A Goan Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving Day, we began the morning with a Peace Assembly dedicated to a remembrance of the 26-Nov Mumbai Terrorist attacks. The event, designed by our superintendent, was a celebration of unity through music and brought together the entire K-12 school in the gym. Rachel lead a group of elementary singers in a rousing rendition of "Peace Like a River," which featured actions that even our older students enjoyed. Tom, the choir teacher I work with, led a group singing a Hebrew peace song, a senior music student did a piano/voice song she composed, and the faculty rock band played "Gimme Some More" and a combo of "Give Peace a Chance" and "Hey Jude." We ended with much of the school singing along with "na, na na na na na na ..." We were a proud music dept!

That evening, many teachers went on a long weekend holiday. We joined Greg, Twyla, and Waciuma on a trip to Goa! We arrived in time for a late dinner of delicious seafood.

Friday morning, we took a tour of Old Goa, the original Portuguese capital before they moved the city because of frequent malaria outbreaks. Between 1540 and 1961, the Portuguese ruled Goa as a profitable spice colony. (Note the end date: the rest of India achieved independence in 1947!) Amazingly, during the 16th-18th centuries, Goa actually had a greater population than London or Lisbon!. The legacy left from the Portuguese is everywhere, but it is easily seen in the great cathedrals and churches. This is Se Catedral and it is the largest cathedral in all of Asia (it also contains the largest bell) and was constructed in the early 1600s.

The other very impressive sight in Old Goa is the original Fransiscan monastery complex, which is in ruins. Walking around the broken stones, half-standing walls, and chipped azulejo tiles (that reference is for the those who've studied in Spain or Puebla, Mexico) over looking a valley of palm tress is a surreal experience. These monks were VERY far outside of their comfort zone.

After seeing the glory of the Goan colony, the next day we toured the source of all that revenue -- a spice plantation. After an hours drive through a beautiful countryside of rice paddies, palm trees, banana trees, and soft rolling hills, we reached our destination. There, we got to see pepper, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, beedle nut, vanilla, tumeric, corriander (cillantro), pinapple, and a few others I might be forgetting. For someone who loves to know what food looks like in its original form, it was a joyous day.

The other great part of being on the planation was the great lunch that came with our tour ticket. We enjoyed freshly cooked food with locally grown spices.

And the icing on the cake was some great birding -- notably a kingfisher (India's national bird) and a hornbill.

The rest of the time was spent on the beach. Waciuma and Rachel enjoyed massages, Greg chatted it up with many children selling peanuts, we had several great meals, body-surfed in the very warm waters, and even bought psychedelic laser pointers.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving too!

Crazy Mumbai

As I was out running this morning on the road that hugs the rocky rubble strewn coast of the Arabian Sea, I came upon an amazingly strong fish smell. This is not unusual in that in addition to the fact that it's the ocean, there happens to be an indigenous Koli fishing village about a five minute jog down the street from our apartment. This smell was much stronger than any I'd ever smelled in India -- and that's saying something. As I rounded the bend in the road, the docks were flush with pink.

Millions of prawns were neatly laid out on every conceivable flat surface drying in the mid-morning sun. Guarding the precious seafood were villagers with fly swatters slowly walking through the thin layer of prawns. Little kids were guarding the perimeter against the hungry street dogs and cats. As I stopped to check this out (for as long as my nose could take it), I was once again reminded of living San Miguel Tzinacapan. I immediately remembered the roofs of the village houses that were covered in the dull red color of coffee beans. And while it took no time at all to get over the obvious health concerns of drinking coffee made from beans that had been drying out on somebody's roof, it will take me longer to eat dried prawns. I'm very excited about fried prawns -- no way any bacteria will survive that heat! -- but dried, no way Jose.

Our Rajastani Ramble

Instead of a narrative for this blog entry, check out the photos with detailed captions. Please comment or ask questions! Take care, Reid and Rachel