alternate backgrounds problem...

i am creating portlets for a webpage, each portlet has any number of 
"section" divs and "link" divs in any order. I am trying to create alternate 
background colours on these divs by using the xsl. For example, for a white 
portlet, i would want:
link div - no background (white)
section div - grey background
section div - no background
link div - grey background
etc.......

I think i may have to do something with parameter passing but not sure how 
to tackle it. I thought about maybe counting the number of divs in each 
portlet and then saying for every even numbered div have no background and 
every odd numbered div have a coloured background. However, i dont think you 
can figure out which divs would be odd and which would be even? My xml and 
xsl is below:

I have an xml file like this:

<page>
   <portlet colour="white">
   <link>
       <name></name>
   </link>
  <link>
       <name></name>
   </link>
  <section>
       <name></name>
   </section>
   .......any number of mixed sections and links
   </portlets>
  <portlet colour="blue">
   <link>
       <name></name>
   </link>
  <link>
       <name></name>
   </link>
  <section>
       <name></name>
   </section>
   .......any number of mixed sections and links
   </portlets>
</page>

part of my xsl file looks a bit like this:
<xsl:template match="portlet">
       <xsl:variable name="colour" select="@colour" />
       <div class="portlet-content" id="ne-portlet-content">
        <!-- place description in portlet -->
        <xsl:if test="string-length(description) != 0">
                <div class="back-none">
                        <p><xsl:apply-templates select="description" /></p>
                                </div>
                </xsl:if>
        <!-- place links/sections in portlet -->
       	<xsl:apply-templates select="link | section"/> <!-- linkc | 
section-->
       </div>
   </xsl:template>

   <xsl:template match="link">
        <xsl:variable name="colour" select="../@colour"/>
   	<xsl:variable name="desclength" 
select="string-length(../description)"/>
                <div class="back-{$colour}">
                        LINK CONTENT
                </div>
   </xsl:template>

   <xsl:template match="section">
        <xsl:variable name="colour" select="../@colour"/>
   	<xsl:variable name="desclength" 
select="string-length(../description)"/>
        <div class="back-{$colour}">
                SECTION CONTENT
        </div>
   </xsl:template>

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