Becoming Goan: A Contemporary ComingHome Story

Goa’s magnetism and its promise of a relaxed, almost bohemian
lifestyle, have always attracted admirers and colonizers. Before the
locals could make up their minds about such interlopers, Covid-19
brought hordes of them to town—Michelle Mendonça Bambawale was
one of them. In June 2020, Michelle found herself moving to the 160-
year-old house she had inherited in Siolim, a village in North Goa, with
her human and canine family.
Having never lived in Goa before, she couldn’t help but wonder if her
Goan ancestry made her an insider or if she would forever remain an
outsider. In this memoir, she confronts her complex relationship with
her Goan Catholic heritage and explores themes of identity, culture,
migration, stereotypes and labels.
She also uncovers some of the uncanniest legends that pervade Siolim,
including those of St. Anthony and the Snake, Sao Joao, and the statue of
Beethoven. She also takes us back to Siolim and Goa in the 1970s and
1980s, where she spent her summer vacations without paved roads or
electricity, pulling water from a well. Today, she dodges reeking septic
tankers, earth movers and piling plastic garbage while walking her
Labrador, Haruki.
Becoming Goan is a heartfelt and charming story of Michelle’s love for
this land that her grandparents left her. She cares deeply about Goa’s
biodiversity and is distraught about the environmental impact of
tourism, construction and mining. Her devotion to Mother Earth deepens
as she learns more about her roots, steeped as they are in syncretic
traditions