Pondy and North

Friday, June 20, 08
I forgot to purchase a meal ticket for the Dining Hall, so I am walking out past where I usually turn and continue on to where the Esplande (ocean front walkway) ends - on into the squalor of thatched lean-tos and broken down brick homes. Trash, and filthy water, drains into the sea as women drop white chalk from their fingers creating the designs which front many homes and businesses. Children are making a push for school, their uniforms pressed, the girls in braids. A teenager hikes her younger brother on a bicycle and turns down a narrow connecting street. Washing behind a short wall, a man scrubs as a temple blares sacred music. Fishermen are out, some in. Kneeling over their nets, they sort through their catch pulling off the ones stuck in the netting, mostly sardine size. Women sit on their haunches anticipating the catch - limited when considering how many mouths it must feed. Reaching the end of the pavement, I turn through a dirt path to the ocean front and look north where rocks have been dumped in against erosion. Back along the Esplanade, the exercising crowd is out. Near the GH is a public toilet and shower facility where a gathering of city folk are preparing for the day - brushing of teeth, showers and talk. It's 8:00 AM.