A new year is bornIt brims full of hope, and resolutions

For each of us…

'Oh, this yearI will work out more'

Some of us sayDetermination at our core…

'I will cut down on sweets'A couple of others

Insist!

'We'll give moreTo the poor'

Decide, the wealthy…

'We will be thrifty'Say the less rich

Quietly!

When all that's saidHow much is done?

And why not picture bigPositive year through outcomes?

Resolutions are decisionsI make and stick to them everyday

Because each dawn is a new beginningNot unlike a new year…

My resolution isTo live every hour, minute and second

With heartfelt intentionsTo succeed, to bring joy to another

By living my dream…

Will you not Follow my doing…?

Happy 2015!

From the Editor

Dear Readers,

A New Year is always a good time to take stock. While for some of us, our resolutions might focus on our health, wealth or wellness, others might want to take a closer look at their careers or relationships. Most resolutions, no matter how well-meaning, usually fall by the wayside by the end of January. They run out of steam, the euphoria of the changing calendar well and truly lost in the humdrum of everyday life.

This is where it might help, perhaps to have a goal instead of a resolution. Resolving to “lose weight” is setting yourself up for failure. “Walk for twenty minutes every day” is a goal that you can easily achieve. Resolutions are restrictive; goals are motivating.

What do you want to change this year? Instead of a long to-do list, how about choosing one thing to focus on? Pick one thing and try it this year. It could be anything that you've been avoiding - finding a new job or changing your same-old hairstyle. It could be going on a solo trip or reviving an old hobby. Do you like the person you see in the mirror each day? If not, what can you do to change that?

Three years ago, this newsletter was founded with the aim of creating a network of women who will inspire, encourage and empower each other. Your articles have been motivational, informative and certainly inspiring. For 2015, how can we make Femnet even better? What would you like to read about?

I would love to read about women around the world, any inspiring projects that they undertake or outstanding or unusual work they do. Your literary contributions are very w e l c o m e , t o o . P l e a s e r e a d o u r g u i d e l i n e s a t www.goanet.org/femnet/guidelines.html for information on how to submit.

We thank our contributors for submitting these interesting articles:

1. Our regular contributor, Frederika Menezes for her New Year's message

2. Valentine's Day: Myrtle DeSa has given us further insight in her article Valentine's Day: What you did not know!

3. We thank Myrtle for sharing her love affair with her first Valentines, her little brother and her parents in My First Valentines.

4. Monica Aurora has honoured Femnet by posting three of her several poems for this Issue

5. Another regular writer, Pamela D'Mello has written an interesting article Sprinting @ 70 ... Slowing down is for Youngsters

6. All the way from Zambia, Africa, Theresa Sambo has a beautiful article on Small Trees Make the Forest

7. Last, but not least, Sajla Chawla, another regular writer, has sent her Musings from the hill top.

Our first newsletter this year has been delayed for reasons beyond our control but we hope to get it back on track soon. Please let us know if you would like to help in any way. Meanwhile, enjoy this issue and I look forward to your feedback!

For the Editorial Team

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Issue 34 | January 2015 | 4 Pages | For free circulation only

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Frederika Menezes (Goa, India)

HAPPY NEW YEAR

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Compiled by Chandandeep Myrtle DeSa (Goa, India)

signing it “from your Valentine.” which is still in use today making him the sender of the first Valentine greeting.

In Slovenia, Saint Valentine or Zdravko was one of the saints of spring, the saint of good health and the patron of beekeepers and pilgrims. A proverb says that "Saint Valentine brings the keys of roots" as plants and flowers start to grow on this day. It is also celebrated as the day when the first work in the vineyards and in the fields commences and the day when birds propose to each other or marry on that day. Oh! And Cupid has wings because lovers are flighty and change their minds too often while his bow and arrows knock us fickle humans down.

So Valentine's Day is not only about romantic love but about loving all of creation and striving to do good by all; humans, flora and fauna and of course, our Creator. So take time out today for everyone who is important to you, significant others, family, friends, pets, and even strangers and share your love with them with a smile, a wave, a hug or a helping hand. After all, Hallmark's aisles aren't flooded with true love going at $1.

someone who dreads its arrival, spraining their brains to find that perfect gift. Here's a little bit of history about this day to help you put things in perspective.

Historians suggest that the Christian c h u r c h m a y h a v e d e c i d e d t o “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia which was celebrated at the ides of February (February 15) and was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf, sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification, then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Roman women

welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus who were honored on February 14; Valentine of Rome, Valentine of Terni and a third saint also named Valentine who was martyred in Africa. Many of us are familiar with the legend of St. Valentine, a priest, who in defiance of Emperor Claudius' decree that single men made better soldiers and should not marry, continued to secretly perform marriages for young lovers and was put to death when he was discovered. Another legend goes that in order to remind these men of their vows and God's love, St. Valentine cut out hearts from parchment giving them to the soldiers and persecuted Christians leading to the widespread use of the heart symbol on this day. A third legend reveals that he healed his jailor's daughter, Julia, of blindness and wrote her a letter the night before he was executed

VALENTINE'S DAY: WHAT YOU DID NOT KNOW !

