WEEK 1: To build a home.

Well, I live in India!

As I write, the air is alive with incense, colour, red dust and honking horns – ecstatically engaging all your senses. Cows, stray dogs and pedestrians have as much right of way as scooters and buses on the road. Apparently I’m staying in the posh end of Goa (of course, darling) where Russian tourism has given the economy a big boom and the shops an extra language to put on their signs. The area is like a mix of Portuguese, English and Russian as overseen by Indians – it’s wild.

Since arriving on Thursday 18^th, I’ve mostly been spending the time settling in to my new apartment. It’s a lovely upstairs 2-bed with AC, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and living room. Outside my room is a balcony, which overlooks coconut and banana trees and the local little restaurant. Rubbish is collected twice a day – the collectors make their presence known to residents by pulling up at certain locations on the road and blowing a referees whistle. It’s a perfect location – 5 minutes walk from the west-facing beach (perfect for those deep orange sunsets), right in the centre of the action in bustling Candolim, Goa.

Mum (who is joining me for the first 3 weeks of my stay) and I have been given the most wonderful hospitality since arriving. Pastors Martin and Beena, who run the care homes at which I’ll be volunteering, have been incredible at making us feel at home, picking us up and dropping us off, inviting us to their home and cooking for us, taking us out for meals, giving us a big welcome at church. My heart skipped a beat when I found out Beena was crazy about the same authors I was – Rob Bell, Richard Rohr et al. Equally amazing have been Sharon Fernandes-Kore and her mum and dad, Lillian and Trevor, who have been bending over backwards to help us settle in to the apartment – lending us a phone, giving us lifts, setting up the apartment, having us over for meals.

But these 5 people aren’t the only ones who have given of themselves to help us – the locals deserve a big mention. John, Naz and Nasir at the local spice/tea/incense shop have been putting me on their scooter and giving me free rides to the market 2km away in Nerul. The folks at the little shop Borkar round the corner from the apartment have always been on hand. Many others have been friendly and offered their services, maybe in the name of karma, maybe as part of a regional culture, maybe as an influence of Hinduism/Catholicism. One thing is for sure, you never feel threatened here, except for the mosquitos.

It’s not all sun, coconuts, helpful hindus, though. I never realised how comfortable I was in London until I moved to a thoroughly different country. The culture, climate, economy, spirituality, transport system, social structure, flora, fauna, languages, architecture, fashion, music, cuisine and infrastructure and all vastly different to what I’m used to. Even the moon is in a different place in the sky. Homesick doesn’t describe the displacement I felt in my first week here. I’ve left behind lots of very important people to do this, and I can say with complete certainty that it’s been the hardest few weeks of my life.

However, I’m learning to not worry. Worry means that you’re THERE and not HERE. And HERE is all we have. The present. So I’m learning to stay present and enjoy everything that’s going on right now.

Now I’m settling in for sure, Monday will be the first day at the care homes. Mum will come with me as she and a friend bought loads of clothes for the kids and she is desperate to meet them. We met some of them over the past two Sundays at church, though, as the church is run by Pastors Martin and Beena and the kids come along to services. Today I was talking to the boys about what they’re going to do after the service and their plan was to have lunch (omelettes) then go to the football area to have a game. Tomorrow I’ll be helping them with their studies and their homework after they get back from school – I just hope they don’t have any maths homework!

To be honest I’m up for whatever. I’ve got to be. I’m here to serve. This is no “self-discovery” trip, but just me helping others because I can… unless it involves playing football… then I can’t help.

Sidenotes:

• I have 7 mosquito bites, and counting.
• Mum fell down last Friday and badly hurt her leg. It’s very swollen but she’s doing fine. Ps Martin & Beena took us to the doctors and she was seen straight away and walked away with medicines and some top advice.
• Goa won 2-1 against Kerala at football on Sunday 21^st and there was much rejoicing in the camp – the streets turned it up to 11.
• The electricity goes off throughout the area once or twice a day for a few minutes or even hours.