Panaji, Goa II

Panaji, Goa II

Sixty percent of Goa is Christian and on Sunday you find out who isn’t. There is usually a small shrine in the establishment, draped in strands of fresh marigold blossoms and too there is a flame of some kind flickering before the image of the favorite god. If it is a restaurant you enter on Sunday morning, normally the place is vegetarian, although I’m not. But this is Rome and….

Indians adapt to there being more of them than will allow you the luxury of private space by sitting with you at your table. Try making eye-contact and you’ll find that you really aren’t there. They don’t share that kind of space. Not being unfriendly; more like another level of privacy that is affordable.

And so one Sunday morning, while sitting at a full table, a man across from me coughed. As if selecting my next crisis from a menu, I decided that I’d start coughing for a week or two. Two days later, it began and awakened me from a week’s worth of sleeps and generally made me feel weak and rotten. Several years ago, I had a many-week bout with bronchitis and this cough sounded familiar. The good news was that after five or six days, I realized that the cold would die and I would live. But then there was this other problem.

Abby, the nurse in New York who advised me to go on a liquid diet of mineral water but only if the bottle is sealed as tight as a coffin trans-shipping a body, had administered two of a three part series of shots for Japanese encephalitis. The final shot I was to get in Mumbai. Well, plans change but I did want the final shot for protection. As I remembered, your chances of surviving are about three in four but even if you did survive, what kind of life would you have after your brain had swollen well past the capacity of your skull? Think of a packed suitcase that you had to stand on to get shut. I decided Tony would know such things. He drove me to a nearby private hospital. The doctor explained that vaccinations were not administered there but at the public clinic…for free. My next question was whether they recycled needles and syringes. With a beatific smile, he explained that that was no longer done. Whether that included all of India, I was too busy thinking of other things to ask.

Tony drove me into the “city” to the clinic. I’d walked by the place several times without noticing it. So here was where I was to solve my problem. I paid Tony and told him I’d walk home, hoping that there would be no bad reaction. I then walked into a building which surely came from the Portuguese period and might qualify as historical. Remembering they don’t recycle needles, I entered a room with no patients but about eight men and women busy about their tasks – moving papers around.

There is a fact/myth (in India reality and belief often mesh like cog wheels would in the West) that anyone who graduates from high school does so with twelve years of English behind him or her. My rule of thumb is that if you see a man well-dressed walking down the street, chances are he knows where you are and how to direct you to your destination. The high school thesis was about to be tested.

“Hello, I would like to see about getting the third shot in a vaccination series for Japanese encephalitis.”

That jammed up the works. They all stopped freeze-frame. All that moved was that slowly their mouths opened in amazement.

Hmmm. I’m going to get a shot from one of eight high school drop-outs. Oh, you know how we are in the West. We put so much emphasis on education! And then I thought, I wish Rachel were here to give me the shot.


All establishments whether it be clinic or cab stand have a hierarchy and she, who was approaching middle age, took on my case. After repeating my request a time or two more, she found the words something like “No have” and made me understand “pharmacy.”

“Where is the pharmacy?”

“Hablilot (my word.)” And she folded her hand against her wrist and flung the directions out the door.

“Where is the pharmacy?” I thought I might get the specifics on a second try.

“Hablilot!” and the gesture became more pronounced.

“Where is the toilet?”

With this she all but became violent. “HABLILOT!” and she flung her hand with such force that she risked a sprain.

I left before causing any more trouble and walked down the street looking for the pharmacy. I searched all the way back to the hotel. The hot weather really drains you.

Next morning Tony and I conferred at the Hotel Venite over breakfast. I told him that I needed to go to a pharmacy. He knew a good one, dropping me off across the street from the clinic! But this time he came in with me, just in case there were no high school graduates working there.

While you wouldn’t mistake the place for a pharmacy in the United States, there was an air of business and no one seemed shocked when I spoke English. Tony had to move his cab and so I walked in and ask if I could sit down at the desk of the public councilor. He was an older man, small, well-fed, and with his lips pursed as if sucking on a cough drop, and did not want to be disturbed until the drop dissolved. Fine with me. Give me a chair and a breeze from a ceiling fan and I’m content to wait.

