Provisions

Dusk is turning to dark and my room is lit with candles, strewn with roses. Soft music mingles with a distant call to prayer.
I should explain.
The electricity is off and the entertainment for the night is provided by small speakers. I have also been shopping for bedding. I picked the reddest rose velvet bedcover - and there were plenty to choose from - and the pinkest rose sheets. Had the plastic-flower seller's story been as sad and sweet as the linen man's I'd have ended up with armfuls of his roses too.
"You are like me, sister," he began, "far from home and all alone."
They know too much this bedding wallahs. You answer their simple question, "Single ya double ma'am?" and they know all your secrets. He told me his secrets too.
His family are from Lahore, a city he loves, for when I praised its architecture and food his eyes misted over. They had fought over land and he and his brother lost everything. He fled here and his brother to Germany. They doubt they will ever see each other again.
This shopping trip had become more than just about furnishing a house with carpets, cushions and covers but about making this town home with conversations and cups of tea.
"Oh, and I forgot to ask," I say as I leave, "Is it ok to handwash the velvet?"
"So we really are the same! Far from home, all alone and even washing by hand."

I catch a public taxi home and walk the last stretch up the path home. A lady ahead paused for breath and to let me catch up. We salaam and she invites me in for a cup of tea. Across the corn field outside my room, she is my nearest neighbour. Hungry, I am glad when a cup of tea turns into meat and swede stew, naan, yogurt to drink and milk tea with a choice of sugar or salt to taste (mine's white no salt, they know for next time).
Her daughters' hands are red with Eid henna. Less than a week ago I was with my neighbours in Bradford celebrating this same festival, recent enough that their henna is still dark, fresh. What's more, tea is served with left-overs from Eid, shrikar. "What's it made of?" I ask as I chew. "Flour, milk, oil..." the daughter begins. There's still a flavour I can't quite place. The mother interrupted. "And the hard part of the fat of a sheep."
Next morning I am stopped at the same place on the path by another lady, weighed down by a thermos and a basket. Again, we salaam and chat. She turns to join her sisters-in-law and cousin-sisters at the far side of the field. They are beckoning with wild arms that I should come too. Pharmuk points to a safe place to cross and we walk through freshly plucked stalks of corn.
We squat on a stack of these and husks. I am introduced as the ladies finish their gleaning. Ammi from yesterday's visit is there and is proud she knows me.
The thermos is unstopped and the basket is opened. The picnic begins. I am poured the first bowl of tea (bowls for friends, cups for guests, they apologise) and offered the first snack. The tea is salty and the snack is shrikar.

I am Ruth among the gleaners, being provided for. My kinsman-redeemer is good to me.