Don't Need a Weatherman

Ha!  It rained last night, a torrential tropical downpour that lasted about ten minutes.

This “never happens” in February but it was very welcome.  When the rain stopped, the scent of wet earth drifted through the house and lulled me back to sleep. At 5 AM, it wasn’t too hard.

This morning we had breakfast on the veranda as usual, having one of our wide-ranging discussions like “Whatever happened to quicksand as a danger?” Our youth was rife with people disappearing into, or being dramatically rescued at the last minute from, quicksand, which appeared to be an all-terrain problem.  But now, you never hear of anyone being buried in quicksand.  But then, we wouldn’t, would we?

As this was being hashed out, we watched a piglet race across the garden, formerly never graced with an appearance by the pigs.  Not far behind was the mama, who took a shortcut through the mud flat at the bottom of the garden—it was low tide—to head the piglet off at the pass, all the while honking and bellowing the porcine equivalent of “Get back here this minute, young lady, or I will personally sell you for bacon!”

Then a cow wandered by on the mud flat, as ever searching for food, and Pat took a photo of its food-gathering technique—he reached for a slightly too-high branch that still had leaves on it with his muscular tongue and dragged the whole thing down to his munching level.  I’ve never eaten cow’s tongue, or any other kind, and have no intention of ever doing so, ever—but this made me wonder if cooked tongue is not a very sinewy meat product.

About 1:30 PM fat drops of water were quickly followed by another downpour which was briefer.  The sun was out again before the rain stopped and steam was the outcome, rather than refreshment.

The mongoose flashed by along the periphery of the garden, not at all wet, a very busy animal doing we’re not sure what—scouring the area for snakes, I hope.

If there were sheep here it would be lambing season, but as it is, the area is full of animal babies.  Piglets, of course, also chickens, puppies, kittens, calves, and the cutest of all, a baby water buffalo who looked like a small furry burro.  He was travelling at the end of his herd, who were meandering along the highway for some reason.  No one appeared to be herding them.  I suppose the highway was much easier than meandering cross-country.

I forgot to mention the baby gray dolphins we saw in Sandeep’s boat when we took a trip over to Khola Beach in January.  We struck dolphin paydirt that day, seeing several on the way over and a couple on the way back.

OMG the mongoose just walked right past the front porch as a leisurely pace.  Next he’ll be stopping by with the missus for a gin and tonic at sunset.

Chance of Rain: 0%

I’ve been checking the weather in Goa online this week just to see if it’s as hot as it feels.  Today it’s 94 degrees F, “feels like 98.”  But there is no chance of rain.  Or snow for that matter. Humidity is 89%.  Can that be possible?  We drip with sweat just sitting around reading.

We have gotten off the porch quite a bit lately, as our social calendar is heating up along with the weather.  Next week, for instance, we are attending the birthday party of a one-year-old.  (Raffi, son of neighbors Audrey (Brazil) and Shaun (Oz)).  Actually we’ve had people in for drinks last Saturday, other people to lunch on Tuesday, and our current yoga teachers Sarah and Carrie over for dinner Wednesday night.

Monday we had a fantastic outing, set up by Joanna (aka Jazz) a friend of Ben and Kate’s last year.  Her son Xavi was in the kindergarten with Max.  Jazz runs a travel agency in the area, and specializes in bespoke travel arrangements. In between big jobs, she has other activities locally, like the Lunch Club where she sets people up with a car, driver, guide and other people to have lunch at a fabulous Portugese “stately home.”   Two people had cancelled due to illness, so she offered us the opportunity to fill in.  We jumped at it.

Before we had lunch, we also stopped to see another incredible colonial mansion, the Briganza home.  Two identical wings of a very large house were shared by the descendants of two Indo-Portugese brothers.  The West Wing is still in great shape because that brother’s family took very good care of all the furniture, Chinese porcelain, Japanese trays, English china and silver, books and paintings.  There were cabinets and cabinets of very valuable stuff.  “They never threw out a knickknack,” as Pat said.

The East Wing is falling apart, due to the feckless nature of the other brother’s family. There is a ballroom in both wings but the East Wing’s ceiling is in danger of falling in momentarily, which would mean the loss of several huge Venetian glass chandeliers.  The floor is sinking.  The family still lives there so kids play amidst the family treasures, and Bonnie our guide said that frequently the door on that side of the building was answered by someone with whiskey on the breath.  Actually there are far fewer family treasures in this wing, which leads us to believe a lot may have been sold off.

