Travel: Colors

At one time in my life, I lived in a foreign city where they have markets on Saturdays and you have to learn to barter in order to get good deals. 

What I loved most were the colors that I saw. Buildings that were yellow, green, blue, red, and pink. Colorful. It fit there. It added life to a rather barren land of brown dirt roads and palm trees. Walk ten steps away from the beach lined boardwalk and you entered the real city that no one wants to see. 

Back here in the States, I gawk if I see a house that is an abnormal color. Really? I say to myself. You want a mint green house? 

But in that paradise (and it was—it was the first time I ever got a real noticeable tan!), it was okay to have those colors; to hang your laundry out on the balcony; to know who your neighbors are. 

And the colors were just a way of welcoming the newcomers and foreigners.