Somewhere in the state of Goa, India. October 1998
There are:
Paola , Patrick , Pasky , Stefan , Jérémy and me.
This day, we rent mopeds. Not me. I said I was afraid of driving a moped. In fact it provided me with the lame excuse to ride with Stefan. This day we drove across banana fields, hair hanging loose, light hearted, looking for a piece of beach where a straw hut was supposed to stand. I have to confess that I am properly inventing the aim of our ride. It was totally undefined, we were just worried about not crashing down with the mopeds on those still monsoon-soaked roads.
We found it. The thing that we were not looking for. At the end of a walk between the banana trees, we were hailed by this music that accompanies people during the so-called full moon parties. The wood bar opened out onto the wide indian ocean. We stopped for a drink, sat nearby the huge baffles and we enrolled for henna tattoos. I did one on my arm, Patrick on his arm too. Pasky on her arm and on her ankle. Paola, Stefan and Jeremy walked down to the waves talking about how to make good pancakes. I am inventing again because I truly don’t remember what they did.
The afternoon was going down. The henna was not dry yet when Stefan proposed to go to see the sunset from another beach.
Elsewhere, we let the mopeds. And the surfs we hadn’t. I put my camera against a rock on the floor. I pointed the viewfinder to us and winded on the countdown. I had 10 seconds to reach my place between Stefan and Jeremy. Sometimes, people think they are not getting into the frame whereas this is the camera itself which is not able to catch them. Anyway, when the camera said “clic”, we were all smiling.
Sharon Keller © 2006
