I’ve been given a new gaze on what it means to be mother and woman by the way women in our neighborhood live their life – simple, and somehow all-embracing. And they take seriously this simplicity!

They can spend 3 hours amidst each other, peeling garlic. Waking each other up at 4am to make sure they don’t miss the weekly water supply. Preparing food that heals. Prayer and sacred rituals. Their life, stripped from a certain extravagance, feels True. They help me to recognize the most important things in life: a full plate, company, a door to open for others to come in, stability, stillness.

Living life with them reminds me of Nazareth and of Mary. Often, I catch glimpses of her in them–I imagine that Mary also let the neighbors borrow her rolling pin. I imagine that she also knocked often at the door of the foreigners, offering them a warm meal. Perhaps she also put flowers in their hair, like they do so often for us. They bring color to our life as they knock (sometimes several times a day) at our door to bring us food, teach us how to cook, bring us to weddings, and also to laugh with us at the many mistakes we make while trying to live this Indian life.