The statue of Our Lady

Last night there was a lot of activitiy in the village. In Agonda there is and old statue of Our Lady encased in a wooden box with glass panels. This statue is moved around the Christian homes in Agonda, staying one night in each home. It used to take one year to make the cycle of all the homes, but now with more people building houses it takes one and a half years to make the cycle. Last night the statue came to our neighbour's house, Pamela and James. So many family and neighbours came to their house. There was lots of praying and lovely singing and then a lot of fireworks were let off. The highlight for Colin though, was that Pamela brought us over lovely Goan cooked food and pastries.
I went over today to see the statue. It was set on an alter and decorated with garlands. The new baby that Pamela delivered before Xmas was immediately given to me to hold. Not being very good with babies I did my best. Pamela told me that the other villagers had been talking about the baby. Her other two children have a dark complexion but people are saying the the new baby is fair in complexion and that is because she was talking to the white Westerners (Colin and I), whilst she was pregnant.
We have been invited to the baptism on Sunday so we will need to get into our glad rags to attend.
Oh, by the way, we found out about the snake that fell  on my head. Colin e-mailed his friend in the UK, Spider Dave, who is a professor specialising in spiders, but has a wealth of knowledge about other reptiles, animals and birds. He got back to us and told us that it was a bronzeback tree snake and is totally harmless. At least I won't be in a panic next time I see it.