Training Group Meet

Cooling off in the afternoon

Mary and Ayse supporting Bablu in the water

The highlight of our training group workshop in Goa in August, was Mary's lessons in the swimming pool, during which she learned to float. As we prepared to go into the pool for the first time her face was a study in fear and misery as she was terrified of water. Though she is from Kerala and is familiar with the rivers there, she apparently never, in all these years, learned to swim or float in spite of several people including her sisters, having offered to teach her.

The first few minutes in the water were filled with squeaks and squeals but within half an hour there was this peaceful apparition floating on the surface of the water and refusing to get out. "Can't be me!" she said incredulously, when she did. "Mary cant float and this person was doing just that. So very simply it cant be me."

During a session

Heinz slicing the fish

Other highlights (apart from the actual work) included excellent barbeque fish prepared by the caretaker of the Goa house which had been offered to us for a week by Bablu and Mary's friend Aparna. The house itself was huge with this huge long old style verandah running down the length of it, overlooking emerald green fields. It was quiet most of the time except in the evenings when the nearby temples often competed with each other to set the neighbourhood ablaze with their loudspeakers spewing out various bhajans. Once they even had karaoke evening so we were subjected to about three hours of loud and utterly tuneless singing. Poor Heinz had a hard time falling asleep because some evenings the racket would continue well past midnight.

Sandeep and his wife Vimal, the caretaker and his wife very soon became part of the family and Sandeep who loves to chat, would entertain us with his opinion on politics, his childhood experiences and generally help out with everything. Their five year old daughter Priyanka loved hanging out with us and practised her English now and then.

Priyanka acting coy

Ayse in Indian garb

Heinz - morning contemplation

It was great having Ayse and Heinz with us and Ayse lead us in some of the water exercises and other stuff during the workshop.

The training group in Goa