Chandandeep Myrtle DeSa (Goa, India)

Chandandeep Myrtle DeSa is a psychologist of mixed Goan, Keralite and Punjabi heritage, currently working in Goa who believes she leads a charmed and blessed life and that learning is a never-ending process.

weekends could be spent on early morning bike rides to go bird watching, picnics or on long walks. Being given a frog for my birthday by my brother because he had fractured his arm and was house-bound and knew how much I wanted a pet. (We let Froggie go the next day as he kept trying to hop out of his tin all night!)

None of this is out of the ordinary, a part of the regular lives that perhaps parents all across the globe live day in and day out, well maybe not the Froggie part. But these are the moments that have stayed with me after all these years. The regular love filled seconds of daily life. The love we experience during childhood is indeed one of a kind, unbiased, accepting, nourishing, forgiving and everlasting. And they are important because they have taught me to love in turn, not with grand gestures but the little everyday things.

A s t h e w o r l d paints itself red in anticipation of the Day of Love, I'm reminded of my first loves. Unlike what most movies and books lead us to believe, my first valentines (yes! I have more than one!) did not come riding on white

horses. They were nearly twice and thrice my age, eagerly awaiting my arrival with arms wide open. There were no fancy candle-lit romantic dinners though I did get some chocolate as I later learned which was consumed by the above mentioned valentines with great joy, while I only got a literally miniscule lick. I ended up getting fed more of honey than chocolates. My first dance was in the arms of a handsome guy to the tunes of Jim Reeve's Scarlet Ribbons around 2 a.m. with his wife's blessings. All my tears and frustrations were regularly hugged and kissed away. Heck! I didn't even have to comb my hair or feed myself. I was waited on hand and foot. My first valentines

indeed made life perfect!

Now ladies, before you'll go rushing to your better halves with this news, I must warn you that my first valentines were both my parents and my little brother who joined me a year later and made me one of his first valentines. And the handsome guy I mentioned is my dad trying to get his insomniac of a baby girl to sleep. Oh! and the chocolates were sent by my Dad's brother for me when I arrived in this world but since my teeth decided to follow me later, the grownups decided to test them while I waited. Needless to say, the chocolates didn't survive the taste test. Memories of their love and of the rest of my family abound. Being rocked to sleep by Dada was followed later by lullabies and stories by my paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother when I crawled into their bed woken up by nightmares. Sitting at Mama's knee as she combed my long hair into neat plaits for school while I fidgeted, being fed hot dal topped with ghee when we were too hungry to wait for lunch, impromptu midnight parties because we couldn't sleep as we waited for the jelly she had put into the freezer to set, cajoled into finishing homework on Fridays so that the

MY FIRST VALENTINES

Love is in the a i r a n d expectations

are running high. For every person who wai ts for Valentine's Day with bated b r ea t h t h e r e w i l l b e

And, let's face it, that's the kind that survives

Issue 34 | Page 3Visit us at femnet.goanet.org

This cup of tea before me,

This cup of tea

Opens up my senses, and

Wakes me up to a beautiful day;

This sight of tea

With its lovely brown colour

So attractive right now to me -

Drawn to it, like a fish to sea

I swim into the swirls

Of its aroma and taste

And hear my engines purr.....

This vehicle called me

Is now ready to serve.

A TRIO OF POEMS

Monica Aurora (Goa, India)

Mrs. Monica H. Aurora, BA Psychology (Hons) with a Diploma in Textile Designing, lives in Vasco da Gama Goa, India. Happily married to Mr. Hardeep Aurora, the couple have two grown-up sons. Monica began writing poetry from a young age and her poems have received

excellent reviews from readers. She has authored a book of poems entitled 'Milestones in my Life' (2009) and her poems have been published in several publications. Monica also teaches Public Speaking to young children as a voluntary service.

I drink in the richness

Of the morning dew,

And breathe the freshness

Of the air;

I glance at the stillness

Of Nature stirring up

In a gentle cooing way;

I look up at the flight

Of the birds, in ecstasy

Of another day begun;

And through the clouds

Up in the sky

I seem to see –

The face of God

I try to drown the noise

Of my Self within

With the hullabaloo

Of my voice outside;

The hoo-hoo hah-hahs

And crank shafts of the tongue,

The desperate camouflage

For the world around –

And fail quite often too.

