In the stunning green world of Kerala’s backwaters, the people with their bright homes and clothing stand out like jewels–especially the women. We couldn’t make real contact, motoring by on our houseboat, but we could watch them on their way from, well, somewhere to somewhere else, threading the narrow path between canal and rice paddy.

  Or going by boat…

   …or maybe just preparing to go by boat…

…or hanging out by their houses. 

From our lazy houseboat perspective, even the buildings themselves clustered in their small villages or strung out along the canal have a certain charm.

      When we docked near a village for the night, Dan and I went out for a walk. On land. Something a little different. And here, as elsewhere in Kerala, I was approached by children. Elsewhere in India, they are likely to be beggars. But not in Kerala. Kerala has virtually no beggars, and certainly not the children. What these children wanted was simply to make my acquaintance, and maybe practice a little English.

“Hello,” they say.

I smile–I can’t help it!–and they smile back. “How are you?” they ask.

“I’m fine,” I reply. “How are you?”

“I am fine. What’s your name?”

So I tell them, and I learn theirs, and sometimes we get as far as, “How old are you?” (That would be me asking them, not the other way around. They probably don’t know numbers bigger than, say, ten.)

“May I take your picture?” I might ask, or they might ask it, in words or in gestures, these bright, shining children. “Please, take my picture.”

So I do.