I had already talked to a Dutch girl who was doing an internship at the pharmacy and saw that some of the staff (my consultant included) wore white jackets with the establishment’s logo and “certified pharmacist” stitched on the pocket. The Dutch girl certainly seemed competent and I relaxed and waited until my consultant finished his cough drop.

“May I help you, sir?”

I explained the situation and he said that the “boss,” owner of the pharmacy, was in Mumbai and if contacted, he could bring the vaccine back to Goa with him. Then he went away to call a person with a cell phone and as with people all over the world with cell phones, he was either out of range or had his cell phone turned off. We are a species that likes to be heard but does not like to listen. No contact.

The saga of the vaccine extended over several days and while I can’t remember where this story came from, one version said that since the vaccine was expensive, that the World Health Organization bought it and distributed it to the effected parts of the world free of charge with the proviso that it will be passed on to those requesting it at no charge.

But while I waited I told him the story of what happened across the street the day before. He thought the story good enough to repeat to any employee who came within earshot and puttering around amongst his papers repeated “hablilot” to himself.

“You know that Goa is prosperous by Indian standards and many people come for employment from other places like south India (we were in south India but he meant further south) and they have little or no education,” he said in a slow and careful pronounced cadence. “Hablilot!” He squinted his eyes and chuckled again. It was good that he had finished his cough drop. He could have chocked.

I left Tony’s cell phone number for them to call when they heard from the boss and then I walked back to the hotel. Next morning Tony said he had received no word so we’d better go check. No, the proper connections were not made and there was no vaccine.

Tony thought of another place to try. We drove west to an area known as Campal. The houses were larger and had more space around them, which included some well-tended yards. The avenue was tree lined and if it were a cool day, it might be a good place to stroll for an hour. We turned off the road and into a narrow street and soon I talked to a pharmacist, who had a shop tucked beneath a hospital.

Tony was there with me incase there was any language problems. His multi-lingual ability almost put him on the floor when he learned that the single shot would cost $100 US! He couldn’t believe it. It was for that reason that the vaccine was hardly known of by ordinary people, drop-out, or graduate. I put a deposit down and the order was made to ship the stuff down from Mumbai. It was to arrive tomorrow and it did have to be refrigerated. So I paid the deposit and began worrying on the way back through the pretty avenue beneath the shade of the trees planted in another era.

Being pessimistic by nature and having an imagination, the two marry and I had to think about what I would do if the vaccine arrived in a paper bag in a bottle with a handwritten label? How would I know that it was the real thing rather than a couple of ccs of creek water with a little table salt mixed in for flavor? Do I just back out of the pharmacy and leave the deposit? How to know?

Tony had a tour lined up for the next morning but had time to drop me off and I would hire an auto rickshaw to bring me back. In I went with my back stiff with anxiety but the tension was for nothing. The vaccine was tucked in a cold pack. The box, directions for use, and bottle label were properly printed and the pharmacist set me up with an appointment to follow the doctor’s consultation. I sat in the hall on a bench and could hear the consultation through the closed door. The lady speaking was very upset about how some part of her life was going and talked nonstop to the hour and past. The cold pack kept the vaccine and my hands cool. Of course the cold pack condensed the water in the air and dripped between my fingers, forming a puddle on the floor. I had nothing else planned for the day. Then the door opened but the consultation continued. The lady wanted the doctor to understand just what a problem she encountered. He nodded and gently separated himself from her monolog by speaking to me. Fifteen minutes later and five dollars for a new syringe and needle and a doctor to administer the chilled vaccine, I walked out of the hospital relieved of a lot of worry and with the vaccination saved. I felt much lighter. There happened to be a bookshop back up the side street and on the main avenue. After browsing in the a/c atmosphere, I selected the Lonely Planet guide to India. It was a tome with a tome’s price but I needed something else to think about. With the medical business out of the way, I’d lost my excuse for hanging out in Goa. The truth is that I had began to feel at home there. The locals waved at me. I felt comfortable navigating the streets. I had learned where to shop and to get a suitable meal. But it was time to go on and I had the south coast to look over all the way to the tip of India. Time to move on!

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