Today everyone in Goa was celebrating the anniversary of the baptism of St. John. On my way home from work, I rode through groups of men in the street who were celebrating by jumping into the river.

The staff organized a celebration on camp, too. They placed crowns made of flowers on our heads and handed us coconuts. We were supposed to stand across from someone and roll our coconut into our partner’s coconut . When the coconuts broke open, everyone applauded- and got covered in coconut juice. And then it started to rain, and the cleaning woman went and tied sheets around her head and legs and tried to get us all dancing in the rain.

Then the camp manager (a woman) pulled me against her so close our stomachs collided and said we were going to slow dance. This lasted way longer than I thought it would, 20 minutes at least, long after everyone else had stopped dancing. “It’s the most romantic dance in the world,” she said to me, after instructing me to sway my hips more. I think this was the most intimate I have ever been with a woman.

In other news, in my shower today I noticed a parasidic-looking worm crawling on my foot. I brushed it off and guided water over it, expecting it to drown and slip down the drain. Instead, to my surprise, once it was fully submerged in water it started SWIMMING. Right back towards me.