We were coming back from the Avenida with some shopping when I spotted a laundry line.

It was strung in the porch of a little brick building perched on the edge of a swampy looking river.

Seeing lines of laundry or clothes hanging on a fence or jeans drying on some rebar is not that unusual here in La Peñita de Jaltemba, but I liked the look of this short little line. Kevin walked further ahead to wait in the shade while I stopped to take a picture..which is when I noticed the man standing in the doorway.

Like me, he was probably in his fifties. He looked like he had worked hard all his life.

“Hola,” I said, “Yo tomar un photo por favor. Yo amo lavandaría.”  I knew I was butchering the sentence but this was my best Spanglish.

He thought this request was hilarious.  He was grinning and laughing as I tried again to explicar that I loved taking pictures of laundry.  He seemed incredulous that anyone would want to do that.

He explained to me that this laundry had been done ‘a mano‘. I guess because I was using the word lavandería, which is a word reserved for something more like a laundromat. I should have been talking about the ropa limpia or the clean clothes on the line. He stressed again that he had washed these things by hand.

I told him I understood that, took the picture and showed him how the light/la luce was beautiful and how his clothes looked bonito. 

We shook hands, “Mucho gusto,” he said. “Me llaman Javier.”

He seemed as pleased with our little interaction as I was. Then he switched to English to say he spoke only a little English and I replied, in my bastardized Spanish, that I only worked with my poco Espagnol.

At this point, I’m not sure whose grin was bigger or who was feeling more pleased with our rudimentary conversation.

We shook hands again, smiling and nodding at each other. As we repeated our names and said goodbye, he covered my one hand in both of his and held it briefly between his calloused hands.

It felt like a benediction.