Live and cycle in Goa, India for six months? July 2, 2009

Girl Gone Goa: Ulrike Bemvinda Rodrigues

Sure, read all about it on this blog.

I wrote over 60 stories on living in Goa as a single woman of Goan descent for this Girl Gone Goa site.

Read the lively and informative stories in any order, or start at the beginning.

Scan the popular stories sidebar for stories such as Goa Cycle Club’s First Ride, and my favourite,  It Runs in The Family.

I’m a freelance writer, so you’ll also find full-text newspaper and magazine articles that I wrote for publications including columns that appeared in Momentum Magazine; as well as a profile of Ulrike Rodrigues, an opinion piece on tourism and garbage , a discussion of NRI Commission’s “Know Goa” program, and an introduction to the Goa Cycle Club and cycling in Goa.

Enjoy, and feel free to Contact me if you have any questions, comments, or job offers so I can return to Goa!

How an average cyclist became an accidental activist July 1, 2009

[Published in the July/August 2009 issue of Momentum Magazine.]

Early days of the Goa Cycle Club

Here in Vancouver, Canada, I consider myself just another person in the city who rides a bike. I keep a pretty low profile compared to the cycling artists and advocates I admire. But something radical happened when I bought an Atlas bicycle, rode it, and wrote about riding it in Goa, India for six months. I became an accidental activist.

“Hi Ulrike,” wrote a reader in response to one of my Girl Gone Goa blog stories, “We’ve recently returned from the UK, to resettle here. I’ve brought back a bike, but as it needs some basic work, I’ve not begun pedalling here. Everyone here tells me I’d be crazy to try, so it’s good to hear of your experiences.”

“We” was Luis Dias and his wife Chryselle. They were Goan and keen to ride, though eight-month-pregnant Chyselle admitted she’d need to have the baby first. Luis and I headed to the Panjim ferry jetty and cycled and chatted along the Mandovi River. He said he was looking for a community project to dig his teeth into.

Goodbye, Goa March 31, 2009

Tears and fears and no place called home

Defence Colony neighbour Marie

I’m in the living room of Marie’s Defence Colony home. She’s seated regally – as always – in a divan. Her four-footed cane stands nearby, as do several of her staff. A stuffed toy tiger watches from a half wall behind her.

I’ve come to say goodbye to my 81-year-old neighbour of six months and – after a morning of continuously fighting, then submitting to tears – I find myself once again emptying sadness.

“Why are you crying?” she asks gently.

“I’m sad to leave,” I sniff, but there’s more to it than that.

“You have done and seen a great deal in your time here in Goa,” she says approvingly. “And,” she holds up a Herald newspaper where my story promoting cycling in Goa features on the front page of the Sunday supplement, “You have left your mark.”

This makes me cry a little harder.

It’s true: I’d made a conscious effort to get to know my grandparents’ Goa as best I could. I joined a writers’ groups, a quiz club, a bike expedition, a rural journalism workshop, and a yoga class. I’d attended art shows, music performances, wine festivals, book readings, and even started a cycling club. I’d met award-winning authors, famous actors, newsmakers, politicians and cultural icons. I’d befriended cyclists, columnists, editors, educators, artists, advocates, musicicans, and cooks. And I caught daily glimpse of the lives of inspiring, humble, beautiful strangers.

But I hadn’t started “my book,” I hadn’t met the love of my life, and I hadn’t had a revelation. For many of us travellers, that’s what it’s all about. You are willing to leave your home because you are certain that your life’s purpose awaits you elsewhere. It’s like a bargain: “I’ll give up my comfortable, predictable life for something less certain, less defined – I’m willing to do this for the greater good.”

To rub salt in the wound, two weeks previous – while I was holed up in Patnem Beach trying to write a piece on cycle culture for Vancouver Review magazine – I had received terrible news. It threw my life, my self-worth and my time in Goa into shadow.

Cycle in Goa? Radical! March 29, 2009

[This story appeared as a feature in Herald "Mirror" Sunday March 29, 2009. Herald is Goa, India's largest circulation English language daily newspaper - UR]

The best way to see Goa is from the seat of a bicycle

Local girls take to their cycles on a quiet Sunday afternoon in Siolim, Bardez (Goa, India)

by Ulrike Bemvinda Rodrigues

“The young lady wishes to ride a cycle all around Goa,” Aloysius explained to the sales clerk, “And she requires one with a basket.” Aloysius and I were standing in the entryway of a cycle shop and since I was a newly arrived visitor, my 74-year-old father’s cousin had guided me here to buy a bicycle.

I’d left my home in Vancouver vowing to buy a one-speed made-in-India bicycle, visit my grandparents’ houses in Olaulim and Nachinola, and – over the next six months -  learn about the rest of Goa slowly, from the seat of a bicycle. This, I discovered, was apparently a radical idea.

My first lesson came in the cycle shop.

“I want a bicycle that is simple, and of good quality,” I told the clerk, “And it should be able to carry stuff because I want to use it for transportation.” The fellow gave me an odd look, then led me through the dark shop and into the alley. A shipment of Barbie-pink bicycles rested against the wall, and I could tell through their cardboard wrapping that they were not designed for the kind of cycling I had in mind.

