Yes, even though it is hard to believe I was enjoying a lovely meal of sole fish in a very nice sauce, but here was Prof. Delfim hurrying me as though the devil was on his heels, ‘Sonia não perca tempo! Devemos estar na Ria as duas!’ Why did I choose to sit opposite him where he could eye my every move? ‘Sonia, pode levar a sua maça’ I slipped my maça into my bag, I always slipped those lovely fruits in my bag, why tell him that, so I looked suitably horrified, an air of ‘How could you expect me to do that!’
We hurried past the Museum, plunged into the alley at the side, down past a Confeitaria selling all manner of delicacies, yes, ovos-moles and Bolo Rei rich in spices and candied fruit. Why oh why was I wearing trendy, or so I thought, flip-flops, summer, but flip-flops on cobbled streets? Whilst the well toned body of Professor sped without much effort over those killer cobbles, I struggled, ‘Estas cansada Sonia, mais um pouquinho, vocês, Alexandre, Bosco apressem, quem falta?’ And we all knew the answer…….poor Dhruv, his misfortune of being the roommate of the most elusive hottie, his arms spread out in resignation, Rahul!
The Language department at the University believed we should learn something of the culture of Portugal too, an idea we wholeheartedly agreed to, who in his right mind would want to be doing Conjutivo Imperativo on a hot summer’s day after a good meal?
So here we were boarding a very colourful bus, a hop on, hop off for a trip around Aveiro and Ílhavo.
The traditional occupation of Aveiro, years back when the world was a simpler place to live in, had been salt panning, but now salt panning is completely on the decline, however the University of Aveiro conducts studies on salt panning and we passed a series of salt pans with heaps of white crystalline salt. Sara who was next to me jolted me out of a pleasant dream, ‘Sonia, Sonia veja sal’ and I full of pleasant dreams thought, ‘Mitache agor’- Salinas why the hell should I wake up just to see ‘Mitache agor’- Salinas, my route to Panjim is via Agassaim which used to be the home of ‘Mitache agor’- Salinas. My sleep had just been kicking in, you know that very pleasant zone of semi consciousness, between wakefulness and sleep, no I was not at all pleased that Sara had woken me up.
But on another trip we did visit the Salinas and had the very ebullient, Sr. João showing us around, salt panning is a back breaking, arduous work, who in the right mind would want to walk around in the hot sun, ankle deep in salt water, scratches and wounds on the feet killing you, all that salt pouring in those wounds, but to Sr. João it is a labour of love. He explained that salt panning was not one of the most desirable professions which resulted in the neglect of the salinas, as a result of this neglect, fresh water had inundated the salinas making them unfit for salt extraction. The salinas however, are a different world altogether, peace and the silence washes over you, the light has a different quality to it, or was I letting my imagination get the better of me? Tiny flowering plants with tinier flowers beckon you, birds chirping warning other tiny denizens of this strange world that intruders are approaching. However they had a welcome visitor, a great pal, a huge slobbering Labrador who accompanied by his owners visited the salinas regularly. To the Labrador this was his park, he gambolled in the fresh hay, he wished the workers good morning, he barked from sheer joy, generally very happy that there was such lovely place in the world.
Sr João was a good guide as well as extremely business savvy, whilst we rested under a gnarled fig tree, in Portugal the trees show a certain class befitting their age, they are twisted and gnarled; they want you to see that they have lived and continue to live their lives even when times are not so pleasant, Sr. João talked to us about the salinas and his conversation took us to the coast of Holland and Newfoundland, where in his opinion, cod was not cured as it should be, it was raw, it did not spring back as it should, which it only does as when cured by the Portuguese of yore. He really knew so very much, Dhruv was fascinated by his rapid fire talk. Man of salt that he was he had diversified into soaps. He had homemade soaps with salt as the base, salt is an exfoliant, so very intelligently he was marketing this property as well, in addition to the one we all know about, food. He had pretty jute bags with premium salt also called flor de Sal, packed in them and these were tied with a neat, little straw bit. Talk of business.
