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Grace, you sent this to the wrong address (goacom.com instead of goacom.org) and hence it didn't reach. FN PS: My fingers were itching so I made some slight editing changes in your formatting ;-) ============================================================ From: "Grace" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 2006/02/21 Tue PM 06:42:05 GMT+05:30 To: <[email protected]> CC: "ANNETTE D'SOUZA" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Fw: [SALIGAONET] Saligaonet- Who Next? Hello Saligaonetters and in particular Fred & Annette. Continuation of LCHS. OK, who's next is me. Let me try my fingers at it..after a whileee. Where do I begin? Well much later then Annette and Fred and Anthony came Grace. I guess I must have joined around 1975. Can't remember which year exactly. Wait a minute. I have to go backwards down the memory lane to reach the KG II. In 1992 I finished my graduation at Xavier's. Then best times of life ever. So three years at college, that began in 1990 June. Then 1988-89 finished with higher secondary. So I guess I finished SSC at 1987. So I got into school in 1976. One yr later then the others though. OK, there it is... I start KGII in 1976 with Teacher Joanita taking the class in the hall opposite to the assembly place. With Sr.Adelaide as Principal. And Rose D'silva my first friend at school on first day of school. I remember very well at recess time I was sitting with her at the flag post. That was first day at school. Didn't know anyone well enough though to make friends. Then came the first standard with Teacher Hazel, I guess as class teacher. Can't remember very well. Standard II was with teacher Philomena (Bobo). Class III with Teacher ............( can someone fill in that blank if any classmates are reading this?) Class 4 with Ms Iris. Its from here that competition began. With Anju and Tanya Butt and Ben Carvalho (who is currently the president of Saligao Social in Toronto). I take pride in studying with outstanding classmates and to add to that was Christabel, Zelma and me! These were the forefigures of the class. Life became interesting after finishing Std IV. Of course Rose and Loveyola and Audrey and Daya too existed. But that was the friends circle to play ring (tenycoit) during recess, and the fights carried on till school was over at 1.20 pm. Class V with teacher Miss Eyvette. Oh that was the best class teacher we had. Pleasing us with her stories and drawings. Here started our first Hindi classes. Not so interesting and not too difficult too but manageable. Class VI was with Miss Lira/Shoba Naik if not mistaken. Konkani teacher. Class 7 with Patsy Barnetto. There joined us Ramona the great!! Adding more fun and fury to the gang with Sir Sapre teaching us English, oh what a wonderful teacher he was. How we missed him when he left LCHS. He had a fantastic way of narrating stories, so much so that they sunk into our heads. Class VIII was with Sir.Sontake, with Ramona being his favourite student, always without homework done, OUT standing student, she being like most of you Africanders poor in devangiri-based languages, but a fan of French. She had visited the Eiffel Tower and the rest. She was asked to narrate often in class what she had seen with each chapter/lesson going on by Mrs.Mendonca. Here begins Physics Chemistry and Biology class with laboratory use... FUN is not enough to describe the good times we used to have during praticals. We used to loiter around the corridors with the excuse of going to drink water or bring water or bring some plants from garden to do the experiments. I also recall Miss.Judith Lobo teaching us Physics with Miss Shirley teaching us Chemistry and Biology. Ramona, I still remember you doing your action packed 'Just I want to tell you'. That was Sir.Sontake's way of conveying any message to the students. He would start with that phrase. So also, it was Sr.Edwarda, our work experience teacher. She used to teach us tailoring and her class used to start with a drawing of a straight line on the board with A-0 full length. Christabel will surely have a hearty laugh at this. So for exams when she used to ask us to draw and do the draft for stitching anything, we would remember only the A-0. Rest copy from others. lolllllll... Class IX was with Miss Judith Pereira. Wow camping at the Salmona fountain with Rose, Daya and don't know the rest who were in my batch to make the gadgets from bamboo sticks and plan the dishes for the cooking competition. Our group won the prize for the stuffed cabbage that was Rose's idea though. Stuffed it with potato baji and tied it with thread and fried it. You'll would understand what cooking is with fireplace of palm leaves collected days in advance before the camp. Sir Athaide was the Scout Master and at camp fire we were supposed to do some skit or something to keep the crowd going. At that time Zelma and Anju were in the limelight for they had attended a jamboree ..duno where. It was at the national level and so they had exposure to the outside world and their experiences did help us much. At