The Tailor

Today was a scheduled power outage-meaning that the power was out all day.  The past two days have been some of the hottest since I have arrived, not having a fan to sit under makes it quite unbearable.  Not to mention that I decided to wash our laundry today by hand.  Well, after I already had the garments in the bucket with a little water and soap-the water decides to go out as well.  Luckily we got some water around lunch time and we could finish doing our laundry.  I did learn that wringing out our clothes on an extremely hot day is not that ideal-especially Jonathan's clothes as they are a lot bigger than mine!

We decided to set out on an adventure to get the blouse to my new sari tailored since it was too tight in the arms.  After walking around for a few moments in the hot sun unable to find a tailor-we stopped by a clothing shop where we really liked the people.  We asked them if they were able to tailor the blouse or if they knew of anywhere.  Of course this conversation all happened with our limited Tamil and their limited English.  One of the three women walked us to a nearby tailor who said he was unable to do it.  She quickly walked us back to the shop.  Another one of the three women then walked us to this hair salon where she explained to the woman there, in Tamil, that the blouse was too tight around the arms for me.  She agreed to fix the top!  She had me try it on and then quickly took it off of me and began removing the stitches.  I went back out to the parlor area and sat next to Jonathan.  There was another woman who helped to run the show.  She was stringing jasmine flowers.  She spoke English very well.  We talked to her until the blouse was ready.  She told us about how she is a Sri Lankan refugee and is not able to work here because she is unable to get a work permit.  Most of her family in here in India but she has a brother and sister in England and they send money.  They were the sweetest ladies ever!  My blouse was done and she had me try it on-it fit perfectly!  She then offered to make me a blouse if I buy the fabric-a blouse that would be a perfect fit for me.  We thanked her over and over again.  She then asked for 20 rupees-that is less than fifty cents.  Jonathan tried to give her more money but she wouldn't take it.  She responded by saying that she only charges for the work she does.  We couldn't leave it at that.  We went to the sweets shop, bought them some la doo (a delicious South Indian treat), and brought it back to their shop.  I will definitely go to her for some tailoring in the future.