But when I tire of it all

And simply sit and 'do nothing'

I find with joy that soon enough

The noise and din

Just melts away,

And there is silence,

There is peace …

MORNING THOUGHTSTHIS CUP OF TEA MEDITATION

Septuagenarians that sprint are not exactly thick on the ground, so we were keen to meet one we had heard about. For seventy-n i n e - y e a r o l d r e t i r e d s c h o o l teacher/headmistress and veteran athlete, Maria Imelda Emilia Bernadette Fausta de Sousa, aka Maria Imelda, life definitely began post-retirement. While we were trying to meet her, she was busy at the State Central Library, searching the archives for the names and tenures of every single parish priest that served at her hometown church in Mapusa, from 1594 to date --- this, intended for a parish publication.

Well-know within the community, the wiry, enthusiastic and energetic Maria Imelda, is more importantly Goa's best known and oldest veteran athlete. Veteran athletics see women post 30 years and men post 35, compete in various categories. Usually long-time athletes move into the veteran category. Not so Maria Imelda. She ran and won her first race when she was 53, in 1987, surprising herself and others as she beat much younger participants in an open category. She won gold at the 100 m sprint and silver at the 200 m, though she was a complete amateur with no prior training. "I never, ever ran in school. I did not like it then," she says. Sensing she was on to something, Maria Imelda has never stopped since, competing whenever the opportunity arises.

She has run road races, mini marathons, commemorative runs, walking races, and sprints. In 1994, long retired from her government teaching job, she joined the Goa Veterans Athletic Association, affiliated

to the Masters Athletic Federation of India. Maria Imelda is a regular participant and winner at the State level Veterans Athletic Championships and at the zonal and national Championships. Her list of wins are too long to even list, picking up medals steadily over the past three decades.

In 2012, 78 years of age, and participating in the 75+ age category at the state meet, Maria Imelda ran the 100 m sprint in 25.5 seconds, claiming the race. Based on her performance at the 2012 Bangalore national meet, where she took third place in the 200 m and second place in the 400 m, she was selected to represent India at the World Masters Athletics Championship at Porto Alegre, Brazil. However, other commitments meant she couldn't attend. In 2010-11, an ill relative had prevented her from participating at the Kuala Lumpur Asian Championship. Participation in in ternat iona l meets have thus not ma te r i a l i s ed f o r he r. A t an As i an championship held in Bangalore one year, Maria Imelda was able to represent India, picking up gold for the relay and silver at the 400 m.

Though Maria is quite the professional veteran athlete now, she has also participated at fun events and informal runs organized by Rotary and Lion clubs, either in her town or elsewhere in the state. In between professional races, she is at every commemorative run, marathon or walking race, easily the oldest participant to finish it. These achievements saw her take her place among Goa's sports persons carrying the torch for the Commonwealth Games, when it came through Goa.

Maria Imelda, who turns 80 this December,

looks forward to serious running as well, where she will graduate to the 80+ category at various veteran meets. How will she meet the health, fitness and medical criteria, I ask? "Why not? Now I'm okay I will run. I've got good doctors,” she says, optimistic about her body's propensity to meet the demands of running.

How does she prepare for her sprints, I ask? "I don't really have to train, except for national meets, when we practice at Campal grounds," she says. As a contact person liasoning between her parish and the members of her ward, Maria has to hand deliver the monthly parish bulletin to forty households, conduct fund raising activities, and sell tickets for tiatrs."All that means climbing staircases, most of them three storeyed apartments without elevators," she explains. In fact, an active life is what brought her to athletics, she muses.

As a younger government teacher and headmistress, who found herself burdened with ever more responsibilities, Maria Imelda reminisces having to run for erratic public buses and ferries from 6 am. "All that running for buses, probably equipped me for my life as a sprinter", she quips.

Her activities encompass the cerebral ---- writing for magazines, learning languages aside from the Portuguese/English/Konkani she grew up with, penning poetry, participating in Portuguese scrabble competitions --- anything to stay active, mentally and physically. "My mother translated documents in Portuguese when she was in her nineties," says Maria Imelda, seeing no reason to slow down either.

by Pamela D'Mello (Goa, India)

(This article by Pamela D'Mello, independent journalist, writer and editor from Goa, India, was earlier published in Dignity Dialogue.)

SPRINTING @ 70…..SLOWING DOWN IS FOR YOUNGSTERS!

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A common African proverb says “Imiti ikula e panga”, a proverb which can loosely be translated to 'the small trees make the forest'. This proverb in itself highlights the importance of the upbringing of every chi ld, bringing to light that children are the pillars of society. Growing up as a girl in Africa had both its peaks and downfalls, there are numerous expectations when it comes to raising a girl child, culture and tradition expect this and that from a girl and frankly the elders want nothing short of perfection in the raising of young girls.

