Slow Goodbyes

Reika, Prema, Joti, Rovit, Akash and Reika

Above is a current pic of who I take to Colva on most days. The two girls on the right will be leaving Goa in a couple days for Karnataka. Then the other four will be heading out in three weeks or so. They will come back to Goa in August.

I went to a Goan familie's pre-wedding lunch/picnic today. Nothing too exciting to report there. I felt obligated to wear pants which didn't complement the heat too well. Nice food. I chatted a bit and went home.

35°C (95°F) | 26°C (78°F) Humidity 61%

Rain and Two Dinners

Sunday!!! And it was a nice one. Went up to Colva for our morning service. Nothing extra out of the ordinary to report on except for a new visitor, Hephzibah. Hephzibah is one of John's friends from Karnataka. She is in a 6 month training program, in Ponda (about 20 Km away), for some new job. She has been in Goa for one week now and it is looking like she is interested in coming to the center on Sundays to attend the service. FYI: Hephzibah can be found in Isaiah 62:4.

I went out onto the beach around 5pm to catch up with some friends as their work day was wrapping up. We chatted for a couple hours and then were rudely interrupted by rain droplets. Wah??? So, with the quickness, we ran to my scooter to make our way to cover. We all got soaked, seriously soaked. There was some powerful thunder and lightning which killed the electricity for the night. (Currently, the power is hinting at wanting to come back on. One minute on, 10 minutes off.) After sitting in my wet cloths for a while, I got treated to some yummy Goan cuisine. My friends' landlord is hosting a party for a wedding in a couple of days so there was a lot of extra food floating around. If you want to get fat real fast, hang out with some Goans while they are preparing for a party. After the rain stopped and my plate was cleaned up, I went outside to go to my scooter. I walked past the temporary outdoor party kitchen where I saw 5 women cooking over 5 different fires. They were making tasty pastries. As I walk past, these old women are shoving treats into my hands. Some were good, some were strange tasting.

My laptop battery is about out so I will try to wrap things up here.

In the end, I ate way too much tonight, I got soaked in the first rain shower of the season and I got invited to a pre-wedding party tomorrow. Woot!

Wet Roof

The sky being lit up

38°C (101°F) | 25°C (77°F) Humidity 51%

No Power and Facebook

The power was off today from 9am to 3pm. And it just went off again, at 10pm!!!! Good thing I have a fully charged lappy to work with. Because of it being so hot and humid today, and no fan power, I spent most of the day by the sea. Nice breezes. I did some chatting, eating and reading of my book.

For dinner, I went over to Nanki Lila's. (Nanki is Banjari for short) Not to be mistaken with the Tall Lila. We had fried fish, chapatis, rice and my special dish that I cooked up. Butter paneer. It is a buttery brown sauce with all kinds of goodness in it and goat cheese cubes. This is my third time experimenting with it and it turned out pretty good. Even though it is a fairly common Indian dish, I got some pretty strange reactions for it. First, "You cook?". Then, "What are these things floating in your cooking?" Like normal, the kids ate first. They liked everything but the goat cheese cubes. So these got placed on a side plate for later disposal. Ha! Then Lila tried some and made a sour expression. Just when I thought all hope was lost, Lila's mother, Nani Bhami, showed up to eat dinner. She was given a spoon serving of my dish to inspect. She said it tasted really good and was given her plate of food and ate more of my cooking. Then Lila got a plate of dinner and tried my butter paneer again. This time, she said it was really good. Ha! Thanks Nani Bhami.

Rovit, Lila, Kapil, Reika, Sangita and Savita

FYI, if you are on Facebook, you can find me here.

Today's Weather: High 37°C (98°F) | Low 26°C (79°F) Humidity 77%

Short Update

I feel quite a bit better today.

A Hindu Wedding and a Base Burn

As I warned earlier, today I went to my first Hindu wedding. It was more intense than... I can't think of anything clever. The wedding was a couple minutes away from the church in Colva. Above is Ravi and Geeta sitting in their fancy wedding chairs and being blessed in a hundred different ways.

