All this week the following lyrics from Amused to Death had been rattling through my head. Perhaps I should have realised this was an omen.

PERFECT SENSE

And the Germans killed Jews
And the Jews killed the Arabs
And the Arabs killed the hostages
And that is the news
And is it any wonder
That the monkey’s confused
He said Mama Mama
The President’s a fool
Why do I have to keep reading
These technical manuals
And the joint chiefs of staff
And the brokers on Wall Street said
Don’t make us laugh
You’re a smart kid
Time is linear
Memory’s a stranger
History’s for fools
Man is a tool in the hands
Of the great God Almighty
And they gave him command
Of a nuclear submarine
And sent him back in search of
The Garden of Eden

Can’t you see
It all makes perfect sense?

TRAVEL

	Gautami, Suriya, Bobby, Laxmi, Rajesh and Dhanush
	Bobby, Gautami, Suriya and Laxmi

I can’t remember much about this journey. I know we (I, Laxmi, Rajesh, Suriya, Bobby, Goutami and Dhanush) took trains from Margao to Mangalore (i.e. south along the west coast from Goa to southern Karnataka) and thence to Salem in Tamil Nadu. The first train officially departed Margao at 1.35pm. (In reality, it was an hour late, leading me to worry that we’d not make our connection.) Just before we left, Bobby announced that she and her children would leave the second train at Coimbatore in west Tamil Nadu: Ravi had changed job, which necessitated them moving house, so she had to attend to that and would probably miss the wedding. I was quite saddened by this – I’d been utterly smitten by Dhanush and Gautami.

Suriya and Bobby had spent a lot of time making food for the journey: lemon rice, chapattis and mango chutney, all of which were delicious. Reserved seats were wonderful – no overcrowding, no insane fights to get through the doors, space for luggage, fold-down tables, the works!

reserved-seat carriage

We made our connection at Mangalore in plenty of time and I was introduced to the delights of three-tier sleepers. The carriages are divided into booths (not compartments: there are no doors). In each booth, the seats (which are perpendicular to the carriage sides) double as bottom bunks. The seat-backs swing up to become the second tiers and the third tiers are at about head-hight. Across the aisle from the ends of the three tiers, parallel to the carriage sides and perpendicular to the three-tier bunks, are two more bunks: one at seat height and one at head-height. There’s no luggage racks but there are chains under the lowest bunks to which you can lock your bags. The bunks have some padding and are covered in vinyl – just what you need in this climate!

I don’t know how we wangled getting a complete booth to ourselves: the numbers on the beds didn’t quite tally with the numbers on our ticket. Bobby and Dhanush* were on a bottom bunk, with Gautami above them and Rajesh on the top bunk. Suriya was on the bottom bunk across the booth from Bobby and Dhanush, Laxmi was above her and I had the top bunk. There’s absolutely no privacy: not even curtains separate the bunks in a booth from each other and there’s only a wire mesh divider between booths at top-bunk level. Indian Rail doesn’t provide bedding** so most folk slept in their clothes. I had a sheet sleeping bag so I crawled into it, changed into lycra shorts and bedded down: I think I even got 5 hours’ sleep.
*under-5s don’t have need tickets and so don’t necessarily have their own seats or bunks
**Well, it may do in 1st class sleepers

The high spot of the journey was eating banana bhajis (slices of banana coated in gram-flour batter, then lightly fried) bought from a vendor at one of the stations. The bananas here are short, thick and not as sweet as ‘UK’ bananas but very filling. By the way, a banana tree isn’t a tree at all, it’s an annual grass. So don’t tell them your guilty secrets.

The low spot was the difference in opinions between Bobby and I on corporal punishment of children. I think it’s always unacceptable. I’d be interested to hear the views of any parents out there.

Bobby, Dhanush and Goutami were met by Ravi: he’d started growing a beard, and joked this was in my honour.

	Bobby, Dhanush, Ravi, Gautami, Rajesh, Suriya, Laxmi
	I’d had a hair-cut and beard-trim. I felt almost presentable.

By now dawn had broken and we were travelling through Tamil Nadu’s plains. There were some wonderfully wierd trees and in the distance, some attractive hills.

Tamil plains

POLITICS
Tamil Nadu is in the grip of election fever. The main parties seem to be the MDMK and the AIADMK: two factions formed from the pro-Tamil/Dravidian, anti-Hindi and central government DMK party. One of the recurring images is of Jayalalithaa, leader of the AIADMK.