My mind went back to the salt pans of Agassaim, what did I know about our very own Mitache agor? All that I knew about salt in Goa is the trucks passing by and hoarse voiced women yelling; Mit, mit and more mit. Will I visit a mitacho agor, I doubt, we do these things elsewhere but never at home. Enfim……
We hurried past the Museum, plunged into the alley at the side, down past a Confeitaria selling all manner of delicacies, yes, ovos-moles and Bolo Rei rich in spices and candied fruit. Why oh why was I wearing trendy, or so I thought, flip-flops, summer, but flip-flops on cobbled streets? Whilst the well toned body of Professor sped without much effort over those killer cobbles, I struggled, ‘Estas cansada Sonia, mais um pouquinho, vocês, Alexandre, Bosco apressem, quem falta?’ And we all knew the answer…….poor Dhruv, his misfortune of being the roommate of the most elusive hottie, his arms spread out in resignation, Rahul!
The Language department at the University believed we should learn something of the culture of Portugal too, an idea we wholeheartedly agreed to, who in his right mind would want to be doing Conjutivo Imperativo on a hot summer’s day after a good meal?
So here we were boarding a very colourful bus, a hop on, hop off for a trip around Aveiro and Ílhavo.
The traditional occupation of Aveiro, years back when the world was a simpler place to live in, had been salt panning, but now salt panning is completely on the decline, however the University of Aveiro conducts studies on salt panning and we passed a series of salt pans with heaps of white crystalline salt. Sara who was next to me jolted me out of a pleasant dream, ‘Sonia, Sonia veja sal’ and I full of pleasant dreams thought, ‘Mitache agor’- Salinas why the hell should I wake up just to see ‘Mitache agor’- Salinas, my route to Panjim is via Agassaim which used to be the home of ‘Mitache agor’- Salinas. My sleep had just been kicking in, you know that very pleasant zone of semi consciousness, between wakefulness and sleep, no I was not at all pleased that Sara had woken me up.
But on another trip we did visit the Salinas and had the very ebullient, Sr. João showing us around, salt panning is a back breaking, arduous work, who in the right mind would want to walk around in the hot sun, ankle deep in salt water, scratches and wounds on the feet killing you, all that salt pouring in those wounds, but to Sr. João it is a labour of love. He explained that salt panning was not one of the most desirable professions which resulted in the neglect of the salinas, as a result of this neglect, fresh water had inundated the salinas making them unfit for salt extraction. The salinas however, are a different world altogether, peace and the silence washes over you, the light has a different quality to it, or was I letting my imagination get the better of me? Tiny flowering plants with tinier flowers beckon you, birds chirping warning other tiny denizens of this strange world that intruders are approaching. However they had a welcome visitor, a great pal, a huge slobbering Labrador who accompanied by his owners visited the salinas regularly. To the Labrador this was his park, he gambolled in the fresh hay, he wished the workers good morning, he barked from sheer joy, generally very happy that there was such lovely place in the world.
Sr João was a good guide as well as extremely business savvy, whilst we rested under a gnarled fig tree, in Portugal the trees show a certain class befitting their age, they are twisted and gnarled; they want you to see that they have lived and continue to live their lives even when times are not so pleasant, Sr. João talked to us about the salinas and his conversation took us to the coast of Holland and Newfoundland, where in his opinion, cod was not cured as it should be, it was raw, it did not spring back as it should, which it only does as when cured by the Portuguese of yore. He really knew so very much, Dhruv was fascinated by his rapid fire talk. Man of salt that he was he had diversified into soaps. He had homemade soaps with salt as the base, salt is an exfoliant, so very intelligently he was marketing this property as well, in addition to the one we all know about, food. He had pretty jute bags with premium salt also called flor de Sal, packed in them and these were tied with a neat, little straw bit. Talk of business.
My mind went back to the salt pans of Agassaim, what did I know about our very own Mitache agor? All that I knew about salt in Goa is the trucks passing by and hoarse voiced women yelling; Mit, mit and more mit. Will I visit a mitacho agor, I doubt, we do these things elsewhere but never at home. Enfim……
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