onsdag 15. desember 2010

Goa -time for some updates

My sea turtle project in Goa

Hmm, so what is my project? Well, after three weeks I think I have an idea. There are three parts of the project; patroling the beach, clean ups on the beach and information campaigns at governmental schools near the beaches. So this sounds like a project. BUT... There are already volunteers from the local community doing the patroling on the beach, the beach is clean and the students at school do not speak english. And a few more things; it takes more than one hour by car to go to the the turtle beach and there are no turtles. So where is the project?

Ok, it is not as black & white as this. Our patroling on the beach is not needed so I would not call it work, but we do get the opportunity to see turtles. Since 2005 there has been five or six nests on this beach, Galgibagh beach, each year. So far this year there has only been one sea turtle who has nested here, but the season lasts up to April so there is still time. This one nest is expected to hatch any day now, so we are at the beach every night and if nothing is wrong we will see about hundred baby sea turtles come out of the sand and crawl to the ocean. The patroling on the beach is always in the night because the sea turtles will lay their eggs under cover of darkness in the night and the nest will also hatch at night time. We drive from the camp after dinner at 9 pm and reach Galgibagh beach at about 10.30 pm and walk the first patrol. This is to early in the night for the sea turtles so the reason why we do this patrol is to remove any obstacles on the beach like tree trunks and such. So far we have not removed anything, but we usually sits down for some time to tell gost stories or gossip about the camp so this patrol is nice and some times very funny too. We go to sleep somewhere between 12 pm and 2 am. The next patrol is at 3 am and now we look for the sea turtle laying her eggs. She comes up at high tide and now that is around 1 am to 3 am and this is the time when it is a chance of seeing the grown up sea turtle. The last patrol is at dawn to look for nests, but we have not walked this one because we want to sleep and the local guys do it anyway.

This is what I have been doing on the project so far. I have been the only volunteer on the sea turtle project for these first three weeks, but I have been together with the guy on the wildlife project because he has also been alone and we have the same project executive from IDEX. So we have been on the beach in the night from Monday to Friday and in the morning we have gone to the wildlife sanctuary to do Nick's project. That project is suffering of the same "there is a project, but not really-syndrome" as the turtle project. From next week there will be four girls working on this project, so I will not judge it yet. Maybe there is a project there somewhere if only the volunteers are eager and stubborn enough. The wildlife projects for sure do not need us, but maybe we can pretend for a while?

Back to the sea turtle project again and the information campaigns and the clean ups of the beach. So far have I not done any of this. If I had been stubborn I guess I could have done something, but the lazy, unmotivated atmosphere in this camp and the ajustment to a new project have not given me any energy to do this. It is neather so motivating to be alone on a project, but not any more. Yesterday two new girls arrived in the camp and they will join me in the project. From next week we will prepare an exhibiton about sea turtles for the primary school. We will make posters about why they are endangered and how we should behave if we see sea turtles or nests. But how to run an information campain for students who do not speak English when we do not speak Konkani or Hindi? Aswani, our project executive, think that it will work out with the help of the teachers at the school, so we will try and see how it goes. This project started up last year, but I have not really got a clear impression of the volunteers experiences with the information campaign or if they actually ran any. Aswani has only been on this project for two months so he do not really know either.

At least there is the cleaning up and litter picking on the beach. Galgibagh beach is clean after Indian standards, but a bit up from the beach and into the vegetation there is a lot of plastic litter. The other beaches in the area are like the ones we went to in the north of Goa with "hairless beach apes" (see "Weekends on Goan beaches"), restaurants, shacks and litter, so here it will be enough to do. The recycling of plastic is not very common here in India (or it is kind of; the cows eat everything), so after collecting the plastic litter we will make a big fire and burn it all. Hm, environmental awareness? I think that it is better to collect it and burn it than to leave it, but if someone has any views on this, do not hesitate to comment on it.

The IDEX camp and my project




Walking around in Margao with my camera


Here in Margao I decided to take the walk in the alleys right away and not wait for the last day of my stay as I did in Palampur. Margao is the second largest city in Goa, but as Gao is a very small state it does not mean that it is very big. According to wikipedia the population was 78.393 in 2001. I really like the city, and as Sirvej always has a lot of shopping to do, anything from printing pictures to sew dresses at the tailor, we have walked alot around there. This city is really a mix of everything just like Palampur and everything in India, but in a very different way. Goa was a Portuguese colony up to 1961, so you have the Portuguese heritage as you can see in the architecture. Margao is a quite modern city and you can find anything you want to shop there.




Weekends on Goan beaches

Goa has become a very famous tourist place in India the last 15-10 years. Why? I do not know. OK, it probably has something to do with the white beaches, the green palms, the blue sky and cheap shopping. Unfortunately has my mother been too succesfull in teaching me that beaches only means sand in your eyes, ears and towell. I guess that the beach is not my favorite habitat. But as we are in Goa and all the other volunteers seems to love the beach it is impossible to avoid it. And, by the way, I chose a project where I am working on the beach! The turtle that beach is very nice, so I guess that it can not be the sand that is the problem for me. Then it must be something else and what it the difference between the turtle beach and the other beaches? "Hairless beach apes frying in coconut oil"! Those who do not know this phrase have missed out on the best cartoon ever; Sherman's lagoon! Go out and buy it now;-) I am always thinking about this cartoon when I am walking on the beach between the sunbeds with people frying in the sun with a drink in one hand, money in the other and an Indian woman by their feet giving them pedicure.

Anyway, the first two weekends we spent on the beach. First we went to Baga beach and the state capital Panjim in the north of Goa and the next weekend we went to Palolem in the south. As I wrote abowe Goa is a small state and it takes about 3-4 hours by bus to go from north to south. Our camp is located almost in the middle so it is easy to go by bus to every corner of the state. And so we have! It cost about 20 rupies (3 NOK/0,4 USD) to travel one hour by bus and the busses are running all the time. And if there is no bus you can always get a ride on a motorbike that is going in your direction.




I hope this blog was not to long to read. My ambition is as always to write often and not so long, but as you see I am kind of failing on that one. I hope you still will follow my blog and it is very nice to get comments, even if it is only; "Hi, I have read you blog."

4 kommentarer:

  1. Hallo Julie. Som alltid en berikelse å lese dine betraktninger om din tilværelse i India. Det virker som du har et litt bedre forhold til skillpadder enn du hadde i din ungdom, i hvert fall. Ellers er jeg sur på Dreamlandbutikken i Tr.heim: de har sluttet å selge Sherman`s Lagoon! Krise!Kanskje en familiegreie å være så begeristret for akkurat den tegneserien? Vi snakkes!

    SvarSlett
  2. Long blogs doesn't bother me;) Especially not when it's so funny, and with pictures! ;D And although you didn't have any pictures of the hairless bach apes, I can imagine very well... ;D
    By the way: Mom, don't worry, you can get "Shermans lagoon" at Amazon!! ;)

    Søstra :)

    SvarSlett
  3. Heihei
    Kan du ver så snill å holda deg vekk frå slanga???
    Hvis någen lure, e ho ikkje spesielt mørkredd. Ho he holdt i skorpiona, (t min store frustrasjon).
    Sedde au pris på om du holde deg vekk frå lokale bikere, å tege buss.
    Kos deg sånn ellars då;)

    SvarSlett
  4. Men den skorpionen var ikke giftig, Stig!

    SvarSlett