The parties appear to be falling over themselves to offer the electorate more and more subsidised or free rice, free colour TVs and other largesse. From what I’ve heard* this largesse may only go to people who actually vote for whoever wins**. No-one I’ve talked to can say accurately how whoever forms the new state government will pay for it. (Most don’t seem to understand the question!***) A few are downright cynical about whether it will actually arrive. Suriya’s brother, Gopal, suggested Delhi would subsidise it. If so, this seems remarkably unfair on the rest of India and seems to fly in the face of the independence part of the Dravidian parties’ policies.
*I may well have mis-understood
**in which case, so much for secret ballots
***It’s quite possible this is due to the way I ask it.

Congress seems to have an alliance with the MDMK – their posters feature Kalaignar Muthuvel Karunanidhi. I can’t say the images would make me want to vote for him. I’ve seen lorry-loads of people being driven to rallies and party symbols* painted on just about any wall that’s available. I haven’t been able to find out whether the parties pay people for the use of their walls. I have been told that there is no limit to election spending.
*MDMK is a sun rising between two hills in red and black, someone else uses a multi-coloured mango and AIADMK uses two green leaves.

SALEM
At Salem, we overloaded an autorickshaw and put-putted our way to the house where Suriya’s middle daughter (Nitya) lives with her husband (Balaji), their one-year-old son (Kaushik), Suriya’s husband (Rangan) and Suriya’s brother (Gopal). Gopal’s a (retired?) electrical engineer and Balaji works nights at a courier. Nitya was obviously queen of the house, despite being only 17.

Again, I was given a fantastically warm welcome. For example, I was given one of the two beds in the house: everyone else apart from Gopal slept on mats on the floor. I did say that I was happy to be like everyone else and that I certainly didn’t want to put anyone else out of their own bed. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t gel with Gopal (a clash of mannerisms: he didn’t do anything that was actually bad).

Priya, Kaushik, Suriya and Nitya

Suriya had brought some brandy for her relatives (it costs twice the price in Tamil Nadu that it costs in Goa). Balaji gave a quarter of his bottle to Rangan and/or Gopal (I didn’t see who took it) and then invited Rajesh and I to drink with him. Someone had prepared a lot of pakora and rice, so once I’d put a decent lining in my stomach and was sure I would be safe, I joined in. (Rajesh managed to refuse all offers of alcohol.)

Balaji would pour a finger of brandy into a plastic cup, then fill the cup with water. I was dubious about the water and didn’t like the taste of this mixture anyway*, so I slammed half-finger shots, followed with cups of water from my filter bottle. I also kept on eating to make sure I got no more than merry. (This was a mistake in that later Suriya and Nitya would try to force-feed me a full meal. At each meal this week I had to repeat that I was full, that more food would spoil my enjoyment of what I’d already eaten and that perpetual argument about it was very unpleasant.)
*subliminal tastes make me yearn to taste the undiluted thing

By the end of the session Balaji and I had got the bottle down to about half-empty. Balaji then showered and went to work, while Suriya, Nitya, Laxmi, Priya, Rajesh and I went to the city centre so that Suriya could buy Kaushik’s birthday present, a wee trike.

Kaushik

This was the first time I saw a Tamil temple close-up. They’re fantastically ornate and I may go back to Tamil Nadu just to photograph some.

A temple in Salem

Back in Colva tonight so that tomorrow I can travel to the Salem area of Tamil Nadu for a wedding between a bloke I’ve met once and a woman who I’ve never met before, who believe in a religion/religions I don’t follow, while the service will be in a language I don’t understand. WTHF??

I received the following email a few days ago from a woman who’s been living in Nicaragua for a few years. For the moment she’s back in St Andrews with her Nicaraguan partner, Polo. I thought it best to leave her email exactly as it was – I don’t think I can or should add to or take from it.

Dear all,

Obviously it was hard to leave everyone in Limon knowing how vulnerable they are in so many ways. When we left, the full public health sector strike had been going on for just over five months. Now Nicaragua’s poor have spent six months without access to healthcare (those who can, go to private clinics but that is a luxury the 80% of the population living on less than US$2 a day can’t afford). 23,000 of the 24,000 public sector health workers declared a full strike on November 14th 2005. Their demand? Initially an 160% pay rise (while in all other countries in Central America doctors earn between US$500 – US$1,000 a month, Nicaraguan doctors earn on average US$300 a month while nurses and other health workers earn less than US$100 a month). By March this year most health workers had reduced their demand to a 30% rise while doctors maintained their demand at 43.25%. Last week the government agreed to raise salaries for all health workers by 30% and 20,000 nurses and other health workers have slowly but surely been returning to work. The 3,000 public sector doctors, however, are still on strike.

