I stood knee-deep in the water at the edge of the lake, my skirt hitched up as we used to do when attempting handstands in the school playground, rubbing my laundry on the already-soaped ribbed board at one side of the concrete unit. When everything was thoroughly scrubbed, I bent over to rinse the clothes. Having wrung them out, I took them back to dry land and hunkered down under the small lapa, watching the water and the birds as I waited for my flip-flops to dry in the sun, before I headed back up the hill to my washing line and a rare date with a book and a hammock. This is island life. This is the Archipiélago de Solentiname. Where there is no traffic; there are no roads – only, at most, paved pathways
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