catamarans and coconuts

Perhaps i should clarify my last post. When the waiter said “everything is possible”, he was meaning yes, the kitchen is open and everything is open and you can have anything (everything) you want at this restaurant.

Tide is waaaaay out tonight. Way out.

Saw the same men turn out to pull that 20 foot sailboat in out of the surf this morning. Except it turns out it is a catamaran, i didn’t see that yesterday. But today they only had about 9 men instead of the 16 they had yesterday, and they couldn’t do it, they didn’t have enough man power to pull and push her in. So they anchored her to the shore while the tide continued out. That was this morning. Now, just a moment ago, I watched the whole performance again. This time they had TWELVE guys and a bunch of greased rolling sticks. They use these to place under the vessel so that it will roll easily across the beach. I guess unless you have 16 men, you need the help of greased poles. Anyhow. It is quite a performance to watch this mish mash of both westerners and foreigners, all men, convening to help this one guy get his boat safe above the high tide line before nightfall. Amazing human feats. And it’s cool to watch too, because they all get behind this boat, and once it starts to move, it seems to give the whole group a burst of morale and then they are all pushing and shoving as if their lives depend on it and the boat literally jumps to life and lurches forward. They get quite far with the momentum of 12 men and the help of greased poles before they have to reset the poles and do it all again. It’s amazing to watch and you can see the men feel quite powerful after accomplishing this task too. Makes me think about human potential, physical, mental and otherwise.

One more story: On my way to my meeting today I ran across a “road closure”. No, it wasn’t road construction, or an accident, no, nothing like that. There was one large palm frond laid across the road sideways to indicate a “road blockage” and several people on the other side onlooking. Then i see it. Coconuts. Many coconuts, falling out of the sky. There is a tree about... oh... i dunno, more than 100feet, perhaps 200feet, or at least 150 high, with someone in it, cutting down coconuts. They have shimmied up and are now sending coconuts down in rapid succession. Coconuts falling even a short distance have the ability to kill if you get hit on the head. Several people die every year in the state of Goa from getting hit on the head by a coconut. This goes on for several minutes and i am getting antsy because i don’t want to be late for the meeting. I start thinking of an alternative route. I see off the left side that i can sneak around and through a gate and shortcut over to the other side. I start making my way over there towards the wall and the gate when a woman stops me and starts yelling at me, she thinks i am going to walk right under the coconut thrower. In india i have learned not to make a ruckus if you can help it. I try to follow along, even if its just to make everyone happy. So i stop, to pacify her, because i fear if i continue she will continue to yell and might take chase and to be honest, i am already kind of afraid of her. So we are both stopped dead and standing there. Then it happens. One of the coconuts hits a high wire (or rather, a low wire) and i realize that both she and i are standing right under a power line about 5 feet above our heads. Well. We hear a ZAP and a sizzle and i see the line bounce in front of me and ... you never seen two people move faster in your LIFE! We hightailed it out of there. The ironic thing is if i had just snuck through and continued on my shortcut, i wouldn’t have been hanging out under this silly power line anyways. So we wait until he is finished and stand there and count my lucky stars, one, two... finally he shimmies down (barefoot of course) while his wife pops out and starts gathering up the fruit. Man. Crazy things that happen in India. Here we are, dropping coconuts on power lines.