Every day for the last six months the Nicaraguan newspapers have told the stories of people with bleeding wounds, women in the final stages of labour and children who have passed out after severe bouts of diarrhoea being turned away from public hospitals. Government figures say 80 people have died so far as a result of the health strike. Unfortunately that is nowhere near the actual figure.

A full health sector strike is inconceivable in the UK. The government would have to do something to bring the strike to an end should such stories start filling the British newspapers. Even in Nicaragua where people are used to being treated like s**t by their government, it has been a shocking six months. So why has the government still not been able to come up with a measly US$39.75 extra for each of their 3,000 doctors each month?

The answer is simple. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) won’t allow it. Yes I know, the G8 ordered the IMF to cancel Nicaragua’s debt (along with another 17 highly indebted poor countries (HIPCs)). And that’s what they did… for a period of 17 days. On Dec. 21, just in time for Christmas, the IMF cancelled the US$201 million that Nicaragua owed. On Jan. 7, however, Nicaragua was given another IMF loan of US$192 million. Along with this loan came all the regular conditions, including the prohibition of public sector pay rises above the rate of inflation. Of course the Nicaraguan government didn’t have to accept the loan. But then the governments which accepted the original loans (the ones that have just be ‘cancelled’) didn’t have to either. So where does the problem lie here? In my opinion any responsible international institution which claims it works towards ‘poverty reduction’ in developing countries (as both the World Bank and the IMF claim) would have a look at how a government treats its people before decided whether or not their another US$190 million loan is actually going to make any difference. And if (as in Nicaragua’s case) they find out that each member of parliament is given US$500 a month in petrol on top of their US$5,000 a month salary while state school teachers earn US$100 a month and 50% of people live on less than US$1 a day, then surely they would have to conclude that such a government cannot be trusted to act in the name of its people. But then, the IMF and the World Bank are… well banks, so it’s not really their job to care about the consequences of their actions, just to celebrate as the cash flows in.

I think most people in the UK felt pretty good about the G8 decision to cancel 100% of the poorest countries’ loans with the IMF and the World Bank. And so we should have. It was a wonderful achievement after so many of us dedicated so much to the Make Poverty history campaign. But, as always, the struggle doesn’t stop at the end of one action, no matter how big. And unlike what the Live 8 promoters had us believe, July 4 – 10th was not the ‘week poverty can end’(!). Governments the world over have a tendency not to follow through on their promises once the public’s attention is elsewhere.

What is happening is Nicaragua is shameful and it is something we should all at least have the chance to find out about. Jubilee Scotland is following up the G8 promise and what the (G8 controlled) IMF and World Bank are doing in the 18 HIPCs. For more information about the reality of the debt relief promise you can visit their website (www.jubileescotland.org.uk).

One more thing before I go. Some of you may know that Polo and members of his family have a musical group called Felipe Urrutia y sus Cachorros (Felipe Urrutia and his Litter!) which comprises Polo’s dad (Felipe Urrutia), three sons and five grandsons. They play traditional folk music from the Estelí region (where they’re from). The pieces they play would all have been lost by now if it weren’t for Don Felipe’s incredible memory and dedication to his guitar and the melodies he learnt from older musicians as a child. The vast majority of Nicaragua’s traditional music was lost when radios and jukeboxes arrived in the country bringing with them songs and melodies imported from Mexico, Argentina and the US. And although local musicians were no longer asked to play at parties or gatherings, Felipe never forgot the music and when he had enough children to form a group (!) he taught them to play all the melodies. He’s become nationally famous as a result and the music forms part of the country’s cultural identity.

The group has recorded two CDs of their music, Antologia and La Fuerza del Amor. Polo has several copies with him which he is keen to sell. If you or anyone you know would like to buy a copy please send us a cheque for 10 pounds (or twenty pounds if you want a copy of both) to 52 Hepburn Gardens, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9DF).

Thanks for reading.