In a culture where the groom's family pays the 'lobola',(the bride price), the bride has to be worth the high price that her family sets, like buying your goods in the market, the price has to be an adequate reflection of the quality of the good. The grooming of a girl child is serious business in African cultures, we are taught from an early age on how to act, the most subtle things like the speak-when-spoken-to philosophy, tagging behind our mothers and aunties

and following their footsteps, the cooking games we played as kids, these all teach us to be perfect ladies even more, the perfect wife and mother too. Growing up, my grandmother would always remind my cousins and me of an old Congolese proverb which says “You are beautiful, but learn to work, for you cannot eat your beauty”.

“In the past, our culture always expected much from us”, my grandmother always says and then she clicks her tongue disapprovingly to show that we 'modern' girls have it easy. And it's true because the traditional ways of raising a girl child are slowly fading. In most parts of Africa a young girl by the age of eight, should have learnt how to cook, sweep, wash clothes and take care of a baby, taught that it wasn't just about beauty, this reminds me of a famous Ibu proverb, used in most African Comedies which says, “he who marries a beauty marries trouble”. Back then, you had to have the skills to manage your household as well.

Today, our upbringing is different, more modernized, though I reckon that my

childhood can't compare to an American girl c h i l d ' s u pb r i n g i ng , wh i c h wou l d stereotypically involve ballet, violin and swimming lessons. Our upbringing is relatively strict at a young age we are taught to cook, wash and do basic things any woman must know, taught to be independent, to think for ourselves when most of our parents send us off to boarding schools at the age of 12 or younger. Though our cultural upbringing is crumbling around us, our parents still maintain a few traditional ways of raising us up into responsible and independent wives and mothers.

In conclusion, growing up as a girl child in Africa is not just about you, it's about your family, your lobola, the groom's family and their approval, your family honor and much more. Though the restrictive ancient ways are still maintained in most cultures where beauty is not important but it's all about what you can do. And though it had its restrictions, growing up in Africa had its plus points, for one thing, it made me the independent person I am today.

***

SMALL TREES MAKE THE FOREST

Theresa Sambo (Zambia, Africa)

Theresa Sambo is a foreign student from Zambia, Africa, studying in Carmel College of Arts, Science and Commerce for Women in Goa. She enjoys learning about different cultures and languages, reading novels and making new friends. She hopes to make a change in her

country and also the people around her.

From the road that leads to the picturesque hamlet of Ilha de Rachol, a long, never-ending, dreamy path turns left to—- God knows where! It is bordered by water on two sides and seems to be wedged somewhere between civilization and the wild, the known and the unknown, the present and the past. You might see a lone fisherman tread gingerly along its side.

You might also see an occasional pair of lovers, gazing at the beauty around, while they are so smitten by the beauty that love brings, from within.

Sometimes you might see a solitary woman with her car parked way deep in the path, just sitting and musing— sometimes pensive, sometimes smiling. I wonder who she is and why she comes there.

Maybe along the path are memories of a better time, of friends, family or even love. As I idle around, I want to reach out to her and take whatever she is willing to share—- her joys, her sorrows.

Strange, that I should always happen to chance upon her on this very outskirt of the world.

One day, I see her there and muster the courage to go up to her, smile and shake her hands. She seems so gracious and pleasant, yet I see a lurking sadness which sometimes blows in to her eyes like the

desert sand, even as we are amidst a lush tropical green.

We become friends and connect in some inexplicable way. I ask her, “ Why do you always come here?”

She asks, “ Why do you?” We both laugh.

She seems about sixty, beautiful and regal. “I came here with some friends when I was just twenty-five. We were in an old car, with music at full blast.

“We sat here, best friends, sharing a beer till almost midnight, listening to crickets and the fox!”

“Where are your friends now?” I ask.

“Well, one of them passed away when she was just thirty-two and the other moved to America”

“But there is something more that binds you to this place, isn't it?” I ask.

She smiles. “You are perceptive.

“I came here with the man I loved. We sat here on the bonnet of the car and spoke for hours.

“A few years later, I married him.

“He died last year.” “

Oh!” I don't know what to say. She senses my empathy and my fear of life, love and

sadness, and she squeezes my hand.

“Don't worry, I am fine. I have lived my life well and to the fullest.” We both smile, near strangers, sharing lives, gazing at the beautiful valley of Raia, the distant blue-green hills, and the setting pink, orange, gold sun.

And then she turns on her car stereo, I hear a song that has never left my heart since then. May you never take one single breath for granted/ God forbid love ever leave you empty handed/ I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean/ Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens/ Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance/ And when you get a choice to sit it out or dance/ I hope you dance/ I hope you dance.

She then turns to me and says, “I hope you dance too.” I promise myself that I always will.

Sajla Chawla ()

Sajla Chawla’s musings from the hill top

THE EDGE OF CIVILIZATION