Written by Liza
The roads of Aldona
I just don’t know-a!
When I’m looking at a pretty street
That’s when three or four of them just meet
So I must think with all my might
Was it here that I had to turn right?
Which ever way I turn in Aldona, LiS is the way we go to school !
Being the driver for the Bookworm group that goes to take library classes at Aldona, has been quite an amazing experience with some challenges. Aldona is such a pretty place, with the schools we go to tucked away in seemingly secret locations.
There is St. Thomas Boys High School, which is the first and easiest to find. It is on one of the main roads (remember to look to the left while you drive) leading from Moira into Aldona.
St. Thomas Girls School is a little tougher to get to, because you have to choose, at a critical roundabout, which of the 4 choices of roads to take.
The route to St. Thomas Boys Primary School is one that I’m still slowly getting the hang of. Even though it lies on higher ground above the High school, it is not a simple straight road up! To confound things, some days we pick up a colleague who lives enroute, and some days we don’t, and those 2 options of course have 2 different routes.
Going to Auxilium Carona, requires all the grace of St. Thomas and every other saint en route, because there are multiple roads that get you there. You can go via St. Thomas Boys Primary School, or take one of the turn offs at the Edward Soares circle of cut anywhere in between and head in a northerly direction.
I have always known that I’ve not been blessed with a good sense of direction where roads are concerned. Somehow the good Lord gave me an internal GPS system with a faulty battery. The fact that there may be 3 ways to get to a particular place, which I am helpfully shown on the next visit there- certainly doesn’t make things easier to track the route. ‘Oh- you can go this way or that way, Ma’m’, (said with a big smile), infuriating me further, confusing me even further’.
One of the things I’ve discovered in my 8 months of living and driving in Goa- when you ask locals for directions, when they say as ‘go left’- take that with a pinch of salt. Ensure that you actually wiggle your left hand and say ‘this side?’ That’s when they look a bit sheepish and say ‘no..no- go right!!’
Another confounding thing for me is when they say ‘just go straaaaaaight.’ However, the straight is not really straight…the meandering winding roads may still have a left or right option enroute.