Take care, Hannah

Walking back from the beach this evening, I met one of the Karnatakan clothing & nick-nacks vendors who had hassled me last night. She asked me to look at her shop (this was on the beach front), claiming that I hadn’t done so last night. I thought she had told me last night that she was returning to Karnataka today so that last night was her one chance to sell me anything and got very annoyed with what appeared to have been a lie. I told her that while I could see fine well where her shop was, I was going away from it, not into it.

whose karma ran over my dogma?
Tonight a band near my lodging is playing third-rate cover versions of classics from Jimi Hendrix songs – it’s painful and shutting the door of my room doesn’t block it out at all. I fled towards the beach and just happened to pass where the vendor I’ve mentioned above lives. She asked me to explain why I’d walked away earlier. Her response was that the vendor who left today was Tina – she was Anita and that I hadn’t looked at her wares, despite promising to do so last night. I couldn’t deny this was a possibility, because her beach-shop wasn’t next to the stalls I’d been led through last night. Anita told me that she had most of her wares in her shop, so I said I would fulfill the promise to look but that I didn’t promise to buy anything I didn’t want and/or need. The conversation included such delightful exchanges as

“how about this bag?”
“I have two rucksacs – I don’t need and can’t carry another bag”
“what price will you give me”
“none – it’s not the price that’s an issue. I don’t need or want a bag”
“I’ll give you a good price”
“Er, you’re not listening. You don’t need a nuclear reactor and I don’t need a bag.”
“I’ll give you a good discount.”

and

“what will you give me for this?”
“I already have one of those – it cost X, so if I wanted yours, I’d pay the same.”
“Ahh but mine’s better.”

yeah right!
I don’t mind people trying to make a living out of me. I do mind them them talking crap as they do so.

I have contracted…

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Saturday Night Fever

…This gruesome disorder is marked by a tendency to shake it to disco.

Find out what you’ve contracted!

…probably isn’t worth the bother of trying to get past extremely insistant young Karnatakan women trying to sell you stuff. The flipside is that my beard is now darker than it’s been in years and my room cost 100 rupees.

I’m staying at the Manali guest-house: 0832 227 4421. They have clean, neat rooms, a bookshop (non-ensuite but very welcome) showers and toilets and a (currently non-runctional) cybercafe.

Well, this morning’s been a success so far.

Suriya cooked quick-style dosa and chatni. (These dosa are made by mixing wheat-flour and water, then frying the resultant batter straight away. Normally she would grind rice and urid dahl to make a flower, then soak that for 8 hours to get the starch grains to behave. The chatni was ground channa dahl, chilli, garlic, a bit of onion and water.) The dosa are a lot more spongy and not so nice as normal dosa but I’m not complaining about being fed and watered so well.

I got a shared taxi to Margao – one of a fleet of huge yellow-and-black Ambassador cars that seem to be 50 years old, hold 9 people in very cramped conditions and ply a trade back and forth between Margao and its hinterland. It’s not quite public transport but it apart from being privately-owned (as are many of the bus services here), it seems just as good. It cost the same as the bus (8 rupees) and dropped me at the central square, just where I needed to be.

A quick walk took me to the post office where I found I didn’t have enough money to pay for the service I wanted. By now it was 10am and I wanted to make sure I got seen – the traffic noise and my deafness were making me irritable and intolerant even of queuing to buy stamps. I trudged to the hospital and went first to the ENT building. There I was told that I should go to find reception but there was no reception office in the area I was told to go to. However, I as near the emergency bit and when the doctor there was free, asked him how I could be seen. He told me where the reception office really was and that I would need to get a case paper (the green forms I’d seen people carrying), then go back to the ENT building.

So I queued at the reception bit, got my form and paid 20 rupees. The form has fields for

Name
Age
Religion
Marital status
Occupation
Place of Occupation
Address
Father/Husband/Guardian’s name.

I wonder what they thought of me being a separated, unemployed atheist?

At the ENT building, I was told to give my firm to a sister who transcribed my details from my form into a log-book then told me to wait for the doctor to arrive. I think I waited about half an hour before someone told me that the doctor had arrived and that I should queue at his door. The queuing system is a bit wierd – we were admitted to the surgery in the order we were entered in the sister’s log-book with the patient who is next in line to be seen waiting inside the surgery, looking at what is happening to the patient actually being treated.

The doctor used a pump to remove the blockage – this left me feeling a little bruised but I almost cried with relief – it’s so wonderful to be able to hear again. He told me that the blockage was all ‘dirt’ (presumably sand) rather than ear-wax. I’m now aware of some build-up in my right ear but I can hear, I can think, I can have a life – it’s wonderful! The doctor very enthusiastically told me that Indian doctors are best – well-trained and free. He’s been to the UK once – a stopover on his way to Houston where he trained. Just in case you need an ENT specialist, here’s his details:

Dr P D NACHNOLKER MBBS, DORL, FCPS MS (BOM)
SR ENT SURGEON
HOSPICIO HOSPITAL (DHS Govt Goa)
Ex Regist SION-KEMO-WADIA-BHAGWATI Hosp (BOM)
Ex Observer MD Anderson Hosp Texas (USA)
Ex ENT SP King Khaled Univ Hosp (S Arabia)

I guess he’s never encountered the UK’s NHS – long may she prosper!

