tsunami
we've received a few concerned emails, so i wanted to let y'all know that we're alive and well (except for a bit of flu or food poisoning) in goa, where the effects of the tsunami were fairly minimal. we were actually in the ocean around 2 ish when the water cooled off suddenly and a current came up parallel to the beach fairly strongly and moved us a little ways down - nothing too freaky at the time. it just as suddenly switched directions a few minutes later and our friend rajeev came out to say hi and mentioned that a few waves had come much further up the beach than any others and had them scrambling out of the way. it got strangely choppy and deep as the waves came in - when we got to shore someone said that there had been a huge earthquake in sumatra, someone else sai bangladesh, etc.. when we got to the flat we're staying in across from a river, all the neighbors were gathered by their bamboo dock and we noticed that the normally calm water was rushing in at great speeds and higher than usual. the locals said that they'd never seen anything like it, even in monsoon, and that people were catching fish by the bucketloads. the water rumbled by, then stopped and got quiet and reversed direction just as fast - it seemed to drop impossibly fast. for the rest of the evening while we were awake and checking news on our laptops the water would switch directions every half hour or so and go from almost overflowing to near empty. fortunately, though beach shacks were flooded and boats got a bit banged up, no one seems to have been hurt in goa - 4 kids got washed in at the beach we'd been at by another freak wave later in the day but a foriegn tourist and indian policeman on vacation saved them. much much luckier than those down south and closer to the epicenter. anyway, i'm sure everyone sees the papers and knows whats going on as well as we do.