Here is the long-view shot of the fancy tent and all the family and friends. Fun fact: this is also where we go to have Kids Up on Tuesday afternoons.

This is the goat that was making a lot of noise throughout the whole ceremony, also known as dinner.

Next, everyone went inside. While some guy rang a bell, another guy applied red powder to foreheads and everyone sweat. Too many people in a small room on a really hot day.

Above is the father of the bride showing the audience the dowry. Dowry is gifts given to the family of the new groom by the family of the bride, often in the form of money, jewelery or home appliances.

After the marriage ceremony, everyone chowed down on some spicy eggplant curry, flavored rice and some sweet dish. This was served onto leaf plates.

While we were eating, this girl started shouting and screaming in the back. She had leaned against some electrical cords that were providing power to the sound system. She was getting electrocuted and was froze on the spot. One guy ran over and pulled her away and got shocked as well. I don't think anyone was permanently damaged in the incident. Above, men moving some power cords around.

Before leaving, I helped myself to the paan. Paan is the natural after dinner breath freshener of India. It consists of a Betel Pepper leaf, crushed bits of Betel nut and this mysterious white paste. So after eating, one will take these ingredients and wrap them up and put them in one's mouth. Shortly afterwards, you will begin to enjoy a wonderful blend of flavors and then you will spit red juices onto the sidewalk. OK, so where could all of this go dangerously wrong? Well, things went wrong when i realized that I had put way too much of the mysterious white paste into my mix. The paste is Calcium Hydroxide or slaked lime. It is a medium strength base and we all remember what a base is, right? Base burn, the evil cousin of the acid burn. Since I had everything wrapped up in the leaf, it took a couple minutes for things to start taking effect. So I am taking John home after the wedding and start feeling this soapy texture in my mouth. Then I start feeling this mild tingling on my tongue and lips. Then I start thinking that it might be nice to spit all of this out onto the road. Before dropping John off, we stop in at a little restaurant to see if we can remedy this problem. By now, my mouth is quite burning. I dig into my memory reserves to think of a logical solution to this chemistry problem. I drink tons of water. Still the burning. Then I thought it might be a good idea to drink some cola. My thought being that the acid in the cola would balance out the base. Now, I am no chemist but I think all of these liquids halted the burning. I was still left to suffer from the incident. My afternoon snack hurt my mouth. Brushing my teeth hurt my mouth. Drinking water hurt my mouth. Doing nothing hurt my mouth. Tonight, I went over to a friend's for dinner and managed to eat about a forth of my plate. I would eat one bite of food (not spicy food) and then wash the pain away with a gulp of water. It was really not enjoyable so I wimped out. I guess the best thing for it now is to just sleep it off. Currently, it feels like I just got done eating four boxes of Sour Patch Kids at the movie theater. Either you know this feeling or you don't. Here's to a better tomorrow.

Faces and an Accident

I'm going to try to keep it light tonight. Went to Renuka and Ansia's for dinner. That makes for eating at the four sister's houses in four days. Awesome food every night. Really, the best food in Goa. While the food was being prepared, I was messing around taking close up photos of the kids. I really tried to remember this kid's name but have lost it.

Today, in Colva, I saw a traffic accident. On the main Colva road, just before where I turn off to go to the center, a boy was driving his motorcycle and sorta drove over a tourist dude. It happened just in front of me and I was looking right at the motorcycle but the order of events is a bit confusing in my mind. In my memory, the bike flipped over but I don't think that really happened. If that had happened, I think the driver would have been hurt in a bad way. Anyways, the tourist guy got bumped and fell down and the bike drove over his legs. Like any accident here, a huge group of people surrounded the incident. The bike guy was trying to start up his bike to get out of there when some guy pulled the keys out of his bike. Then the guy ditched his bike and ran away. The tourist guy didn't look as bad as I was expecting. He had marks on his legs where he got run over. I expect they will be pretty black and blue for a couple days. And he had a cut on his chin that was bleeding a bit onto his shirt. But all in all he was pretty lucky. That's about the time that I headed off.

