It is likely that they had been there since daybreak; that their bodies had moved as black shapes through the colourless dawn, cold air drawing silver tears, and eyes shimmering joyfully to know those few short hours in a tropical day when everything feels crisp, and bodies move, not with langour, but intent.
The black shapes, the shapes of women, walking then through the silent streets. The shapes of young children by their sides, and the outlines of woven baskets; awkward to carry and overflowing with the morning´s work.
Perhaps the procession grew in number as the once black sky turned blue. Down to the river and the grassy banks.
As I watched them later from a bridge, the long hot morning tumbling on, bed sheets and clothes, in pinks and greens, yellows and blues, stretched across huge boulders, drying under the sun. Young children played, splashing in the water, and clothes were wrung and wrung again. Scrubbed clean on the boulders, rinsed again and left there flat to dry. The long skirts of the women were stained a black and glistening wet by the river. The baskets were almost empty. The work was almost done.
Across the bridge piled onto a single rickety bicycle a family went by. A small naked girl stood up in the basket, clinging onto the sides, her mother sitting across a rusty frame. The father´s legs rotated slowly and awkwardly around his wife and over the back wheel the elder daughter sat and waved.
I left the river and the bridge behind, and suddenly my bike felt very light. At intervals, for the rest of the day, I fell into almost uncontrollable fits of laughter every time I pictured the family on a bike.
