New Face

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Monday - Day 12

Meeting Denis.

I started my plan of going to the centre on Monday morning. A new face awaited us when I arrived. A long-haired hippy looking guy from Cork in Ireland by the name of Denis. We walked the dogs together and I told him what I knew of the centre, which dogs were which (that were still there and that I'd met before) and showed him the cats, kittens and puppies. He seemed really nice and was so kind to the animals, calling them 'sweethear't is they were girls, 'fella' or 'big man' if they were boys and other pet names such as 'shithead' and 'the champion pisser'. He works with horses apparently and definitely seemed to have a way with animals. It worked quite well us working together as it meant that if there was a slightly boisterous dog, Denis would take it and and let me pick another, less energetic one. It also meant that we got round the kennels quite quickly and had a little system going.

We ate our well earned free lunch with our hands, as it's usually the case that there isn't any cutlery with dinner. I have no problem doing this as I used to have to eat with my hands when visiting family in Kenya and Pakistan. I quite like being so 'close' to the food and it actually being acceptable to make a mess all over your hands! Some of the volunteers don't eat the free lunch there as they don't like to eat with their hands... If it's free, I'd eat it with a shoe if I had to.

After being at the centre, Kelly, Denis and I decided to go to the beach at Anjuna. We found a bar called Janet and John's where they were playing the best electronic music I'd head in Goa so far. Everything everywhere usually is trance or techno... this was a nice mixture of house, electro and funky beats so we lay on sunbeds, drank water, went in the sea and relaxed nicely with a pineapple and a coconut. A man who looked a bit wasted was dancing around in the bar on his own, while an Indian man danced (very badly) in his pants. Indian men swim in their pants! We then later realised that denis also wears his pants to swim in - he never lived that down afterwards.

A girl I'd met on the first day in Anjuna called Lily wandered past selling things and asking people to 'come look her shop'. She saw me and asked me why I hadn't been back and would I go now to see her shop. She got quite angry when i said no and proceeded to sit with her shop friends in front of me and asking me every so often to go with her. Not a great selling tactic in my mind as I felt hounded and it made me uncomfortable in the end.
Earlier in the day, Kelly had put her laundry in at a laundrette (loose term...) and had to pick it up before sunset (washing is around 5 rupees per item - 7p or so), so Denis took me to see some rooms at his guest house because I was thinking about moving from Yellow House due to the noise of a squeaky gate above my head, elephant children stomping around on the roof and a revving morning motorbike at random interrvals thoughout the day and night, plus, the woman there had been a bit mean to one of her very frequent guests.
Denis' place was beautiful. The garden was amazing, lots of mozaics and lush green grass. I was shown a few rooms, but they were a little expensive and the place was a bit far away from everywhere I knew... and Kelly's. Denis and I chatted at his for a little while before going to another bar on the beach front called Andy's San Fransisco Restaurant. It had a lovely view and they did a good Masala Papad - papadoms with a finely cut onion salad on top with lime juice and spices (this has become my favourite snack as it's so cheap - around 30p). After meeting up with kelly again, we went to yet another bar to eat some food. The place was called 'Sea Rocks' (Xerox as Jean Pierre pronounced it apparently) and the food was over priced and a bit crap. I had a little argument with one of the waiters for ignoring me when I told him the food wasn't great - he walked away as i was telling him then later on told me I should have let him know... he'd walked away and that was what the argument was about. That wasn't a great end to a nice day but we got over it, realising we all had similar ways and preferences.

We also met gorgeous George's (from Strawberry Fair) drunken German double.

Tuesday - Day 13

There were only four volunteers working at walking the dogs today - Denis, me, a woman called Linda who has a lot to do with the centre and a swedish guy. Usually, there are a lot more people walking dogs and then some people don't walk the dogs at all. It took us four hours to get round the 100 dogs or so and both Denis and I were really knackered afterwards. We again took advantage of the free lunch eating it with our hands and tthen ventured to a pub/bar called Mango Tree in Vagator where I found the first place with free wifi!! They do proper coffee too so both Denis and I had one each - sooooo nice!! I vowed to come back later in the day to sit properly with my laptop.

Today, I had planned to find somewhere else to live. It was my mission to go along the main Vagator road and find somewhere that I could move to tomorrow. It was easy! Denis came with me and we took a little side street. The first guest house we came to was 'Robert's Place'. Lovely room, big 'bath' room, a TV!!!! and a FRIDGE!!!!! I had been envious of Denis' fridge in his room so this was one requirement of mine. The room was 50 rs cheaper than where I was staying and had much more, plus it had its own seating area outside with three handy seats! I told Vijander, the owner, that I'd be back at 9am to move in before going to work at the centre. Great - sorted in one easy step!

But, then it all went a little tits-up again. I got back to Yellow house and was thinking about trying to get some of the music off my ipod to put onto Denis' mp3 player as he didn't have much good music. I got the ipod out and went to show him some music I had and found there was 'NO CONTENT' on the ipod... casting my mind back to when I used it last, I figured out that the coke incident must have upset the balance of the dear little pod and now, there was no music on it at all. STRESS!! It wouldn't sync with the laptop, it wouldn't read as a drive, so there seemed to be nothing I could do apart from reformat and add the music again. Tricky... that was the one thing I didn't get round to doing - putting all my music collection on a hard drive to bring with me. All I had was the pod. I needed to call in a few favours involving Lorraine and Carl - The collective 'Emma's computer items' bearers...
I went to sit in Mango Tree for the rest of the day in the vain attempt to find a method to restore the music onto the ipod - the music was still on it, I just couldn't see it any more so it did require a reformat. Dammit! Later, I texted Carl a few times who agreed to put all my music collection from my computer him and Lorraine are 'minding' for me onto a brand new hard drive which I was to order from Amazon and send to him. Sorted like a star. I love those guys!

Five hours, one lassi, one tea, a coke and a masala papad later, I went home and rang my MUMMY! It was nice to talk to her and she was glad to hear from me. She wasn't at work that day so I didn't have to ring really late at night (India time). This made me happy, talking about Lady and how things were. Lady is apparently not so needy around Miriam, Mum and Jamie. She's taken well to her new life and seems confident in herself. I miss Lady Boots, but glad she's OK and settling in. Boots the Beast the hairy beast.
As I thought of home and moving house tomorow, I packed my things and got an early night.

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