Sunday in Goa

Where has the time gone? Another week in paradise, it seems, where one sunny day leads to another. Yesterday we held a short family meeting to review our Goa Goals -- they mostly involve resting on the beach, though the boys would like to snorkel, or rent bikes, and Chris is especially anxious to rent a motor scooter! J hopes to visit some old Portuguese churches as well, before our return on the 20th.

This morning we took an auto-rickshaw (three-wheeled motorcycle taxi, often abbreviated "auto") to a suburb of the main town, Madgaon (or Margao, in Portuguese), to the Gogol Christian Centre where the Bartons are leaders of this freeform evangelical church. About 70 worshipers attended, mostly locals, along with several Woodstock folks like us. The service was mostly in English, led by a revolving committee of 5 men, including James Barton, who preached today. They started with a Very Long sequence of praise hymns interspersed with public prayer. Dr.Barton's sermon showed his training as a teacher, with a careful and logical development of his themes.
After the 2-hour service, he introduced us to a few people, then drove us to the nearby "auto" stand.
... we waited 10 minutes in the very hot sun, to no avail. Then a kind elderly gentleman picked us up -- a retired Goan entomologist with experience in California and Argentina and Portugal, chatted as he drove us into town. We ate a desultory sandwich at Longuinhos, the surviving colonial restaurant, and wondered what life was like in 1960, as a real Portuguese town. Then we took an "auto" back to our guest-house, and headed for the beach to cool off.