Update: (Wednesday, April 25 12:25 AM) I totally forgot to say that I got invited to a wedding. It will be on Thursday. It should be a classic Hindu wedding. My camera will be there.

Dinner at Sila's

OK, another wonderful invite to dinner! Tonight John and I went over to Sila's place to chat and chow out. Seriously eat.

Joti, Sila, Reika and Jagnat

I thought it might be a really nice idea for John to come down from Colva and visit with the parents of the kids that I bring up every day. It ended up being a better idea than I could have imagined. We actually visited three households and John got to talk it up with the parents which was awesome. John was asked similar questions that I have been asked for about the past 9 months about what we do at the center, but it was obvious that he was able to get more across in a couple sentences than I have managed this whole time. Because no matter what I try or say, I am still the tourist monsoon christian guy. But now they are talking with someone who speaks their language, Hindi and Banjari. At each house there were real quick connections made and chai was drunk in massive quantities. It is hard to visit a house without drinking some tea. So after making our rounds, we walked over to Silas for dinner. I managed to time things pretty well and arrived just in time to watch the cooking process.

Sila Making Chai

Above is Sila preparing our third cup of Chai for the night. This is also the outdoor kitchen area.

Making Masala

Here is masala or curry being made from scratch. Slices of tomato, onion, chilies, coconut and a bit of magic are ground by the rolling of the stone on stone. Standing next to it burned my eyes. It was going to be a good masala tonight.

De-scaling

Above is Jagnat running the Queen fish across the curved knife to remove the scales. I am not so familiar with the Queen fish but it strangely had the taste and texture of crab or lobster meat.

Fried Queen Fish

Here is the fish being prepared over the fire. After receiving its light dusting of flour its placed on the pan to be fried in coconut oil. Unhealthy and delicious.

Reika and Joti

And here are the two sisters. They had the important responsibility of entertaining John and I while their parents got the food ready. This consisted of singing every song in their arsenal and dancing.

A wonderful night and meal.

The End.

Dinner at Vijia's

Vinot, Prema, Vijia, Sankar and Akash up front

I was invited over for dinner tonight. Vijia's. Always good cooking and an interesting time. This is Prema and Akash's family, two kids that I take up to Colva for church and English lessons. Above is a very rare photo of the whole family in one frame. You will have to trust me on this being such an accomplishment. Out of the five kids that I take up to Colva regularly, Prema picks things up the quickest.She is always trying to force new sentences out of her mouth to get some point across to me. It's a very funny thing to watch for she can get quite dramatic about it, but it's also working for her. Actually, the invite for dinner came from her yesterday. Something like this, "Tomorrow, you eating dinner my room? 8 o' clock, OK? I tell Vijia." Vijia, the mom in this story, told me today that she is very happy with how her children are picking up English so well. (Is "English" supposed to be capitalized?) I'm actually surprised at how well they are picking it up because the way that we normally communicate is probably not the proper way to go about it. Forgetting that I'm trying to teach these kids English, I often incorporate whatever Hindi that I can into my sentences. This is not a good habit especially because Hindi isn't even their first language. They speak Banjari, which could probably be described as 50% Hindi and 50% miscellaneous. So, I guess they are getting two languages for the price of one.

Freshly Killed Chicken

This woman is holding a freshly plucked chicken over the fire. I am no expert, but I think this is to get rid of the extra baby feathers. ??? I was very disappointed because I missed the head chopping bit, again. I don't know this woman's name. The only reason she is in this story is because I saw this view in the doorway while eating my dinner.

Vijia Making... Something

Here is Vijia slicing up I don't know what with the help of a chair/knife contraption. The strange thing is that this green food did not make it onto the dinner plates. So, I really really don't know what it is. In conclusion, wonderful cooking and great talking.

I am looking forward to another good dinner tomorrow. I though it would be nice for John, from the center, to visit with some of the parents of the kids from Benaulim. He has that language edge that I lack. Tomorrow John and I will be eating at Sila's.