The guidebook says the family fell out over political differences but the chatelaine of the West Wing, Judith, says absolutely not.  Though one of the descendants was Lenin’s personal secretary and a big proponent of Goan nationalism, and  his photo had a definite Bolshie cast (cloth cap, beard, wild eyes), so it’s quite possible that the other brother’s people preferred merger with India.  Which happened anyway, and at that time the family lost all the land they owned and consequently all the revenue from it.  However, Judith says that the family disagreements are only over the poaching of visitors.   The West Wing takes visitors through their side f the house, and graciously directs them to ring the bell on the other side of the house, to see the East Wing.  This courtesy is not reciprocated, apparently, and the East Wing will just grab visitors coming up the stairs and hijack them.  Families, what can you do?

Then we went to see the Palacio de Deao, a house originally built  in the 16th century by a priest who also developed  the surrounding town using the labor of rehabilitated prisoners.  The gardens are just as they were in the 16th century.  When Old Goa, the former capital, was ravaged by cholera in the nineteenth century, the house served as a refuge for political and religious poobahs.  The house been completely renovated and restored to its former glory by a couple from North Goa,  who went to Lisbon libraries to find plans and pictures of the rooms and furniture. 

Lunch here consisted of food that would have been served over the past few centuries, and was the best meal we’ve had here.  It consisted of about ten dishes that just kept coming out of the kitchen.  Five starters, including a crab St. Jacques, and fresh tomato soup, followed by prawn curry, chicken something, grilled fish, pumpkin savory soufflé, and a few vegetarian dishes that were delicious.

We were travelling with an Indian couple, Veena and Raj, from Vancouver who were visiting their daughter, son-in-law and grandchild who lived in Chaudi.  They were great company and we learned all about their family.  Two days later we ran into them on the beach with their daughter’s family—who turned out to know Kate and Ben from last year because their daughter had also been at kindergarten with Max.  A ridiculously small world!

Going Native

May the saints be praised:  Diti and her siblings and mother turned out to be cousins of our compound family, and decamped over the weekend to their own home in another beach town.  We slept in till 9  the last two days.

Then late yesterday morning the monkeys arrived.  Monkeys in the movies always seem to swing gracefully from vine to vine through the jungle tree tops.  Monkeys in real life may swing gracefully along, but as soon as they see bananas on the ground they crash down the tree branches in a most unseemly manner, then eat all the bananas in sight.

People ask how we spend our days. We wake up, make a cup of tea, then usually sit on the veranda and read for awhile, then have breakfast with coffee.  Frequently Pat goes out for a run or a swim before breakfast.  I think I've done that twice.  I do some stretching on the veranda.  We watch the river life for awhile, and it's hard not to bird-watch given the variety of flying objects in front of us.  White egrets, frequently accompanied by cormorants, wade along the banks of the river.  Kingfishers flit by, hawks and eagles circle and plunge, crows steal everything that isn't nailed down and even then I noticed a couple of them trying to pry some rattan reeds out of the chairs.

We do errands—buy yogurt, eggs, bananas, oranges, candles.  Pat has a large plastic tub with all kinds of spices, which we use to try our cooking course recipes.  Cinnamon bark, fresh coriander, coriander seeds, mustard seed, turmeric, cardamon, cardamon powder, star anise, asofeteida (I still don’t know that is.  We have taken clothes to be altered by a tailor on the road.

One of the main things to do is visit with people we know on the beach and in the village as we wander around doing the errands.  Pat was here for two months before I arrived and was already Queen Bee of the Beach.  I think we’ve had every person we’ve ever met here over for lunch, drinks or dinner in the past month.  Or patronized their restaurant or shop.  She has her favorite greengrocer, grocery kiosk owner, tchotke stall, and knows where to get olive oil, pasta and feta cheese.  We know the German Bakery has the best breakfast and bread in town, and we’ve found the best massage place in town.  We’re going to have to move here eventually.

There’s housework of course.  Today we defrosted the fridge.  The stalactites were interfering with the drawer under the freezer where we store beer.  There was so much ice caked inside the freezer that we couldn’t fit the ice cube trays inside it any more and had taken to freezing water in plastic bowls and then hammering the block into usable sizes.  Tools used to defrost to the point where the ice could be pried off the walls of the freezer included the meat cleaver and a slotted spoon.  So now the freezer is ice-free but water keeps pooling on the floor beside the fridge.  It’s like it’s bleeding after the trauma of the defrost.  Of course I am watching Breaking Bad on Pat’s iPad which could account for the grisly image.

Last Friday it was really hot and still, and we missed the breeze in the front of the 

house. So we lounged around all day in our Indian nightwear, feeling like Tennessee Williams characters--cats on a hot tile roof. I went out to do some errands in my pajamas, figuring they didn't look much different than what everyone else was wearing. We made it to yoga, then came home, took showers and put on clean nightgowns.

