Zooming to the Internet café

Another day, another dollar they say. Yes, I have to admit that after a day of travelling on the train, tired and hot in the darkness of the idyllic house and with the heat and humidity of the tropical evening, things did not look very positive last night. Nevertheless, Jerry and I decided to go to bed on a positive note of ''tomorrow is another day'' and ''in the daylight things always look brighter.''

After a good night sleep, while hearing the sound of waves, we enjoyed our coffee overlooking the sea from the upstairs bedroom terrace. From this perspective it was a bit easier to ''look at the bright side of life.'' At the same time, the brightness of the day has also shown us even more things that were not working, that needed improvement, cleaning or replacement before the house was able to become a true tropical paradise. Still we were not to be deterred, on a positive note we decided to work hard on making an inventory of things and creating a mini report for the owner of the house back in the UK, specifically England.

Inventory and the report safely on the USB stick we headed for the village, where we were told we would find an Internet café. The local host explained to us in his broken English: ''Go straight, railway crossing straight, go highway straight, village internet café right'' so we understood that the Internet café was in the village, which we would reach by walking to the railway crossing that we passed the night before, when arriving. After crossing the railway we needed to walk straight forward and soon we would see and cross the highway, after which we should see the village and the Internet café, which was to be found on the main drag on the right hand side of the road, some 2 km or 20 minutes walking from the house.

It is 3.30 in the afternoon. It is hot and sticky, but we are determined to find the Internet café. Hence off we go navigating the coconut grove through which we only passed once, the night before, in the darkness with the guidance of our host. We manage to reach the paved road successfully and are lucky to spot an auto rickshaw coming just around the corner. How lucky can you get? Exactly what we needed to get us to the village. We wave and the guy stops and to our surprise we realise that the back is full, there sits a woman with two boys. Not a problem for the driver; he still beckons us to come in and signals to the woman and the boys to make room, which they obligingly do. Jerry and I squeeze in, Jerry's knees sticking out hoping that no car would come from the opposite direction and brush against us taking his knee cups away.

After initial consultations and a slight language problem we managed to explain, or so we thought, that we wanted to go to the village to the Internet café. Of course, the driver repeated the name of the internet café followed by ''yes, yes'' and shaking of his head from left to right.

Jerry asks the driver how much to the village to which he replies '' No problem, Sir'' giving him a smile and the perpetual left to right head shake of all Indians irrespective of the religion, caste or class. I look at Jerry and instead of reassurance, which I am guessing '' No problem, Sir'' was meant to produce I spot a bit of worry written across Jerry's face. I try to reassure him by saying ''don't worry, let's just enjoy the adventure!'' This seems to relax Jerry a bit and he tries to makes himself comfortable in a limited space of the back of the auto rickshaw meant for 2, maximum 3 people, carrying 5 instead.

All set, we leave with the wind in our hair. The first junction and the driver takes a right turn. OK, this does not quite seem to correspond to our local host's description, but who are we to argue. We do not know the way to the village and the driver says he knows, so we watch the scenery and keep holding the bar between us and the driver, as if our dear life depends on it, and maybe it does, given that he drives as if he is trying to break an auto rickshaw record in the fastest customer delivery service category. At the same time he is trying to hold a conversation with us using all 10 words of English that he is fluent in. So we learn that the woman in the back is his wife and the two boys are his sons. With that we arrive to the some kind of a beach promenade that has seen better days and within minutes he slows down, almost to a stopping point, in front of a guest house. We look at it, with no intention of getting out, wondering why he is stopping here. He turns around looking at us, and we say ''Nice house, ...yours?'' to which he says ''Yes'' while shaking his head from left to right probably realising that this is not our destination and pressing the gas pedal again. The suspicion is starting to arise in us, maybe this guy has no clue where we want to go. With that we reach another guest house where he slows down again. Seeing that we have no intention of getting out here either, he is ready to press the gas pedal again when Jerry shouts in half-panic ''Stop, stop, stop!'' He stops, turns around and now in pidgin English we try to explain that we want to go to the village to the Internet café, however this time instead of the name of the café we use the words ''Internet café.'' He seems to finally get it. He makes a U- turn and off we zoom retracing our steps. Finally, he gets us across the railways, and the national highway (mind you this is a single carriageway looking slightly bigger than a village road) and here we are in front of the Internet café on the right-hand side of the main and only road in the village, exactly as our local host explained.

Happy to reach the café and to be alive we pay to the driver 30 rupees only. A bargain!

Especially when you know that he squeezed in an unplanned sightseeing route of the local guest houses for us.

Once inside the Internet café, which really is a room with 5 PC's that have seen better days, we realise that we have no clue how to get back. At this moment Jerry has a brilliant idea. We know that the house we stay in is listed on the Google maps so we try our luck by typing in the name of the village and the name of the house and asking for directions. Voilà! We have the route in front of us. I find this amazing: we are here, sitting at the edge of the jungle and guess what Google has sorted for us...paradoxes of modern globalised world.

Gordana Stankoviċ is a qualified counsellor and life coach. Her counselling and coaching approach is an integration of humanistic counselling, otherwise known as person-centred counselling, and the model of Nonviolent Communication, a process developed by Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg, which offers practical and powerful skills for compassionate giving, receiving and helping, to create deep, meaningful connections and relationships, and transforming conflicts into peaceful dialogue.

Gordana velues peace, the authenticity of every human being, relationships based on trust, acceptance and genuine contribution to each other's lives.