Dirt in the ground

I keep getting off the bed and going to the bathroom to walk through the remnants of my shower. The moment where the soles of my feet are wet with water cooled from the tiles cannot last long enough. The trick is to try and get back onto the bed while my feet are still wet. I have developed a beggars way of walking, tipping my soles inwards to each other, walking on the outside of my feet, to try. It barely works. 

The next step is squeezing out some moisturiser onto the top of one foot so I can use the other to rub it in, but not too much. I can't bring myself to touch my feet. Not even my toes. The cream feels cool for the smallest time. I didn’t bring any actual moisturiser with me, and have resorted to using my face sunscreen with aloe vera and other nourishing goodness. I know this is too expensive to continue, and make promises to search for moisturiser tomorrow. Even telling myself I will try the market first, before admitting defeat and heading to the only supermarket in town which charges prices that should make me faint.

As the water dries and sunscreen soaks in, I can picture the cracks forming again along the backs of my heels and even underfoot. I have taken to showering twice a day here. Once in the morning to shock myself into leaving the house and it’s ceiling fans; then again at night. I am not sure if I want people to know about the night-time ones. All I can picture as I scrub are the scores of hands from the street kids which have covered more parts of me than any man in recent times. I note their filthy fingers each time, and I can almost see the excrement under their nails, the worm eggs, the lice in their hair. Their cries of “Aunty! Aunty!” fall on deaf ears with me as I walk on, humiliated at their insistence and my inability to shake them off. As if I need another reason to stand out in this town in my western trousers and blonde hair curling up with humidity. Irony my new shade of blush.

The market vendors, at least, reserve smiles for me in the quiet times when I wander in laden with little bags all fighting for a finger. I take pity on the man with small carrots and also buy three handfuls of green chillies for twenty cents that I don’t need. His English is worse than the others, but between our broken words we get there, and he can see in my eyes that I need him. His skin has darkened from the sun, and it is hard to tell if he is sixteen or thirty six. With my chillies and coriander and undergrown carrots I turn away from the fishmongers with their day old fish; eyes almost sunken in to the stage where my mother would say “not those ones”.

I walk through the scales and bloody water, trying to pretend I am tall and Not To Be Messed With as I make my way back out onto the street, waiting my turn to play chicken with the rickshaw drivers and bullies in cars. I have learnt to match my cadence to the age and strength of the rickshaw wallah coming my way. I don’t give them business if I can help it, there is so little to do in this town as it is and walking keeps me busy. Three steps per pause in traffic, twenty one steps and I’ve made it to the other side. I’ll make it in eighteen by the time I leave, I think, as I watch the wheels roll perfectly close to my toes, no room for error, no space left unfilled.

I have planned dinner right down to the shredded ginger and diced garlic. Coriander for garnish, and tomato for a bit of colour since my carrots are more like camouflage. I didn’t do well on the tomatoes and only bought three, pretending to no one that I care about a dollar this way or that. As I dice and I slice I scan my memory banks for recipes I have never read, hoping a stroke of luck will come through my hands and into my bowl. I nod and smile and gush at the end result as I battle with my posh chopsticks with shell detail to pick up the carrot pieces all slimy with soy sauce and noodles. It sounds so much better than it is, like so much else. My vegetable scraps complete with bug-munched cabbage leaves make it into the bin with the knowledge they are someone else’s now. Again the guilt and my dry feet; it’s time for that shower.