Felix and Barney for their first Thali – the traditional Indian lunch – where a big plate of rice is served with an assortment of small bowls containing different dishes.

Thali 'before'
























Thali 'after'





















On days like this, where we’re not on a particular ‘mission’, we are governed by the rhythms of domestic life, complete with all its idiosyncrasies… Every day we get a 20 litre bottle of filtered water for drinking and which we also use to rinse the dishes and for brushing our teeth. We bring the empty bottle to the little corner store right next to the Shala, and already after one week the owner knows us well enough to run the full one up to our doorstep on his motorbike. The pipe from the kitchen sink doesn’t quite make it into the ground intact, and is wrapped in an extra layer of plastic to correct this, however the plastic has a big hole in it near the bottom. So you can’t pour large quantities of water down the sink. To wash the dishes, you have to: switch on the thermostat in the bathroom wait 10 minutes for the water to heat up fill the small blue bucket with hot water and take it to the kitchen sink add dishwashing detergent and wash the dishes pour the dirty dishwater down the toilet rinse the dishes in filtered water. I’m sure there used to be an easier way to do this… hmmm. The handwashing is endless: three boys who play gully cricket and two adults who each sweat through a complete set of yoga clothes each day. The washing line is strung up beside the house, between a tree, a pipe and the neighbour’s garage. That’s ok, washing lines here are endlessly creative.

Creative washing lines


One of the women building next door sorts grains in front of our gate