You look beautiful in blue the Ostrich said and when I was cruel he said, but I can be a judge of voices can I not? I didn't ask him what he thought of my voice, I walked away. There were others whose admiration I sought. It must have been in the evening that I was wearing blue. It was white tobes in the morning, coloured ones for the evening. The evening lectures were special, leisurely, there was time after lunch to shower, to have a nap. To walk from the hostels in groups and pairs, past the young boy selling peanuts, past the closed post-office, past the neem trees with the broken benches underneath. Jangly earrings, teeth snapping chewing gum and kohl in our eyes. The tobes slipping off our carefully combed hair, lifting our hands putting them back on again. Tightening the material, holding it under our left arm. I miss these gestures already left behind. (Majdy says: If you cover your hair they'll think I was forcing you to do that. They won't believe it is what you want.) So I must walk unclothed feeling the material on my hair, on my arms, tilting my head a little so that it would not fall, lifting my hands to adjust an imaginary tobe.