On the way home from yoga, we'd been handed little cards advertising some live 

music at 7:30 by a fellow who's branded himself Bob Marley’s Cousin (Piano & Vocals).  We wavered--what to do? Could be great, could be terrible. 

The main consideration was that we’d have to get dressed if we went out, though we would draw the line at contacts and eye makeup. In any event, we decided to stay home and split a beer and finish our books. Then I worried that I was missing a titanic event and everyone would be talking about it the next day.  Where was our spirit of adventure, our joie de vivre?  Are we really this old?  Then I got distracted by Pat’s candle obsession—she is determined to find the wicks that vanish when a votive candle is burned to liquid and then returns to wax, so we started excavating candles with a fork.  We really know how to have a good time.  

As it turned out Rahul and Indu had been having dinner at the café next door to the musical event, and Indu said it sounded like someone was being murdered.  So we’d made the right decision.

It Takes a Village

Susan  requested "less Slumdog, more Millionaire" so I'm be happy to oblige. On 
Saturday night we invited our neighborhood millionaire over for dinner, with his mother Indu who was visiting from Delhi.

Rahul is a friend of Kate and Ben's we met when he and Aysha, his partner, threw a party last Christmas Day.  They are central to social life in the village of Agonda. This party was where we ran into Dion, our friend from UM. ( He was here this year until a tax problem in Greece forced him to go back to Paros and dig out some papers to present to the taxman. Sadly, he took his 12-string guitar and downloads of season 4-5 of Breaking Bad with him.)

We're not sure how Rahul came by his millions but "internet entrepreneur" is as close as we can get at this point.  He and Aysha, an artist,  have leased a lovely little house in the village for five years and have fixed it up beautifully.   They have a cook.

I don't think I've ever described the layout of the village.  Geographically, the beach is lined with huts, better huts and cafes.  The huts are clusters of "buildings"  facing the beach and called things like "Secret Garden," Agonda Beach Paradise,"   Big Daddy's,"  "Forget Me Not."   Buildings is in quotes because the materials are used and re-used every year when the huts have to be dismantled for the monsoon season. the next year the exact same plywood sheets are tacked together under thatched roofs, and the exact same toilets and sinks are installed in attached (thank heaven)  bathrooms.   The more upscale huts use better building materials, but  they also have to be disassembled every year.  The village decided this to avoid the building of huge permanent resorts that would bring more development than anyone wants at this point.

 A road  parallels the beach, and between the beach huts and the road are the village houses.  Interspersed among the houses along the road are the shops, bookstore/post office/cooking school, German bakery (run by Nepalis who also sell wool socks), ayurvedic establishments, greengrocers, internet cafes.   The north end of town is marked by the bridge, which leads over the river to the red road-- rocky, rutted and tough on flipflops.  After a kilometre or two the red road turns into the paved road, where the better Kashmiri shops and a couple of fancier hut/restaurants are located.  Also, the dental clinic where Pat and I had our teeth cleaned, Daisy's Lovely Lady Beauty Saloon, tailors, Fatima's restaurant and dried goods store and more cafes.   Next to these enterprises are the town's anchor, St. Anne's Church and elementary school.  The paved road continues straight out to a part of Agonda  I have yet to venture to-- "uptown" as I'm thinking of it, and forks to the left right in front of the church, turning into the road to the south end of the beach.  So the town is divided into the bridge, the red road, the paved road and the church.  

Those last 2 paragraphs are exactly the kind of thing I would skip in reading a novel.  On to the characters!

Rahul's mum is in her early 70's, lovely, elegant, sophisticated, cultured and funny with a great haircut and no wrinkles.   Just like us :)  Pat's and my knowledge of Indian life has been formed from many, many Indian novels and I don't think we've run into a character like Indu.  I'll let you know if we come up with one.

She told us about the Art Summit in Delhi that Aysha was attending this week which sounds a lot like Art Basle in Miami (and Basle of course) and the Havana Bienal.   Lots of emerging Indian artists, and of course, a massive Scene.  We need to find out more about emerging Indian artists before she leaves.  

Indu also went to the "silent" headphone disco last week and told us how a young fellow asked her to dance as soon as she'd adjusted the bulky headphones.  This is the place where 3 different DJ's compete to get the most number of dancers to tune into their channel.  Rahul encouraged us to go next Saturday night.  "Get there around 10 or 11," he said, "then you'll be sure to get a headphone."  We were actually considering postponing our bedtimes to go, until Pat's daughter Kate told us the music is all techno/house.  There is no Springsteen, Stones or Segar channel.  It took a long time but our kids have finally found a music we can't stand.