I peered past the impractical cycles to a dusty pile behind and immediately recognized the archetypal Hercules- and Atlas-brand Indian bikes I’d been seeking: elegant frames, steel brake systems, heavy-duty tires and sturdy carrier racks. “What about those?” I pointed.

The young man shook his head. “Those are work cycles – for sellers, and shops and hotels.”

“Do they come in ladies’ models?” I persisted.

“No,” he shook his head again, “Ladies don’t work.”

A Gun Search on Patnem Beach March 17, 2009

A short tale of guns and fetishes

Tiny Patnem beach is a curve of sand just south of Palolem Beach in south Goa. It is beautiful, intimate and moneyed in an unassuming way. Landscaped beach bungalows with au courant names like “Home” and “Cuba” provide bed linens and filter coffee to slim, healthy-looking visitors.

I am here to “work.” In the last few weeks of my time in Goa, I accepted an assignment with Canadian magazine Vancouver Review to write about bike culture in Vancouver. I rode my Atlas cycle to the bus station, negotiated to load the bike on top of a bus, and arrived here at Goyam Luxury Bungalows ready to research and write.

“Excuse me,” asks one of the handsome young men from north India who run the place, “Does your laptop have internet?” I’m sharing an early lunch with a Swedish family and my fork is suspended above my mushroom and spinach omlette. The laptop is over at another table.

“Er, yes,” I reply, “Why?”

“Can I use the internet for just a couple of minutes?”

“Sure, but it’ll cost you thirty rupees a minute,” I joke. This is an outrageous rate, but yes, yes, he reponds without hesitating, no problem. I finish my lunch, go over to the computer and start it up. I move over to the next seat, and he leans into Explorer, then Google.

“’How to buy guns in India’” he keyboards into the search bar. He has a flash drive handy.

“Whoa, Whoa, WHOA!” I exclaim. “You want to buy guns in India?” The other patrons – sipping espressos and mango lassis – turn curiously.

“I have a serial number,” he explains around the thatched cafe. “It’s for a particular gun.” He clicks a link in the search results page and I imagine how someone, somewhere will see this on my cache and hunt me down. In typically Canadian fashion, I meet his boldness with politeness.

“Um, I don’t feel completely comfortable with you searching for guns on my computer,” I suggest. Surprisingly, he quickly relents. I reach over and slam the door on Explorer.

“No problem, no problem,” he says, receding back behind the bar counter. I slide the laptop over, launch Firefox and return to my own research.

“’Bicycle fetish’” I type. “’Man sex with bicycle‘”. A BBC news site comes up and I feel nauseous and reassured at the same time.

Sadho at Sunaparanta March 16, 2009

The Sadho Poetry Film Festival at Goa’s new Arts Centre

Sadho is a voluntary organization that aims at taking great “poetry to people” from all walks of life through the use of arts, media and social action. I attended a Sadho film festival at Sunaparanta – Goa Centre for the Arts in Altinho and was quite taken by how well poetry and animation go together.

Coincidentally, one of my favourite poetry films was from the National Film Board of Canada (NFB): A Tragic Story With A Happy Ending. It’s the tale of a girl whose heart is so loud that it disturbs her neighbours. She rides her bike and tries to explain to them, “My heart beats faster because it is the heart of a bird.”

I’ve been to the beach frequently, surfing in the warm rolling waves with a borrowed boogy board (half surfboard). I’ve also been awash with feelings about leaving soon. That night, I found myself falling asleep poetically, and scrawled a quick poem the next morning:

Goa 3am

The 3am air is warm and heavy like the Arabian Sea
And I float uneasily in the night’s discomfort,
Salty skin bound by an accidental sari
Of damp sheet cotton.
Hair brushes pillow, hushes mouth, tangles,
As I am tangled under and inside a net
That traps restless women,
Thirsty mosquitos,
Sheets and saris,
Sweat and sea.
A dog tells the moon that this surface drenched in darkness
Is her own.

Youth travel free with “Know Goa Program” March 9, 2009

[I wrote this piece for the March 2009 issue of Goa Today Magazine. The magazine is distributed around the world and many subscribers are Goan expatriates. The full-text story is below. - UR]

More than a holiday in the sun?

Ulrike Bemvinda Rodrigues wonders what’s behind a new NRI Affairs scheme for diaspora youth

“Passports are easy,” says Mr. Faleiro, “Creating familiarity and building relationships is more difficult."

Know Goa? No, I don’t. That’s why I left my home in Vancouver, Canada to take up my father cousin’s invitation to live in Bardez for six months. My father’s parents grew up in Olaulim and Nachinola, but – like many offspring of expatriated Goans – I’d  never set foot in Goa and didn’t know the difference between Curtorim and caferal.

I arrived in Porvorim in the winter of 2008, bought a bicycle and created a self-guided program to learn about Goa’s nature, culture and people. Coincidentally, the Department of Nonresident Indian Affairs had just launched one of their own: “Know Goa Program” (KGP).

