Oh, the weather outside is frightful

but conducive to sledding so after the girls came in and thawed we put together our annual gingerbread house. The water was still off so when my fingers got so sticky I could no longer manipulate the bag of frosting, Samantha liked them clean. I don't think she minded the job. The water came back on at bedtime. Hurrah!
Later we watched a gorgeous film called Water, set in India in the 40's and exposing the plight of Indian widows, some as young as 9. Once widowed, a woman was either to join her husband on the funeral pyre, marry his younger brother or go to live a life a self denial at a widow's ashram, forbidden to ever marry again. The story centers around a nine year old widow who doesn't even remember having been married before she was whisked away from her parents and deposited in the ashram and another young widow who is lent out as a prostitute to wealthy Brahmins. She falls in love with a high caste young man who has been questioning these traditions under the influence of Ghandi. I won't give away any more but the story has a Romeo and Juliet twist to it. So alongside my renewed appreciation for running water was profound gratitude that my daughters and I were not born to the fates of so many other women in the world who, even today, have no recourse from the religious and government sanctioned oppression and brutality they are subjected to.