Keeping clean

It’s impossible to keep clean in India, particularly your feet. While this is no doubt because I wear flimsy flip flops everywhere to fit in with the traditional dress (instead of wearing bulky sneakers or sandals as most tourists do in order to avoid this plight of dirty toes, I on the other hand have sacrificed my cleanliness for the culture or perhaps just not to look goofy). Each night I try to scrub the dirt off my feet but they only seem to be dirtier the next night I wash them. Last night my host mom took me to temple, barefoot! I shouldn’t have been shocked, taking your shoes off is a big deal here (as it is in most places except the U.S. or in my house it really isn’t) but since my host mom thought the temple was close enough we decided to walk a quarter mile down the street barefoot to the temple. I decided right then to give up on having clean feet the rest of my time here.