Finally, we came back to our little beach room. I was so in love with that beach, with just being there, that it was like seeing a long-lost friend.

It was now Xmas eve. Xmas is special in Goa, because a large minority of Goa is Catholic, thanks to the Portuguese. Even so, I was ecstatic not to be in the US during this time. We had brought a small artificial tree with us, at Linda's request, because they are ridiculously expensive in India. A small, really shoddy one costs $70. On our first trip to Panjim we found the Xmas ornament vendors, and bargained our way to some tinsel, some foil ornaments and an angel. We did not have room in our bags to bring any of this from the US. The big thing in India, however, is the Xmas star, a large, 3-dimensional 5-pointed star, made commercially out of heavy paper with various bright designs, in some cases, and homemade, with a bamboo framework covered with paper. The stars are first lighted on Xmas eve. All of the churches had homemade creches (called "cribs"). Vally has described the huge ones they used to make each year in the village, including the year, before electricity came to the village and cribs were still lighted with candles, that he accidently set fire to the whole thing. He was about 5 years old. It was gone in a flash. The cribs are made with natural materials, bamboo and straw, and the figures are made of plaster. Everyone goes to midnight mass, but I didn't because I was simply too sick and too exhausted. Vally went, but did not stay for the all night party that took place in his parent's complex afterwards.

Xmas day everyone went to "Uncle Ralph's" place for dinner. Uncle Ralph and family are, technically, not related to Vally's family, but the families are so close that it doesn't make any difference. I decided to stay at the apartment by myself and just try to sleep, because I knew I would not get well if I didn't. Earlier in the week I had started to take amoxycillin, because I felt like I was getting swollen glands, but was taking only 250 mg per dose instead of 500, which I knew would make me sick, so maybe it wasn't enough. In Cochin I switched to erythromyocin, I don't know if it helped, maybe it did. Antibiotics can easily be obtained without prescription in India, as can antihistamines and I don't know what else. Pharmacies (called chemists) are small shops, like everything else. In general they have a sign across the top with a red cross and some text on a white background (I forget what they say). The pharmacist and or assistants stands behind a counter which is the front of the shop. On your side of the counter you are standing essentially in the street. Behind him are shelves, like bookshelves with various items from sanitary napkins and shampoo to vitamins and medicines. Although when we discussed this with people in India, they insisted that you needed a prescription to get antibiotics, this was not the case. It is possible that if someone simply asked for antibiotics, as opposed to a specific one, it would not be provided. I had no trouble obtaining either the amoxycillin or the erythromycin. The medication was provided in a blister pack. The number of pills per day to be taken was given orally by the chemist, and no further information was provided. The cost was extremely cheap but I don't remember what it was.

I happily slept in a recliner in Vally's parent's living room until about 4 PM when suddenly there was the sound of a PA feeding back. The noise and screeching continued and then, as the PA set up finally was achieved, there was loud macarena-like music. I could not imagine what was going on, and thought that one of the neighbors was getting a little carried away. Finally I went outside and saw that on the vacant lot between the complex and the road, the local school was having its Xmas party. People were giving speeches and there was someone dressed up as Santa Claus. The children, some of them completely bewildered, were lined up to receive small gifts. I guess I couldn't begrudge them the party, but I really can't stand music blaring out of a PA system, a very common phenomenon in India.

Shortly after that everyone came back. My presence was missed, especially by Uncle Ralph who really wanted me to see his remodeled house. Linda brought me back some wonderful fruit salad, and as a result of the rest I was feeling human for the first time in days. Also, on Xmas in India, you are supposed to say Merry Xmas to everyone you see, and air-kiss them on both cheeks. Adults do not exchange gifts, but there were gifts for each of the children under the tree. That evening we hung around the apartment, realizing that tomorrow everyone was going to be leaving. I don't think we played charades that evening. A betting pool was set up on when Time and Zena, who are practicing natural family planning would have their first baby. They say they want to wait three years. It was a lot of fun hanging out with and getting to know and love Vally's family and we spent quality time with almost every one except his father.

Some background on the family. Vally's mom, Christine was a school teacher back in the village. She taught 5th grade (called 5th standard here) and at some point became headmistress of the school because she was the only one who had the credentials to do it. She taught in Kannara, although English was one of the subjects she taught. Once they moved to Nagpur, her English, which is still delightfully scrambled, was not good enough for her to teach in an English-based school and she never worked outside the house again. Chrissie is, as I have already said, an accountant. His wife is an air hostess for Indian Airlines, currently on maternity leave, but going back in March. Chrissie is in his mid-30's and is the next brother after Vally who is the eldest. Linda, who used to be an air hostess for Gulf Air, is now a full time mother and was born about 2 years after Chrissie. Tim and Bart, identical twins, were born 7 years later, after Vally's family had left the village. Even though Tim and Bart have somewhat different personalities, I always had to make a conscious effort to ask myself whom I was talking with and sometimes, in a confused group interaction, I didn't know. At first, Bart needed a haircut and that made it easy. Tim and Zena live in Bombay. Tim studied accounting but did not pass his "CA" an exam which would have made him a "chartered accountant." His job involves doing a little bit of everything, roughly translated, he is an administrative assistant or office manager. He is very frustrated about his chances for advancement, because India does not reward generalists, and very determined that Matthew pass his CA and avoid making the same mistake. Zena is a secretary in the Indian office of a multinational corporation. She uses modern PCs and software and has e-mail but cannot use it for personal business. Bart is a navigator in the Indian Air Force. He has put in 5 years of a 20 year commitment that he cannot get out of very easily. He actually loves his work, and explained that the air force uses world war II surplus planes on which "Nothing works except the two engines" hence the necessity of a navigator. However, although the starting salary in the Air Force is higher than the starting salary outside, salaries quickly fall behind those in the private sector, and Bart is now very frustrated by his inability to get ahead financially. Kavita, his wife, was an army dentist, but managed to get out of her commitment after the baby was born. She hopes to go into private practice after a few years, but it is hard because air force personnel move around a lot.

