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Goa Heritage Action Group releases PARMAL, the journal of the GHAG. In this issue: * Ethnography of Goa, Daman and Diu * A Play For Goans And Outsiders * Two Abbe Farias -- One An Imposter * Keeping Faith By Fire At Shirgao * Touxeanchem Fest at Santana de Talaulim * Society And Religion In Goa, 1510-1961 * The Mandovi: Threatened By Damming and Diversion * Jirnoddhar Should Not Destroy History And Heritage. On Apr 25, 2009 at 5.30 at Gallery Gitanjali, Fontainhas. Price Rs 200 in Goa. (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) New book on education in Goa, gives an alumnae-eye view PANJIM, April 24: Experts and policy-planners speak on the world of education. Teachers have their associations to do so. But now comes a book which sees ex-students narrate their experiences of days spent in a prominent Goan school. 'Girls in Green' is a book of informal memoirs, put together by alumnae of the prominent Mapusa-based girls school, St Mary's. It emerged from an online network which is active in cyberspace. Just published, it contains some 29 essays by former students of the school, together with four pages of photographs that go back decades. Students of this girls-only school have mostly done well for themselves, with alumni writing in from places like Toronto, Denmark, Kuwait, the US and elsewhere. Yma Pinto, who lectures in Computer Science at the Goa University, writes that she "held her teachers in such high esteem that she wanted to be one herself". Pinto credits the Mental Maths Club at the school for her "innate desire to solve puzzles". Other alumnae have a long list of mostly good things to say about the school run by the dedicated band of Apolostolic Carmel nuns since over half a century. Raida Duarte, who was a student and teacher of the school, before her grandchildren too went on to study at St Mary's Convent, narrates the history of the Anglo-Konkani which became Escola Da Santa Maria in the 1940s. Arlette Azavedo describes the school in the 1970s, when it was known for its "wood floors (and) leaking roofs". Inspite of this, it was a "home away from home for most of us who spent our entire mornings there." This book, while focussed on alumnae memoirs of one particular institution, gives a wider picture of the changing educational scenario in the Goa of recent decades. Sr. Margaret Correa, a Catholic nun based in Mali (Africa), tells how the daily-allounce of 40 paise she saved in the 1960s from her Moira-Mapusa bus-fare, went to buy edibles in times when children in Goa suffered far more from want. A prominent teacher from the school, Ms Lydia DeSouza, narrates how she got a job there by chance, after teaching in Bombay and Africa. She tells of the naughtiness of the school-girls and boys of her times. While Anna D'Souza tells her story of "love, kisses and letters", Dubai-based assignments editor Ingrid Valles Po compares a co-ed school with a girls-only one, and the resulting attitude. This book is published by Goa,1556 and priced at Rs 120. It is available at Mapusa (Other India Bookstore, PVV, Dessai Stall at municipal entrance, Luizinha Stores, Arlette Azavedo 9422061766), at Panjim (Broadways), or via goa1...@gmail.com