Midnight's Children

A nice Saturday. I took an afternoon run into Margao to pick up some supplies and to run a friend to the train station. I found a much needed iron at a reasonable price (after searching in five shops all around town), filled up my scooter with petrol and stopped in at my favorite book store. I never thought that I would be the type of guy that would go out and buy an iron but I am learning that I can't live without one here. It just takes way too long for my cloths to dry after I wash them. And with extended drying periods, there is also the risk of them developing a funky aroma. So I tried it out tonight. After hand washing all my stuff, I gave 'em a quick run under the iron to get rid of the excess water then hung them up to dry. So far so good.

After finishing a couple books recently, I decided to pick up something new today. There really isn't too much to say about it yet. I saw the interesting cover and got to reading it in the shop. From what I can gather from the couple pages I skimmed, it's about a boy who is born on the day of India's independence, August 15, 1947. The boy, Saleem Sinai, describes himself as being the twin of India. I guess this is because he was born at the exact same time as the new India. ??? I am quite curious to see how far this idea is pushed. After reading Shantaram, another fictitious novel set in India, I'm looking forward to reading a different authors take on the country.

This book can be had here.

Nani Bhami Makes A New Top

Here is Nani Bhami (Nani is Hindi for mother's mother or grandmother) making a new dress for herself. These are definitely the craziest outfits I have ever seen. Mirrors, buttons, chains, et cetera. It is the traditional style of the Lamani caste from the state of Karnataka. My prediction is that this dress is an endangered species. What it lacks in practicality, it makes up with by being hot and heavy. I say it is endangered because instead of wearing it, newly married women are opting out for the more practical sari. View it all big-like here.

In other recent news, today was another three shower day. I see a pattern forming.

Learning How To Gamble

I was over at a couple of my friend's house tonight for dinner and I was asked if I wanted to play Hausi. (pronounced: House-y) The girl in the center of the photo is visiting from Vasco, about an hour North, and had a bag full of what looked to me like Bingo supplies. I figured it would be best to be the observer on this one. She talked four other kids into coughing up 5 rupees each for three cards. After pulling numbers out of her bag, one of the kids won. She gave him 10 rupees. That means she got to keep 10 rupees for herself. This went on for a couple more rounds before dinner was served. Afterwards, I talked with the oldest kid and tried to see if he was aware of what was happening. He didn't seem to catch on. The girl had a big smile on her face as she counted up her 50 rupees. For the sake of perspective, 50 rupees is just over $1 American.

Dinner was awesome! Chili pakoras (really spicy batter fried chilis), fish curry, egg curry, rice and pineapple for dessert. Food here is the best, seriously.

Beheaded Banyan Tree

I have recently developed a fascination with the Banyan tree. I wrote about this wonderfully strange and ugly tree previously but today, I found this one that is being dismantled. There is more of it on the other side of the road that didn't really fit into the picture. Later in the day, I saw a bunch of people out hacking away at it with axes. Sadly, I didn't have my camera. I think there is a couple more days of work left to finish the job though so I will go and check on their progress tomorrow.

View larger size image here.

Summer Travels and a Missing Phone

I spent the weekend working out some details for my trip in July and August to the North. I will be traveling with Roger for about a month and some change along the path I have drawn out for you. Roger? Roger is a Goan who runs one of the restaurants on the beach. He doesn't have much work to do with his restaurant being closed during the monsoon season so he will be accompanying me for the trip. His Hindi and traveling experience will be much appreciated. He was also quick to point out that he really enjoys sleeping. I think we will get along just fine.

I have broken down the trip into three different colors. The ugly red arrow will be the train that we will be taking to New Delhi. We will spend the night at Amos and Rowena Stoltzfotz's place. (I worked with them at Harrisburg Discipleship Center last year) Then the last bit of the ugly red arrow will take us up to Mussoorie where we will be staying with Dana and Judy Crider for two weeks or so. This will be a wonderfully lazy two weeks of sleeping in, eating Momos, and catching up. I last saw Dana and Judy in September when we were all up for Bonnie's funeral.

