Hester's Head

The last day in Goa I decided to go for a walk. I had considered not leaving the ship at all, but I felt like getting off the ship after all. This time I walked to Vasco Da Gama and it was as interesting as ever. I couldn't even walk out the pedestrian gate, I had to stay on the left side of the road and walk out with the traffic. The guard asked me twice, "Why?" That's all he said. I tried to indicate I wanted to go for a walk, when he asked again I said I wanted to go for a short walk. I’m not sure why it popped in my head, but I indicated “short” by holding one hand above the other: ‘short’ is in ‘not tall’ rather than ‘not long’. I could tell he thought I was crazy, but I'm used to that. I walked downtown where they had a market. I bought a coconut from a lady who took the husk off with a nail that hung around her neck and then punched a hole in it. I asked if I was to drink from the hole but she just smiled at me. So I took her picture and walked away, carrying my coconut.
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I didn't know if I was to tip it back and drink from the hole, no one else was carrying a coconut. So I just carried it, careful to keep the hole at the top. The market was spread all over the street and down the street as well as two side streets. This one kid, an older kid, maybe 16, seemed to be following me. His bright red shirt with the number 8 wasn't hard to pick out. I turned to take his picture and he desisted and went to buy some stalks of sugar cane. One guy finally came over and saved me from my coconut. He took me to a shop nearby and got me a straw, so now I was able to walk around drinking the coconut juice. I continued on my walk, as Vasco didn't seem near as threatening. There were some kids who were playing cricket. I thought it was a schoolyard, but it might have been in front of a hospital with a white truck at the side that said "Hearse".

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I ended up walking a few kilometres and most of the way through and out of Vasco, taking many more pictures. The best one was of a "Gay Kindergarten."

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See? That's what the sign said. The Communist Party of India was located on the floor directly above it. I found some guys selling soft coconuts at the side of the road so I bought one of them too. It was the same idea as the regular coconut. They hacked off the husks at the top and poked a hole in it and gave me a straw. One of the guys had a Chelsea jersey so we talked some soccer. I told him I didn't like Chelsea or Manchester United. Was there anybody who liked Jose Mourinho? He laughed when I told him I liked Arsenal. They cut the green coconut in half for me when I was done drinking it so I could get at the flesh inside. It didn't seem quite ready to eat and the juice made a mess of me when I tried to eat the fleshy bits. I was almost out of Vasco when another taxi slowed down and I agreed to get in. He took me to Old Goa down some even narrower roads and further in the backcountry. We passed some cattle sitting on the door step.

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"Two milk today please." And then there was this cute pup. He looks better in the picture, his hair was almost all gone and I wasn't tempted to pet him.

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Old Goa has some incredible cathedrals, including the Cathedral of Bom Jesus (Bom means "good" or "infant") where Saint Francis Xavier is kept.

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I hired a guide to show me around and explain things to me. I took a picture of St Francis Xavier as you could see him lying in his sealed glass casket. There are four cathedrals in the area and I told my taxi driver that I would take 30 minutes. It was closer to two hours and even then I felt that I had rushed. I have a healthy collection of photographs of "Photography not permitted in this area" signs. There was a museum in one of the cathedrals that had pictures of all the governors and viceroys of Goa. There was statue of the bleeding heart of Jesus that I really wanted a picture of but I couldn't get it. The security guards were patrolling and would scream on a whistle at any infraction. Small child on the wrong side of a chain - they would be less than ten feet away but they would wail on the whistle first. I tried to take a picture and heard the whistle far enough away I wasn't sure it was for my benefit. I went for a walk to mislead them and came back about 10 minutes later. I tried to take another picture while the guard was around the corner but he came into view at just the wrong time. It was plain that he was looking for me and blew his whistle in my general direction. I figured it was time for me to leave. My taxi driver asked me if I wanted to go see some handicrafts. Sure thing. He took me to a Persian carpet store. I wanted a carpet, I even had the measurements, but I didn't expect to be shopping for one today. Didn't matter, they talked me into one, though I did talk them down US$365. I wonder if I could fly it home. The Pacific is big so I better not chance it.
Our next stop was a Hindi temple in Manguesh. One of the men there took me for a short tour and took the time to tell me I would be promoted in January (0% chance of that), would have good luck after Nov 20th (I hope so - woohoo, can hardly wait!), would be married in April (the odds of that are the square root of -1), and would reach enlightenment in 15 years. (Still on schedule!)
My taxi driver then took me to the spice plantation. I encountered two officers from the ship there and we had the buffet dinner together. Try the cashew feni. I thought it would be like Amaretto, but it was closer to turpentine. They only give you a small splash of it, out of a plastic pop bottle, but that was enough to last me an entire weekend. One very small sip was all I had. I'm not sure where the actual plantation was, but we went for a tour that followed a path and looked at betel nuts, vanilla beans, cinnamon, chili peppers, and giant spiders.

