A Place Worth Seeing

I know it has been awhile since I last posted on my blog.  After leaving Goa on June 11, we spent the next 18 days at Sivananda Ashram in Neyyardam, Kerala (near the southern most tip of India) to study and practice yoga. Then we moved on to a beach side town in Kovalam, Kerala for the following week and then have spent the last week or so further up the west coast in Fort Cochin, Kerala.  Though I have definitely experienced many things since leaving Goa, I see many of those experiences as part of a larger story and thus will share and reflect at some points in my journey ahead. 

So the story I wanted to share now is something I recently saw here in Fort Cochin.  There is a very touristy part of Fort Cochin where every shopkeeper tries to grab your attention and every auto rickshaw driver tries to take you to see the notable attractions.

It took Shruthi and I a few days to really "shake off" the hawkers and see some of the more local non-tourist spots.  Through the aid of an auto rickshaw driver who kindly befriended us we were introduced to a place worth seeing.  All the hotel accommodations including hospitals and other larger institutions give their laundry to the local laundry service called Dhoby Khana.  Sometimes when cruise ships come to port the workers have to turn around thousands of clothes and linens in short order.

What I found interesting is how organized they were and how resourceful they were in their operations. They burned coconut shells to provide the heat necessary to iron the clothes.  They used the trunk of trees that were no good to make furniture but did just fine as posts to hang the clothes. 

There is something in how the people of India live and relate to their land that I am only beginning to understand.

 

Comments

[Brian Dickson]

Jeff,
Their methods are amazing. It reminds me in Jamaica how the poorer people gathered water in the jungles for household use. Without convenience, we are so inventive.
"If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on the kind track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are--if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.
--Joseph Campbell