It must have been 1978 or 1980 or 1981 ... can't recall. Maybe a bit
earleir too! A rabid dog was roaming around Saligao, biting random
people and pets.

Our pom of the time, a cross-tempered full-white furry dog called Duke
(we called him Dukie) happened to be roaming on the road somewhere
near the fields alongside our home and Lourdes Convent.

Duke got bitten too. Ricky and I were at home, as our Mum was
travelling to Bombay just then. We went ahead and cleant the dog's
wound, Ricky (the aspiring vet, who ended up in computers) doing most
of the work. I just played assistant.

Later, we learnt, the dog was rabid!

There were so many doom and gloom warnings. Of course, the rabid dog
hadn't bitten *us*. But he had bitten our dog. We had cleant our dog's
wounds. What if we had a small cut, through which the rabies virus
entered our system? And there was no cure for rabies. At the same
time, three out of five thousand patients contracted rabies (if I
recall right) from the vaccine itself! Frightful...

And so it went on.

Instead of taking the risk, we decided to go in for the 14 injections
each! It did seem frightful, specially as we were told the injections
were given "in the stomach". (It later turned out that these were
subcutaneous... didn't pain much, but the old vaccine took time to
dissolve, and one ended up with temporary lumps under the skin of the
stomach which lasted a few days, and itched quite a bit!)

Somehow, we found out that the Cordeiro family had also been affected
by that rabid dog. Someone linked up, and I remember A. Florie saying
we could come over to their home for the daily injections, as they
would be calling over a male-nurse they knew (someone called Pednekar
who cycled down to Saligao from some neighbouring village, if I recall
right) to administer the shot, instead of all of us marching to Panjim
every day.

Due to that episode, we (my brother Ricky and myself) got to know the
Cordeiros better, as we trooped to their house (for the injections)
for at least 14 consecutive days. We would sometimes still reminisce,
with a laugh, about this episode when we met up!

I realised A. Florie was a very kind and smiling lady, who always had
a good word for everyone she met. She struck me as a lady of few
words, but every one counted! She struck me as one of the villagers
who made everyone she met feel special when she said something
pleasant on meeting you.

To my mind, she will be the same old smiling person ... maybe one of
her daughters could share a photo of her via this list. If I'm not
mistaken, she was one of the many 'Africanders' who returned to the
Saligao of the 1970s, and lent a whole lot of vibrancy to our village
then. Sometimes, you've got to be thankful even to a mad dog and an
Idi Amin (just exaggerating a bit... maybe the Cordeiros came earlier,
and not from Uganda!)