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I bought some vanilla beans and some betel nuts. I have enough betel nuts for everyone.
I went with the two in their taxi and sent my driver home. Uttam had driven me around all day and seemed like a good guy. The price had gone up to R1050 when I asked to go the spice plantation - he was tired and wanted to go home to his six-month old daughter. But the price suddenly went from R1050 to R1500 when I told him I was leaving. I felt bad from keeping him from his daughter but I wasn't happy. I gave him 1300 and he shook my hand and went on his way.
We went back to the cathedrals because they hadn't seen them and I said they should. We went back to Panaji as one of them had to pick up a sari she was having fitted and also wanted to buy some pashmina scarves for her mom and grandmother. The wallet kid was there again, still determined to sell me a wallet. I tried to convince him that I had bought one from him the day before. I'm not sure if I was unsuccessful or if he was just determined to sell me another one. I helped Christine with the haggling and she got four pashmina scarves. I was still talking to the wallet kid - it turns out he is 12 and has to work till 10 each night selling wallets. He doesn't like having to do it and he also doesn't really like school. I tried to tell him I had bought three wallets the day before but he was determined to sell me more. I took one wallet and put 20 rupees in it and gave it back to him. I told him I had done it but I don't think he believed me. Little doubter. I finally had to show him before he sold the wallet with the money in it. He thought I was crazy. I told him that if I come back next year that I would come find him. I told him I expected to find a teenager at least this much taller. He smiled and shook my hand. We jumped in the taxi and headed back to Vasco. This driver asked if it was ok to stop at the medical college to talk to his wife. He ran in, took two minutes and came running out again. He didn’t need to be so fast. And what's with the dogs? While we were waiting a dog came walking out of the hospital and then went running in again. I heard that the bars and clubs were the same way - dogs wandering around the dance floor. I didn't want to touch any of them, but there was one little scrawny one near the jetty that was cute and followed me around. Scratch her behind the ear and she would lick, lick, lick, lick your hand. I made a point of cleaning my hands very well though. There were two other dogs that didn't like her and would come looking for her every now and then, barking their fool heads off. We would chase them away and she would hide. I also tried to figure out cricket, but I didn’t get very far. The taxi driver was listening to the India and West Indies game but I could barely understand what was being said. I might try again sometime.
So after four days in Goa I liked the place. Day 1 was miserable but the place kept getting better. Even the street vendors. After leaving Goa we headed straight west and we are now off the horn of Africa.

The day after we sailed from Goa I decided I should figure out the betel nut. I figured all I had to do was crack it open, eat the nut inside and wait for some kind of buzz. Without nutcrackers cracking it turned out to be a chore. I went to the galley and smacked it with a ladle on a cutting board. Nothing happened. So I walked around trying to crunch it with my teeth. Nothing doing. I went to the stokers and borrowed a ball peen hammer. The workbench has rubber matting on top so the nut just bounced up and flew away. I went next door and tried the vice. Bingo! It broke into three pieces but there wasn't any nut inside. One of the pieces was smaller than the others so I tried chewing on that. It had the same texture, flavour and satisfaction as plywood. I persevered for about 10 minutes before I went to the bridge and spent some time with the starboard lookout spitting the bits out. Three of us had planned to share the bag of nuts, but I was done with it and gave them the rest. I went to Google how to eat betel nuts. This is what I found:

"Betel chewing is a part of many Asian and Pacific cultures and is often chewed at ceremonies and gatherings, and preparation techniques vary from region to region. The nut is either slivered or grated, often flavoured with spices according to local tradition, and usually wrapped in a betel leaf (note that betel leaf comes from the pepper plant Piper betle, which is not botanically related to the Betel Palm), along with some lime to better extract the alkaloids. Some people also chew tobacco with betel nut. After about 20 minutes of chewing, the fibrous residue which remains of the nut is spat on the street, where it remains visible due to its characteristic bright red pigment. Trails of bright red sputum lining the sidewalks are a sure indication of the popularity of betel chewing in an area. In Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, fresh betel nut is sold on street corners, is chewed with a fresh leaf or 'fruit leaf' (daka in PNG) and mixed with lime. In these countries, dried or flavoured betel nut is not popular."

Man, I don't eat anything right! I wasn't even close that time. I won't try to eat the vanilla beans; I'll bring those home.

We didn't have much luck getting groceries and some needed parts in Goa so we arranged to try again in Djibouti. If we didn't refuel at sea we would get fuel as well. It wasn't a sure thing, but I was hoping that we would stop, as I had never been to Africa. It turned out the Captain was thinking the same way I was. Djibouti was scorching hot, just like almost everywhere else in the gulf region.

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Where's Waldo?

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He's in Djibouti! Might be taking a whiz in the harbour.

The camel pen on the jetty was a new sight for me. And a new smell. They were all standing around stinking up the place.

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We stored all our groceries and then the Captain mustered us on the jetty. He has us there for two reasons: To tell us that it is still cool to be in the Navy and we came to Djibouti just because we could and so that we could say that we had been to Africa. Reason #2 was that as cool as it was to be in Africa, it was even cooler to say that you had been promoted in Africa. AB Orlowski was promoted to Leading Seaman and thus could say that he had been promoted in Africa. We left before dinner, and brought some flies with us. I would like to blame the camels, but why were the flies on us instead of on the camels? The number of flies that were around while we were storing was astounding. It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was horrible. I'm glad our port visit was only 9 hours. I had enough heat, camel smell and flies. I spent about 10 minutes on land, in Africa, but it was enough of Djibouti for me. Five days later and there is still an occasional Djiboutian fly flying around. Thanks to the NavComms, HMCS Ottawa left a mark on Djibouti.

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We are now patrolling off the horn of Africa, doing our thing, until we're told to go patrol somewhere else. And it's still a few weeks until our next port visit. Things have turned into Groundhog Day - one day is the same as the next, it is easy to lose track of the days and the day of the week. It's over two months now since we sailed, and about four until we get home.