We talked about recycling, our current obsession, and Indu said Delhi has a good system in place.  Rahul told of us a project he'd worked on long ago to involve school kids and composting boxes which they were supposed to sell it friends and neighbors.  The scheme didn't work out because the kids had no real training or script to work from.  Indu urged him to try again because recycling and trash management are all over the papers now and there seems to be a groundswell of interest in actually doing it.

Rahul said there's no money to be made in recycling, but ultimately there must be, because San Francisco recycles 98% of waste and surely no one is picking it up out of the goodness of their hearts.  So that's my research project for the week: to find out who much money "ultimately" can be made from municipal recycling.  

Family Matters

Last year Pat and I stayed in huts on the beach, going to sleep and waking up to the sound of waves and the occasional cow lumbering in front of the porch.  This year we're at the house Kate and Ben rented (see benkateandmax'syearoff.blogspot.com )  last year and are finding out what it means to be living cheek-by-jowl and ass-over-teacup next to an extended Indian family.

There's a narrow passageway between the back of the house and the blue tarp that marks their territory.  The house actually belongs to our landlords Sandeep and Sonam who live in it with their two children Omkar and Muni (pronounced "Moonie" not like the SF public transport agency) during the monsoon season.  During "the season" (now) they live in a  makeshift hut right behind us.  Next to the hut in a regular house live Sandeep's parents and his adopted brother  Sandesh, and next to that house are Sandeep's sister, her husband and three soon-to-be-four kids.  Behind the tarp is a veranda of sorts, covered by thatch, which serves as a living room for everyone who isn't watching a giant TV inside.  They're very friendly, and last year the kids got used to running in and out of the house to play with Pat's grandson Max (and his toys).  Sonam drops by to borrow milk or store something in our/her fridge and occasionally can't resist dipping into the cashews we save for pre-prandial occasions.  Sandeep parks himself in the open kitchen window and chats incomprehensibly, then just pops right in if something occurs to him to do inside.

We're now telling the kids that we're having grown-up time on the veranda in front of the house, or as we flash by from the shower draped in a towel that this isn't a good time for a visit.  They're getting the message.  Unfortunately we can't do the same with their parents.

Then there's the noise factor.  My bedroom is at the back of the house, closest to the family.  Every morning I wake to the sound of someone hawking and spitting as the water runs from the faucet in their courtyard.  Sometimes Sandeep rides off on his motorcycle at the crack of dawn---or seven, which is pretty much the same.  Roosters crow from 4:30 AM onward.  Dogs bark.  Pigs snort.  Cats whine.  Crows--lots and lots of crows--caw.  The bread man honks his clown horn as he rides by on his bike down the highway.  Then the whole family wakes up and takes turns washing at the faucet.  Pat took a great snap the other day of a piece of rope holding the tarp together that also serves as a toothbrush holder.  

Recently a little girl named Diti, the middle child of Sandeep's sister,  has apparently been having some personal problems which she copes with by crying at the top of her lungs in the morning and the evening. Screaming ensues, and running back and forth down the narrow passageway.  I held hope that she was running away from home for a few foggy seconds this morning.

Yesterday Pat heard a great crash in the kitchen and came in to find an entire cow bashing around and breaking our precious beer mugs which function as two of our four glasses.  She called for Sonam in a panic and the two of them tried to herd the cow outside but not before it glared arrogantly right at them and pissed all over the kitchen floor.  She was almost late for yoga with the mopping and sweeping up glass that ensued.

I brought a great international plug with me to recharge all my stuff that now regularly disappears into Sandeep's hut to recharge their new computer, a 2008 Dell laptop.  Sonam won it at a raffle at a community meeting to discuss the future of Agonda Beach.   Because it's American of course it needs my beloved plug and usually just as my devices tell me to recharge I have only 15% power left.

On the other hand, Sandeep always changes the gigantic water bottle and unclogs the toilet when our heathen habit of using toilet paper backs it up.  Sonam does the laundry and mops the floors, they disposed of the rat carcass that the mama/kitty cats left us on the veranda, and generally act like the building supers.  Give and take is the watchword.

Fauna

We are back in Agonda Beach, Goa--this year staying in the pink and orange house instead of the beach huts.    The house is a minute's walk from the beach, up through a neighborhood of Indian houses.  We're in the last house on the dirt path, on the river which flows into the ocean.

