Foreigners holed up in Goa are lending a hand in cleaning beaches, sowing seeds

Several foreigners have stayed back in Goa due to lockdown and other restrictions making travel difficult

It’s peak monsoon with Goa witnessing rainfall in excess of 100mm a day on average. The shacks and sea facing hotels have battened down the hatches as the wind howls across.

Foreigners started a campaign to clean one of the famous Goa beaches of plastic, it became a movement. (HT Photo)

At first, nothing may seem amiss – after all, beach tourism shuttering for the monsoon is an annual affair. But no sooner does the rain abate and people begin to move out a bit, does the odd foreigner stand out in the crowd. Not unusual in coastal villages of Goa, but certainly uncommon during the peak monsoon months when backpackers from Europe and other parts of the world head back home for the summer or to other destinations.

The pandemic has meant that there were never so many foreigners in Goa in the monsoons as there are this year, with those who have remained behind -- by choice or by fate -- choosing to make the most of their time here.

“I had arrived in India along with my companion to see majestic temples and holy places, when the pandemic hit. I saw a group of guys gathering plastic in bags and bringing them to a designated area. I started doing the same. Fifteen more people joined. More people from around the world came to the next event. There were many Indians who wanted to join it. More people came to the third event. We cleaned Arambol on a regular basis. This time, I collected a list of 40-50 volunteers from 15 countries,” Boloyangov, who is a professional fighter and stunt performer, said.

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Boloyangov, who is a fitness trainer back in Russia, had first visited Goa in 2017, when he claims to have first noticed unattended piles of garbage in different corners of the tourist paradise. This year offered him the opportunity to do something about it.

“A colleague reported our initiative to Dhiraj Vagale, assistant director of tourism, Goa. The Government responded immediately. Sanjeev Joglekar (an official with the environment department) got in touch with me and offered me help. He sent an officer-in-charge who arranged garbage removal. Besides, he instructed an officer whose company is responsible for cleanliness of the Arambol beach to help us clean Sweet Lake. The Panchayat has provided us with special bags and gloves. Approximately 50 volunteers from many countries including India cleaned Sweet Lake. It took exactly 10 days of hard work,” Boloyangov said.

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For Nick Chung, an English teacher from Atlanta, Georgia in the USA, a trip to India from China was meant to be only a week long holiday with his girlfriend and colleagues, during the Chinese New Year Holidays. It’s now August and he is pretty sure about not returning to get his teaching job in China back.

“It’s actually a great place to be stuck. The weather is perfect and the people are nice,” Chung said.

Chung and his friends with the help of local volunteers spent a day in the fields of Taleigao, a village on the outskirts of the state capital Panaji, assisting local farmers with sowing, transplanting and tending to the rice crop.

“It was a great experience to understand the trouble it takes to grow your own food and it also helps you come closer to the earth and mother nature,” Chung told HT.

There have been a few repatriation flights -- 44 in total that have left from Goa airport carrying around 10,000 tourists to destinations in their home countries. However, many have chosen to stay put out of choice, some have stayed due to the prohibitive cost or unavailability of a repatriation flight to their countries.

Locals, too, are happy to host them as they continue to contribute to the tourism industry. “Many home and hotel owners have halved their room rates so that the tourists choose to stay on and are also making sure they are well cared for,” Stephen Fernandes a resident of Arambol village said. “There were many more in June, by July some of them moved out,” he added.

Many tourists will leave over the coming weeks as flights are arranged either from Goa or Mumbai. “We came for 3 months as we usually do. We were only here three weeks, when we had the lockdown. Everyone has been so helpful. We went for walks before the rains got really bad to sit and watch the fishermen catching their meals,” said Lorraine Dodd who’s from the UK and is hoping her flight back to the UK scheduled for early August goes through.