I’ve also been into a couple of cellphone shops – they either don’t have the sort of phone I’d want (cheap tri-band that will take my vodaphone contract SIM) or offer contract phones that only work in Goa. Aarrgghh.

As soon as I’m finished here*, I’m going to get a bus to Mapusa (which will probably involve a change at Panjim), then finally get to see the famed Anjuna beach.
*Sheila’s computer nook: 10 rupees an hour for a battered but functional Windows 98 box)

(originally keyed on lunchtime on Sunday 23rd)

Packing my bags in Palolem, I was filled with sadness – I’d had a good time here, despite the guts-ache. I’d felt secure in my room in Pritam’s cottages (plug: run by Puto V Pagui [tel: 0832 2643320, mobile 9422059207], opposite syndicate bank, Palolem Branch, Canacona-Goa 403702) and had enjoyed the infectiously wicked laugh and sense of humour of Rupa and Raj Kankonkar (who run the sun and moon cybercafé and restaurant: mobiles 9422018698, 9423307959, tel 0091 0832 2645219). They grew up in Palolem and have seen the changes from a sleepy paradise to a very commercial place and prefer the former, even though the tourist trade gives them a living.

Despite really liking these people, I spent too much of my time either in my room or on line, not daring to move more than a minute away from my toilet. However I decided that I was going to move on Saturday if at all possible, so Friday would be my last day there. Here’s what happened.

Friday April 21st
I felt stable enough to eat breakfast and bus to Chaudi (3 km) to buy and post some birthday cards. Indian envelopes and stamps aren’t gummed – presumably because the humidity would ruin them. Instead, on the counter of the post-office was a pot of gloue and some twigs for brushing the glue wherever it was needed. Chaudi’s other amazing sight was a woman fish-monger in the market smoking a bidi.

I walked back to palolem, passing an old baba who tried to speak with me. He went on and on in his language – I don’t think he was after baksheesh but I wasn’t in the mood for a cultural exchange just then, so shook my head and walked on. I also passed a cellphone shop and got details of some deals but it still seems cheaper to get a spare sent from the UK, assuming it arrives.

At the entrance to Palolem village, there’s a restaurant called Brown Bread. They sell a vast range of teas and the ginger-mint seemed to be the best one for my condition. I slowly slurped this and then realised that if because it was nearly 4pm, I only had two hours of daylight left.

I then went back to my room, stripped to the minimum I dare wear in public (shirt, lycra shorts and sandals, put a few bits into a polythene bag of dubious integrity and walked along the beach towards the strait separating it from Monkey Island. The tide was in and the strait was wide – no chance of wading so I swam across, holding my poly-bag clear of the waves (thank goodness for all that life-guard training in my teens. [Yes, I **was** Worcester’s answer to David Hasselhoff!]). At the island, there’s a little beach and a well-worn trail to the top – but no other visitors I could see. I sat on a rocky outcrop for half an hour, listening to and catching occasional glimpses of the monkeys and trying to avoid being eaten by huge red ants. This was possibly the most peaceful I’ve felt in Goa – no traffic noise, no madly barking dogs keeping me awake and so stress apart from formic-acid-avoidance.

I swam back fairly quickly because I could see the sun was getting near the horizon, showered and ate tofu-burgers (I’m not proud!) at Brown Bread and tried to settle for the night. This wasn’t easy – my guts were still dodgy and my left ear had become painfully blocked with a conglomerate of sand and wax. Rupa’s ear-drops couldn’t dissolve it, water couldn’t float it out and cotton buds just wedged it in further. I didn’t have tweezers and probably wouldn’t have trusted myself with them if I did.

I also found the Indian version of MTV and saw the video to the new crazy frog song. My mind has rotted so I shouldn’t plug a single by Malika called I hate you even though I thought it was fab.

