On Monday last week I paid a visit to a Hindu temple with my cleaning lady and her husband. I jumped into a car packed with 6 Hindi speaking passengers. I had no idea where we were going or what we were to do upon arrival. I was told to take my shoes off and leave them in the car. So there I stand with black socks on the dirt covered pavement feeling quite out of place. I was most likely the only white person to enter that temple on Monday.

We watched some sort of parade go by for 30 minutes or so, and the only English I heard was “photo, photo! – you take photo”, so I did. We proceeded to climb many stairs, stand in line and pray to a dozen or so gods. When my companions bowed and prayed I followed suit for lack of any sort of knowledge of these kinds of events. I did as I saw, and walked in line with the rest.  We touched the flowers and then the powder, I was marked on the forehead and then touched the fire. Afterwords we ate coconut and bananas on the floor of the temple.