Three more stories from Goa. I had a long talk with a nun, Sister Agatha, who paid a Xmas visit to Vally's parents. She took a year off from her teaching job to work at a boarding school for poor children, with an eye to making serving the poor her life's mission. She told me that there are 24 such schools in Goa, all run by the church. The experiment has been successful for her in that she has found out that she was NOT meant to serve the poor. She is now on tranquilizers and counting the days until it is over (about 3 more months). She was put in sole charge of supervising about 60 students, 24 hours a day. These kids come from families where the father is alcoholic or where the mother is a servant and can't afford to feed her 8 children. I am not sure exactly what she has to do but I gather that she is their supervisor, counselor, dietician, social worker and maybe teacher too. I told her the job sounded impossible for one person to do, and she readily agreed. I asked her if she was going to say something to this effect when she left, and she said that she wasn't. Ditto on warning the next person. One of her problems was that her romantic image of serving the grateful poor and receiving their undying love and gratitude has been replaced by the reality of being unable to begin to meet the needs of all of those needy kids and resentment of their attitude that they are poor and deserve to be given all that they get, no thanks required. Her basic success seems to be in keeping the boys and girls from getting into romantic entanglements. The level of poverty, though, is incredible. In Cuba everyone got 3 bars of soap a year from the government. In the school there is only money to provide a basic diet for the children (fruit 3X per week for example) and no money for soap or toothpaste or stationary. They have some foreign donors in Europe and these donors make it possible for the school to have paper and pencils. I asked if any of the students are going to make it and she said yes, there are, I think, 3 girls who have individual foreign sponsors. One wants to go to medical school and her German sponsors, who have come to visit her recently, have promised that they will support her.

Another incident. Vally asked his mom to show me her gold and her saris. Most of the gold, it turns out is in a safe deposit box, but Indian women all collect 22 carat gold jewelry, and some of it is part of their dowry when there is a dowry. So I didn't get to see most of the gold, but I did get to see her sari collection. Many household have a similar closet. Because of the masonry construction, there is no tradition of closets in Indian homes, and Vally's parents apartment has none. Some places (like Chrissie's) do have a floor to ceiling built-in series of drawers and cabinets, but the cabinet I will try to describe is common. It is very tall, probably 7 feet and about 4 feet wide, with a mirror on one of the doors. it is made of metal and painted ugly (sort of a metallic olive green, if I remember correctly). The important thing is that it is secure. Here's what Vally's mother did to get to the saris: 1. she got a key from a drawer of her desk (different piece of furniture), 2. opened one cabinet with the key, 3. removed a bag from the cabinet and removed another key from a purse inside the bag, 4. opened the other cabinet with that key and (this accessed the saris) 5. then there was a key inside that cabinet, and she opened the safe inside the cabinet where some of her gold was stored. Saris consist of a piece of fabric, probably 6 yards long and 1 yard wide. They are folded and hung on a hanger but for each sari, a short sari blouse must be made to match and complement it. That is also hung on the hanger. Vally's mother wears a one piece housecoat in the house but when we went out she wore a sari. She showed us her wedding sari which is red and trimmed in gold. If Vally's dad dies before she does then she will be buried in a black sari but if she dies first, she is buried in her red sari. Linda refuses to wear a sari, but Kavita, who has never worn shorts in her life, also wore one when we went out on formal occasions. From my point of view, the wearing of a sari meant one more thing to be dealt with, since the part that flings across the body and over the shoulder (called the pallow, says Vally) always seems to be slipping. I did hear an Indian man (Mani, you'll meet him later) say that he thought women looked really sexy in saris. The sari is worn by married women. There is a custom, among Mangalorean Catholics, that after the marriage ceremony in the church, the wedding party comes to the house where the reception is going to be held. At the house, all of the ladies gather around the bride and they sing. The ladies on the groom's side sit on one side and the ladies on the bride's sit on the other. There is a kind of competition taking place, as the bride's ladies sing her praises and the groom's ladies sing his. While this is going on the bride's dress is removed and a sari is ceremoniously draped around her to symbolize her newly-married state. I have been collecting some true-life stories of some Indian marriages and will write them up at some point in these letter.

One last Goan story. One morning Vally went out for a walk on the beach while I slept. When he came back he said "Well, now I know where the famous Goan sausages come from." He told me that as he walked on the beach, he noticed that, about every 10 feet, in the grasses at the back of the beach, there was a man squatting. Shortly after than each man ran into the sea to clean himself off. Vally was a little bit grossed out by this. But then, the pigs came and cleanliness was restored to the land.

Back to the press. Once on NPR I heard someone say that "India works perfectly on paper." I could kind of see this in the press. Every problem is discussed openly , although at the same time much is hidden, and there is a solution in place or being proposed-a program, a commission, a new set of laws. Only nothing really happens. Universally, I was told, the problem is corruption. Every politician and virtually every official is corrupt. The former Prime Minister, Rao is going to jail for corruption, but the reason he got turned in is that he allowed some of his colleagues to get indicted for corruption which ruined his party's image. Once his party was out of power, he was vulnerable. I was told that for every sum of money that is allocated, e.g. to build housing for the poor, at most 10% actually is spent for its intended purpose, the rest goes in bribes. The only bright spot is the Supreme Court which seems to be above all this and is taking action to shut down polluting industries who, until now had relied on bribing the inspectors rather than doing anything about their poisons.