There are some new neighbors this year, besides us.  My favorite is the mongoose couple who sprint across the terrace a couple of times a day--always in the one direction. I don't know when they sprint back.  maybe at night.  Once you realize they're not extremely furry rats, they become very cute.  My dad used to read us Rikki Tikki Tavi, tales by Kipling (I think) about a brave and resourceful mongoose who kept a family's home safe from Naga, the deadly cobra who  lurked in corners and made its presence known by some incredibly creepy and insinuating  hissing and sliding around.  Scared the living daylights out of me as a kid.  So I'm grateful to feel safe from any heretofore unknown cobras in the area.

The most annoying residents are the mosquitoes who  mark the sunset with their insistent whizzing and whining. I'm continuing my love/hate relationship with mosquito netting--when it comes untucked from the mattress corners and drapes itself over my skin I hate it.  when I can see flying critters outside it, I'm happy it's there.

A week or so ago there were between five and seven English visitors staying at the beach per  Pat's excellent travel agent skills, and many nights we had dinner on the veranda under the Diwalit light, liberally protected by insect repellent and gin from flying critters.  On several occasions, dinners were punctuated by loud encounters between the neighbor's dog Jambo and a local pig--the dog barking furiously and the pig clearly holding its ground with some fearful snuffling and grunting.  We laughed about the dog and pig show, and some people idly wondered what would happen if there were more than one dog.

the other night we found out.  At least three dogs barked furiously at the pig, clearly trying to attack and rip it to shreds.  However, the pig gave as good as he got, and even better, as the dogs eventually faded away in the opposite direction, and the pig stood alone in the thicket, grunting heavily, but master of its personal universe.

Of course there are chickens galore, and roosters who crow all day and all night.  All eggs are free range, it appears.  Cats have increased exponentially, and are underfoot and in and out of the house until we started closing the doors on them.  One mama/kitty combo found our outdoor chair cushions just the place to snuggle for the night until Pat started turning the cushions over and draping them from the top of the chairs, leaving no soft indentations for the cats to lie in. They are cute but clearly flea-infested and no one needs more itchy bites.

Our compost bucket is spread on the ground outside by our landlords to feed the holy cows which is generous and ecologically sound except that the cows then wander through the narrow passageway between our dwellings and have been known to deposit large cow patties right in our doorway--once right in a pair of flipflops.  No problem though--our landlady sprinkled a little sand on the cowflop and picked it up like a piece of black dough to put on the flowers she's growing.  When the bucket is not emptied soon enough for them, they've nosed open the kitchen door and stepped inside the kitchen.  Talk about a sense of entitlement.

And our fellow mammals, the bats, hang in a huge tree visible from our porch  all day, then rise from their somnolence at twilight to squeak their way toward food.  We wonder where they go, because it would be pretty spooky to have a battalion of bats drop by for breakfast.

Car Talk

It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least by me, that as soon as I have a comfortable monetary cushion on the right side of solvency, my car will inevitably develop a need for that very amount.  When I went downtown to pick up my Indian visa yesterday, I managed to park in a tow away zone and came back to find my car gone and 3 tow trucks hauling other unlucky cars off to the city impound lot.

I was at 6^th and Mission, and a diverse little spot it is—pawn shops, one advertising “gold teeth”—hope they’re buying not selling; porn shops, massage parlor, the Sharma Vi grocery store and the FuWar Chinese restaurant.  The Indian visa office is plunked right in the middle of all this, and has the same kind of iron gates to protect its glass at night as the other businesses on the street. 
 

The impound lot is at 7^th and Bryant, so I could walk to it. Although it was further downtown than I remembered and it was getting darker the closer I got to the very heart of darkness:  the Hall of Justice on Bryant, home of the southern police station and the criminal courts—by its very nature a criminal magnet.  Luckily the lot was between Harrison and Bryant so I stopped short of the HOJ.

There were several people in the waiting room so I thought I’d have to sit around for awhile but my number was called immediately.  I later realized the other people were waiting for someone to come down and give them some money to get their cars out of the lot.  I paid the enormous fee--$450-- to get my car back, and then walked through the darkening parking lot under the freeway. They assigned me a guide to the underworld to help me find my car. 

It felt like a scene from Blade Runner, with blinding bright lights at the entrance and gloom toward the back of the lot, and giant tow trucks rattling in the gate every 30 seconds with another vehicle.  My guide, his face hidden in the depths of his hoodie, informed me that he had escaped the city and moved to the east bay where seldom was heard a discouraging word from the parking forces that be. He hasn’t had a ticket since he moved there. 

I haven’t gotten a tow away ticket in 30 years myself. And, as the young cashier said, at least I could pay the money on the spot, and didn’t have to wait for someone to come and lend me cash.  Realistically, it just means that my credit card payment will be the minimum amount this month.  So, technically, I remain solvent.

 

Always look on the bri-i-ight si-i-de of life….