Vapi Views

Another Sunday in Vapi.

The faucet at the kitchen sink had reduced to just a bit more than a trickle, and one of the upstairs bathrooms was completely blocked -- no water to the toilet or sink. (That didn't really matter since we never use the "pink" -- very pink -- bathroom.) Turns out there's so much dirt in the water (and, I think, clumps of rust from the pipes) that some of the pipes had been blocked. So we had our water tank cleaned. Now we have to contend with water that looks like this:

This is the dishpan we use for washing dishes. The water used to be clear (mostly -- a fair amount of grit would settle out if we let it sit for a few hours). Now it's this "lovely" yellow and filled with even more grit.

Over the last two days the water has improved. I've reached the point where I will wash my hair and clothes with it. But this confirms my thoughts that a lot of my problem with laundry has been the dirt in the water making everything gray and dingy.

On to more interesting things.

The neighborhood I walk through on my way to the market area is having sewers installed (replaced?). The streets have been throughly dug up and everything is really a mess -- uneven, dirty, and dusty. While the holes are filled, there is very little effort made to restore the road to a truly drivable condition.

This is a road. This crew is backfilling around the new sewer access points. Women do a lot of the heavy lifting (literally) at construction sites. The metal pans are used to move materials -- dirt, bricks, sand, concrete -- whatever is needed. Also note that the women work while wearing saris.

This is a typical construction worker camp. All the activities of daily life take place here: cooking, laundry, bathing, sleeping. At building sites, the workers start out in camps like this, then move into the unfinished building until the interior is nearly finished. Then it's back to outdoor camps.

A 10-floor building around the corner has been under construction the whole time we've been living here. Polished granite slabs for some of the finishing work (interior, I presume) was delivered last week. It took four men to handle a slab.

Polished granite slabs after delivery to a construction site.

Kite day ("Makarsankranti") is coming up on Wednesday. More on that in a later post.