Saturday April 22nd
So I tossed, turned and read until around 6am, and missed the bus I’d intended to take. I finally got on a bus at 10am and rattled my way to Margao, feeling quite sorry for myself and sad that my last words there had been to a vendor, insisting yet again that I didn’t want to buy anything and that I had all I needed and no room in my rucksack. Aarrgghh! Fortunately, Rupa has told me how to say ‘I don’t want to buy anything’ in Hindi and so as soon as I find a PC which will allow me to install fonts, I’ll create a file and get this printed on a t-shirt!

I got to Margao abound mid-day, phoned Suriya to tell her I was in Margao but still had some things to do before returning to Colva and then took a rickshaw to the government-run hospital Suriya had taken me to the a few days ago. The ENT part was closed for the weekend but I pleaded with the doctor in the emergency department (who was doing nothing else at the time) to have a look. He gave me a prescription for some ear-drops and told me to come back early on Monday morning if they didn’t help.

I then dragged myself to the pharmacy in front of the hospital, got my drops (under 50 rupees) and took a rickshaw to Suriya’s house. She, Bobby and the kids greeted my warmly and the kids delighted in dressing me up in a sari and painting my left-hand fingernails. I asked Gautami about painting my right-hand fingernails and she told me off – nail varnish is poison so I must not do it! I’m so smitten with these kids. Suriya ‘force-fed’ me dosa and drumsticks in gravy. (I love both these flavours but didn’t have much of an appetite.)

Meanwhile, Suriya and Bobby had both been unwell – Bobby had fallen and hurt her leg and developed a serious dental problem. She was due to see her dentist in Colva at 4.30 but was quite nervous about it. Laxmi arrived to look after Dhanush and Gautami, so Suriya and I accompanied Bobby to the dentist. The dentist (a retiree from the Indian Army medical corps) had a very modern/western cool office and I felt that this would be a good place to know about should I need a dentist.

Bobby emerged from the treatment room looking quite tired and pained – her tooth had been extracted and she now had 5 stiches in her gum. We slowly returned to Suriya’s place and I tried to keep Dhanush and Gautami amused and occupied so Bobby could sleep. This was quite a challenge: Dhanush doesn’t speak English at all (apart from calling me ‘Uncle’) and Gautami doesn’t seem to realise that her brother is only half her age and hence half her size.

Suriya insisted I stay that night (she asked what I thought of Vinson and I had to tell her that I really doidn’t like him and wouldn’t give him any money for anything!) and cooked home-made chapattis and mung-bean dahl fry – totally lovely except a filling has dropped out of one of my teeth.

To add to my woes, my sphincter and its environs had become severely irritated so that walking was now a trial. Fortunately the pharmacy was still open when I went out to call the UK and so I could buy some vaseline. I’m sure I’m the only person to have ever stuffed petroleum jelly up their backside for non-sexual purposes while walking through Colva. If there is anyone else like this, I want them caught and shot.

We settled for the night, me feeling yet again guilty that I’d displaced someone from a bed (this was her choice), Suiya and Gautami in Priya’s bed and Dhanush and Bobby on the floor. Bobby was guaranteed a good night’s sleep from her pain-killer and I managed 6 hours of continuous sleep..

Sunday April 23rd
This morning, Suriya, Bobby, Dhanush and Gautami have all gone to their religious services. I’ve been to a pharmacy to buy some cotton-wool (to hold my eardrops in), showered, made great use of Suriya’s outside toilet) and come here to blog. I’ve just keyed the entry but because their connection is down, just keyed it into a Word file.

On Monday I’ll post some stuff to the UK, see the ear-doctor and try the desntist, then head for Anjuna for a couple of days. I’ll come back to Colva on the 27th and then it’s full steam ahead to Salem in Tamil Nadu for the wedding.

A bientot!

Sunday April 23rd part 2
Suriya, Bobby, her kids and I and Suriya’s freind Laxmi went to the beach this evening. Dhanush and Gautami played on the swings and slides while Suriya an, Laxmi and I walked on the beach and I had a brief swim in the pounding surf. I think a the sight of a European mingling with an Indian family is boggling and outraging some people. I can understand curiosity and surprise but outrage? The only answer I have is a bunch of expletives: such opinions are in themselves too worthless to even begin to take seriously. However, I am concerned that there might be ill effects on Suriya and family once I’m gone – she seems to be well-known and well-liked here but my antennae are quivering.

OK, time to crawl towards my pit

It’s hard to explain the pleasure in having a shower, cleaning my teeth and putting on clean clothes this morning. Suffice it to say that I feel much more human.

This morning’s rapture was enhanced by eating home-made peanut-butter on toast for breakfast.

Simple pleasures for a simple person?