Too late to participate myself (the program started in November and participants had already been selected), I was nonetheless keen to learn more about Goa in general and NRI Commissioner Eduardo Faleiro’s tourism cum educational scheme in particular.

Patterned after the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs’ “Know India Program” (KIP), Know Goa’s purpose is to acquaint youth of Goan background with their cultural heritage so they might “contribute to and promote understanding, good will, and cooperation between their country of adoption and the country of origin.”

“Passports are easy,” says Mr. Faleiro of the program’s efforts to build a bridge across continents and generations. “Creating familiarity and building relationships is more difficult. We want to reach out, keep in touch, and give these youth an opportunity to interact with Goa – as they would a person.”

To that end, NRI Affairs (Government of Goa) directed 13.48 Lakh (almost $30,000 USD) towards the nine-day Goan portion of the program in its inaugural year, while the Government of India assumed expenses for its four-day conclusion in Delhi. The all-inclusive package tour includes return airfare; beach front accommodation; local transportation; escorted visits to historical and religious sites, academic institutions, and commercial organizations, government projects; plus spending money. The tour also includes – for better or worse – meals presided by industry tycoons and political personalities.

Cycling Pomburpa and Chorao March 2, 2009

Alisha at Salvador du Mund church (Click to view photo gallery)

Goa Cycle Club tours along and across the Mandovi River

For our third ride, myself, Alisha and Nikhil completed a 25 kilometre loop that included three ferry rides: Mandovi River ferry from Panjim jetty to Betim, then cycle east through the village of Britona.

We stopped to admire the Houses of Goa museum, then onwards to Pomburpa Springs. We jumped on the Pomburpa ferry to Chorao Island, then back across the Mandovi to Ribander. Lunch and drinks at Gene Cafe, then along the Ribander Causeway back into Panjim.

Photos: Goa’s Working Bicycles February 28, 2009

Ice Cream Ice Cream bicycles find the tourists, but they also ply the slimmest village lanes – especially when school gets out.	Zalor Beach, Goa, India
Metal Cans Using the empty space within the frame of a bike, a person can wheel 80 kg of flattened cans to a yard 8 km away – with a broken chain.	Nehrul, Goa, India
Rice Snacks A Hercules loaded with light and colourful snacks waits for its rider, who sips tea at a nearby chai shack.	Chogam Road, Goa, India

A Conversation with G.O.D.* February 17, 2009

Apparently, a little eyeliner works wonders

Dear Ulrike,

G.O.D. here. I’ve been hearing from you a lot lately and – you’re welcome. It’s my pleasure to see you surrounded by the beautiful nature, kind people and little joys that I have tucked away for you to discover in Goa. It’s one of my favourite places, and  – judging from the volume of prayers I hear from the Catholics there – I know I did the right thing, sending the Portuguese over like that.

Sunday it pleased me to see you on your bicycle and grinning with delight on the stretch of meadow between Guirim and Parra (the one with the scarecrow woman in a patch of garden – I’m glad you notice my subtle gestures), and Monday evening I felt your wonder after I put you in the company of Nobel and Booker prize luminaries and other great minds to inspire those books you said you’d write.

By the way, what’s taking so long? You’re here in Goa, exactly where you wanted to be, you’re exchanging bon mots with the region’s finest published writers, and you haven’t even drawn up an outline?

Honestly, Ulrike, what more do you need to fulfill your life’s destiny?

Oh, right, that. This afternoon, I heard that old prayer. You were cycling up the long hill from the Betim ferry jetty and a sadness that you’d been carrying all day pressed down on your heart and the pain blurred your eyes with tears. You felt betrayed because this sadness – the one that you thought you’d left behind in Canada – had found you today, here in Goa.

Love.

Ulrike, I’ve surrounded you with love. You have newfound aunts, uncles and cousins who have looked after you; neighbours who worry about you when you come home late; friends who share chai and musings; colleagues who encourage your voice; comrades who share your passion; strangers who gift you with smiles. I’ve even thrown in a storeful of tolerant clerks, five affectionate kittens and  two lusting admirers, for heaven’s sake.

What? Sure, they’re married, but love is love. No – I’m not suggesting you sin – I’m just saying it’s  better than nothing, right?

I don’t know how much longer it will be, Ulrike. Maybe if you just took a little more care with your outfits and wore some makeup…(joke)…what I meant to say is: yes, I know you’ve had a rough time of it. You’ve fallen in love with men who didn’t love you; who wanted to change you, who missed their mothers, who hated their marriages; and who returned to me after huffing the tailpipe of an idling Toyota.

I know that one really hurt, and I wish I could explain. I know you’re strong, and now – well – you’ve learned to be humble. Sorry about that, it was out of my hands. But hold faith, Ulrike, and trust me. Be kind and honest and keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. When it’s time, he’ll find you and you’ll find him. You want a sign? Sure, I’ll send something good, I promise.

No, he won’t be married. Yes, he’ll love, respect and accept you as you are…but a bit of eyeliner wouldn’t hurt.

Oh, lighten up Ulrike! Now get started on that book and let me worry about the details.

———————————-

*Goal-Oriented Director