Next, we will be following the ugly blue arrow across Nepal. This is the part of the trip that we are the most unclear about. Neither of us have been to Nepal before so we are doing some research to see how we will spend our week there. We want to see the cities of Pokhara and Kathmandu, but the rest of the week is still up in the air. I did the nerd thing and picked up a copy of Lonely Planet for Nepal today. I know many people who have been there but I really don't know much about the place, yet. Hopefully we can work out some interesting things to do while we are there. Our sweeping trip from West to East should offer a good variety of sites to see. One reason for going to Nepal is that I have to leave India every 180 days for a visa run.

And now for the ugly orange arrow. Leaving Nepal, we will head for Darjeeling. This was Roger's idea. I hear they have a lot of tea. We will spend a couple days there. Hopefully I will learn more about the place after that. After Darjeeling, we will be heading South to Kolkata and then back to Goa.

The details are still a bit sketchy as we are still figuring out tickets. But this is what it is looking like for now. I am very excited for this opportunity to do a bit of visiting, exploring and putting my new Hindi to the test.

In other news, I lost my phone yesterday. Don't worry, happy ending. To make a long, hot, sunburn-y story short...

I was on the beach yesterday and was walking along with my phone in my shirt pocket. At some point, I leaned over and it fell out. (Normally, my phone would be in my pants pocket. I really have no explanation for why it was in my shirt pocket this day) I noticed about an hour later, in the village, that my phone was missing. After having 10 heart attacks, I came up with a masterful plan. I devised to trace my steps along the beach with a friend's cell phone. I called my phone every couple of steps and listened for it's ring. See, I thought it might have gotten covered up by the sand. In the end, I did find my phone after walking around for a very long time. It was very hot and I did get sunburned. My phone was about 10% visible in the sand. I had a great day after that.

Cho Yong Chai, The Mystery

I saw this strange building on my way into town today. I head into town, Margao, once or twice a week for petrol or miscellaneous supplies and have driven by this building plenty of times but only noticed it today. Its attempt at oriental architecture (I'm going to go with the Korean Josean Dynasty circa 14th-19th century) caught me by surprise and I pulled over to have a look. I was trying to figure out if it was some business or a residence. There were no other signs to provide me any clues to its purpose. And further confusing the situation was the cement boat hat on top. I think it is the building's water supply. But why is it shaped like a boat? I promise you, my readers, that this mystery will not go unsolved for long.

I am looking forward to the weekend. This has been a busy and hot week. More hot than busy, but busy none-the-less.

Pretty Flower, Ugly Tree

With my recent internet convenience, I have had more reason to keep my camera handy lately. There seem to be flowers blooming year round here. This makes for a nice touch of color on my daily drive up to Colva. No clue what the flowering tree is called but the ugly tree in the background is a Banyan tree. It's know for dropping vines from its branches which makes it thicker and thicker. It's a nasty mess, really. View big 'un here.

Salt: A World History

Ok, I'm trying to find a pic of the cover as we speak. With all the resources available in this modern age of Web Two.Oh one would think it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to find a book cover image. And there it is...Three years ago I listened in on a radio interview of Mark Kurlansky, author of "Salt: A World History". He was talking up his book and sharing many anecdotes and little facts about the fascinating life of salt. Example- Did you know that salt is the only rock you eat? Unless you really enjoy eating a variety of rocks, then you should make a visit to your local gastroenterologist.

I don't want this to turn into some elaborate review, but this book is way more interesting than its title. I managed to retain nothing from years of history class in public school, but all hope is not lost for me. This book takes its main character, salt, through history and shows how it played an important role in just about any major event you can think of.

To tie it into my stay in India, there is a chapter that focuses on England and their efforts to suppress India by controlling production and distribution of this important resource. Other interesting chapters spoke on the Roman Empire, Vikings and the Civil War. There is just about something for everyone.

If you are the type of person who is always on the look-out for a book recommendation, here you go. If you aren't, just continue doing your sudoku puzzles.

Snag it for $10.08 at Amazon.

