It's Goa Time!

Most heartfelt greetings to all y'all! This post is a long time coming - updating isn't quite my forte, so I hope you're all ready for a barrage of super great experiences on Field Visit Part II! (oh, by the way, how about that weather in MN?! Man, how good did you have to be to get 80 degree days in the middle of October?! Pelican was rockin' out warmer than Bangalore some days - how wild!)

Yesterday we arrived back in Bangalore from an epic journey to Goa, a coastal state in western India. A little background on this truly unique place:

* In 1510, the Portuguese arrived in India and immediately established the colony they called Goa. In 1947, the whole of India (save Goa) gained independence from Great Britain, but it wasn't until 1961 that Goa received full liberation from Portugal. So this sets the stage for a dramatically different Indian experience. Catholicism, although losing membership, has a notably strong influence in the region. One 3km square pocket of Goa has 9 churches! One afternoon we took a tour of the area cathedrals. Here's a story: One particularly beautiful joint doubled as a mausoleum for St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish missionary to the region who died en route to China. The his crew opted to bury the body in the sandy beaches of some Chinese coast. The guy's miracle and what eventually led to his canonization was that his body didn't decompose. I guess it just more or less shrunk a bit, but anyways, his relics now reside at the Basilica of Bom Jesus (Infant Jesus in Portuguese). I snapped a few photos, but if you really want to see the body, you have to be patient. Unlike Lenin, this guy keeps a low profile and is only displayed for the public once every 10 years on December 3rd.

Alright, so if the churches dotting the landscape didn't indicate to you that you were in a whole new world, the intense tourism and economic boom will. Goa is the world's 5th most popular tourist destination. And this leads me to why we were there in the first place (other than to get a wicked tan - :) ) The course we're involved with right now is titled The Ethics of Development, so the field visit was tailored so that we would be up close and personal with globalization and its effects in this high traffic area. Unlike the earlier trip, we traveled as one large group. All 19 of us road together in a sleeper bus (aka giant riding lawnmower with lay-down option) - the original 13 hour bus ride morphed into some 20 hour excursion. After we arrived in the capital city (Panjim), we were split into 3 smaller groups and sent to study mining, tourism, or fishing and their relation with globalization. I was on fisher folk detail. Five ladies (Jill Suurmeyer, Jessica Gillaspey, KatyAnna Johnson, Emily Nelson, and Tessa Garle) stayed at this beach front resort with very little academic direction. So we took our own take on learning and decided to just comb the beaches looking for people armed with nets and asked them questions. To really experience it all more, we even got up at 6 am one morning to watch the day's catch come in. It was great! A group of young gents were on the beach playing a bit of cricket, so we asked if we could bat once. No where else but in India can you stand on the shores of the Arabian Sea, cricket bat in hand and a chap named Asha "bowling" you the ball. Our discoveries in the fishing sector is that most traditional farmers are being severely neglected by the government. Mechanized farming is taking control of the market and marginalizing local fisher people. This seems to be a theme here; those practicing sustainability are subordinated by those with serious power clout. Funding never shows, land is taken away, the market becomes more volatile for the small farmer/fisher/shopkeeper.

After we spent the weekend on the beach, it was back to Panjim for consolidation of what we all learned. Our groups presented the information we learned and sparked debate in the group on the concept of ethical development and alternatives to the globalization model. Accomodations in Panjim were something comical; the hotel we stayed at was basically some warped Gustavus experience. Our rooms were all very close to each other, so doors were left open, and blaring over the loud speakers was American country music. No CF's though, so we countered the tacky music with an Indian dance party on the boys' porch. The rest of the week was a series of lectures and meetings furthering our knowledge on the status of economic development in the area. Highlight from the week include:

* visiting an opencast mine (read: super destructive striping of minerals) as a group of "geology" students from the U.S.
* The Ben and MJ birthday bash - Doug got a Batman cake for the two to share!
* shady riverboat cruise we took to study a different side of tourism
* "Academic Interactions" with the local university students
* the town's bookstore - had really everything you ever really would need (ex. books on how to run your own bar or coffee shop - not one, however, on how to run your own bookstore)

So this story becomes a saga when we finally try to leave. We're all pretty stoked that we would be dodging the sleeper bus experience and be taking an overnight train home. So we get on the train, happily travel 45 km and then stop. Six kilometers ahead of us is a derailment of a goods train. Talk about a tribute to globalization! We sat at one station inside our car for 4 hours while Nazar, a Visthar employee, figured out where we would go because getting back to Bangalore was impossible. So here we are, a 19 member traveling circus, playing games on a train, drawing the attention of kids from other sections. At one time, we were entertaining 4 kids under the age of 10 with our silly little camp games. No where else but in... :) We spent night in Margao, Goa, and left the next day at 7 pm on, you guessed it, another sleeper bus. This time it was a lot more comfortable. But here's the kicker: early morning time, say 4:30 am, we had a pit stop at the side of the Indian highway. There is absolutely no coverage, no privacy - it was a gauntlet of people on their haunches. In an attempt to hide myself, I decided to walk down into the ditch. I didn't get more than 2 feet in that journey when I felt I was shin-deep in sewage. No where else but in... :)

Now that we're back at Visthar, we have the task of completing a paper on globalization. I plan to focus on AIDS and disease, but everything we do now is a little lackluster. We go on "holiday" this Saturday. A group of 11 of us will be jetting to Thailand for a week of Pad Thai, wats, and river markets. Eight of us (Jill, Jessica, KatyAnna, Kee, MahNia Mauo, Michael Paulson, Mallory Vogel and me) will be toolin' around Bangkok and some southern islands while three others (Ben Wagner, Michael J. Sielaff and Tessa Grevle) will be heading to Chaing Mai to teach English in a school and volunteer at a church. By the end of the week, we will all be rendezvousing back in Bangkok for a few nights of reunions.

Hope all is well with you and this greeting finds you enjoying a memorable fall!

peace and love