that time Mr.Kamat (forgot his name Dilip's brother) would also come to give some training on knotts and the like. Then the most important Class X... this was the year we had to work really hard and Sr.Adelaide was our class teacher, teaching us History. She had this peculiar way of walking, silent steps, that we used to get surprised to know when she entered!! Oh yeah I almost did forget the best part of my life -- sports -- there was Miss Amitha Salatry. She was the gem teacher whom all took advantage of by telling tales of woe. She was very friendly. Then there were two sports personalities for competition for me, Philomena and Daya. Philomena was the sprinter who won lot of prizes for LCHS. Daya too was good in relay, long jump and javelin throw. And there was me, the high jumper. Though poor Daya never made it to the national level, Philomena did it several times and me just once. Not a good experience at all..ok never mind that. The best part that i remember of Std X was the pau bhaji that we ate at Vishwas's Shop. Sir Sontake always never finished his portion on time so we were called for extra classes. That's after actual working hours of school..so Rosy, Christabel, Tina and me always didn't carry a tiffin. We visited Vishwas for his Re.1 Pau bhaji which started soon after he got married -- good cuisine of his wife. The bhaji in question was Ussal, as Hindus in Goa term it. Tasty though with a nice aroma. We always made it to extra class, because of the pau bhaji! That included one poyi slit with ussal inside! For us hungry wolves, anything tasted the best in those days! And ofcourse I didnt forget the kudduchi baji that all rushed to remove after school hours on the bandh or "Vau" that most students frequented opposite to Fred's house. Oh that baji was really tasty with dal and coconut. I duno if children still frequent the bandh for it nowadays. Now kids get everything readymade and don't really need to work for anything. Of course we weren't asked to do that. But we got a lot of joy our of it and it was like stealing the kuddu baji. We would mark off certain areas and simply claim them as our own. Then, after a week again it would sprout more branches and the story repeated. We were not scared of snakes , or other reptiles, even though this form of bhaji grew only in the monsoons. With raincoats or umbrellas open, we would gather those leaves, and end up with plastic bags full! All this was done after class, forgetting our hungry stomachs. Today, even if I was asked to do it, I wouldn't... out of fear of snakes! I bet there are a thousand of them in that place. Further on, to add spice to our schoolgirl lives was Ramona's house, closest to the school. So when Ramona went home for recess time it was fun time plucking guavas and flowers from her garden. Her dad and mum were always kind enough to let us make best use of their garden. Ramona's mum happens to be a very creative person. She would make juices and keep them canned, made from mangoes from their garden, if I'm not mistaken. Ramona's mum would also do a lot of crochet work, and I too shared a liking for this. So I would to ask her for help whenever I was stuck with a particular pattern and she was always ready with help. We were members of that house then. Christabel and me in n out of her house. One fine day, when school was over, Rose, Christabel and me started our way home with Ramona when a strong ghastly wind with the accompanying rain started pouring and our umbrella's overturned. We decided to stop at Ramona;s house till the rain lessened but there was no end to it. So we set walking ahead in those rains with the roads full of water like swimming pools. The vow (stream) near Mr.Ribeiro's house was overflowing. How we used to laugh and play in the rains with our umbrellas overturned. In those times, the roads weren't so good. Water tended to bes mucky as it would run down from the hill. And yes, I've forgotten someone very important -- the icefruit wallah. A friend reminded me of him. He was known as Bodko, and sold an ice-cream cone at 50 paisa. Interval was then at 10.45 am or 11. And you would hear the bells of the ice-creamwallah, tempting it would be. Ah, all good memories. I hope I haven't bored you guys reading this. I do hope someone from my batch reads this and fills in all the gaps which I may have missed. There are a whole lot of things to write, but for the lack of time. All this would be incomplete without a thank you to all the teachers who did a good job of us. That's the reason why I'm able to do this writing. Did I miss out any teacher, or friend, with whom I shared some pleasant school days? Grace Godinho ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Frederick Noronha 784 Near Convent, Sonarbhat SALIGAO GOA India Freelance Journalist TEL: +91-832-2409490 MOBILE: 9822122436 Skype/Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha www.bytesforall.net _______________________________________________ Saligao 403511 website http://saligao.goa-india.org Saligaonet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goacom.org/mailman/listinfo/saligaonet