Tiny Hot Sun

This photo is in tribute to stinky hot sunny days. Even the nastiest day can have a pretty pretty sunset. Full size version here.

Today, at my Hindi class, I got the news that today would be my last class. Whaaaa? Bishnu, my teacher also works at the beach shack, where my class is held. Well, the shack will be open for one more month but for whatever reason three of their waiters left today. That means they will be short on help and she wont have the time for the class. My plans were to find a new teacher in another month to replace Bishnu. Those plans will just have to be bumped up a bit. She was a really good teacher and I got a good start on the language because of her. She told me she would be available for lessons again in October. I would like that.

Another Cheesy Beach Sunset Photo

Actually, this is the first cheesy beach sunset photo on this blog. I thought this might be one of the last good ones for a while though because the clouds are starting to roll in. Also, this photo made me realize that I should probably clean the lens on my camera. I know my glasses get nasty every day from the warm sea water breeze so it's probably done a number on my camera lens. It's not so obvious on this small scale version but its quite noticeable on the large one over at Flickr.

Ok, I'm going to figure out the proper way to clean my camera lens. Actually, I don't want to take the time to figure out the proper way, so I'm going to use a q-tip and some alcohol. That sounds about right, no?

Dinner at Renuka and Ansi's Place

Here are some pics from yesterdays visit to Renuka and Ansi's. I like to stop in here for dinner once a week. Always wonderful food and good conversation, weather I understand it or not.

Renuka, Shara's sister, Prema, Reika,
Joto, Akash, and Ansi's father

The kids sitting with Nani Bhami
or Grandma Bhami if you like

Nani Bhami is wearing the traditional clothing of Karnataka. It is an interesting mix of buttons, mirrors, coins, chains, and a little bit of everything else. My prediction is that the next generation of married women will not be wearing this style. Its hot, heavy and not very practical. But quite interesting to look at upclose.

It was really hot and humid again today. I just sent out my update mass email to everyone. About time, no? Actually I just sent it out to the first third of my list. Yahoo told me that I had to wait an hour before sending out more emails. Some measure to reduce spammers I think.

I was going to make dinner at home today but got smoked out by my neighbors behind me. They were doing their monthly leaf/trash burning. I think all the smoke came in through my kitchen window. So I closed up the windows and went to visit Sila and the family for chai. I ended up getting invited in for dinner. Rice, chapatis and fish curry. Yumm-O!!! When I got back home after having dinner, the place still stunk of smoke. It probably still does now but I have gotten used to it, I think.

Mera Naam Cameron Hai. *

So here I am with my Hindi teacher, Bishnu. It was windy that day, if you are wondering why my book's pages are flapping around. Two months ago, A German friend of mine said she was interested in learning Hindi. And I thought the obvious thought to myself, I'm going to be here in India for a while and it might be nice to learn a bit of the language. So we put Shiva to the task of finding us a good Hindi teacher. Shiva is one of those guys on the beach that knows how to connect people with other people. After a couple of days, we got word from Shiva that he had found a candidate for the job. Bishnu is from Nepal and works at one of the many beach shacks/restaurants we have here in Benaulim. Since February, we have been having class five days a week for one hour a day. It has been a lot of heavy emphasis on reading and writing in Hindi. There's no room for ABCs in these lessons! Let me dig up a pic of what I'm talking about...
I am currently capable of having conversations on a wide variety of topics. I can talk about what type of fruits and vegetables can be purchased at the market and at what cost. Or about barn yard animals or parts of the body. Or I can talk about the color of my shirt or state the date of my birth. The best thing about all of this is that now I can listen in on a conversation and pick up a few key words and have an idea of what they are talking about. I will be continuing my classes with Bishnu for one more month. That's about the time when all the beach shacks start closing down and she will be heading back to Nepal for some further schooling. At that time, I will have to figure out another learning option.

*My name is Cameron.

Goa?

Here is a handy map of India for you to take a look at. Goa is located on the West coast in off-orange. I think the whole map is off-orange!!!

A new blog with not much to look at right now. You can always head on over to my Flickr page for some nice photos.