and lets not forget the plants...

Everywhere we went on our trip we saw the most beautiful flowers - even the humblest of homes had flowers that would put Martha Stewart to shame. In addition, the woods were filled with wild orchids and other exotic fauna. Ashwin and Priya kept saying "too bad Nana's not here, she would just love these flowers". So, Nana, this post is for you!

a few of our favorite...animals

Sikkim is primarily an agrarian society, with agriculture and tourism two of its main industries. Outside of Gangtok, the capital, most homes seemed to have a good sized garden and a few livestock - a goat or two, a cow and chickens. In addition, there were lots of friendly dogs and cats - and some interesting bovine creatures known as 'joes'. They are a cross between a d0mestic cow and a yak, and are used mostly as pack animals for trekkers in the Himalayas. (That's them up near the top of this post - getting their medicine in one picture!)

People of Sikkim

Another thing that makes Sikkim seem like a different country are all the different types of people there. There are many different ethnic groups in the state, primarily the Lepcha, Bhutia, Tibetan and Nepalese. We met many wonderful people in Sikkim, and were blessed to have wonderful guides - Bohani, Manoj and Moti and a fantastic driver, Kamal, who made the difference between and calm, relaxed trip and a hair raising one! We saw so many cute babies and children, met so many lovely monks and villagers - here a just a sample...

Back to School Time

 After a busy summer vacation;  a few weeks of camp, swimming lessons, lots of soccer,  Sikkim vacation (pics and blogs to follow), it was time to go back to school on June 3rd.   Ashwin and Priya will be going to school until late July, when they'll get a break before returning to the US, and starting school there in September.

A school going tradition in India is to wrap all the note books and textbooks with brown wrapping paper and label them appropriately - a job for Mom and Dad, naturally.  No time to ease in to 1st and 4th standard -  home work started on day 1.

Going to Guntur

Over the year, although Prabhu and I have both been working/volunteering here in India, we haven't blogged much about it. However, we have wanted to share a couple of our recent special experiences, thus the last post from Periamalai and this one from Andhra Pradesh. Andhra is the state just north of Tamil Nadu, famed for it's hot climate and food, particularly pickles. It is also one of the states in India with the highest incidence of HIV (about 3.2%). One of the organizations that I have been volunteering with here in Chennai runs two clinics and a small hospital in Andhra, and this week I was able to visit there, with the intent of collecting data that we could use to write a paper sharing the organizations experience treating patients with HIV/AIDS in India. It was a privilege to meet the teams in Guntur and Chilakaluripet, who are doing wonderful work. I got the chance to see both in and outpatients, and of course spent a lot of time pouring over charts. One of the highlights of the visit was a trip to a local fair with a group of children who are affected by HIV - they are either infected, or have (had) a parent with HIV. Like children all around the world, they were ecstatic playing carnival games, going on rides, eating junk food and in this case, watching a magic show. Here are some photos of the kids.

Sadly, while I was in Guntur, HAPPEN, the organization which provides support for the children and sponsored the trip to the fair, was informed that the Clinton foundation, their major donor, would not be continuing their support in the next fiscal year (due to "the downturn in the US economy"). Currently, the Clinton foundation is providing 30,000 rs/month, or about $600 which provides nutritional support and school fees for approximately 85 HIV affected children. If anyone out there in blog land has some pull with the Clinton foundation, could you ask them to reconsider?

The Indian Birthday

Leann celebrated her first Indian birthday on May 2nd. Following breakfast we went to the Ooty flower show in Chennai (Ooty is a hill station in the state of Tamil Nadu, where we live). The flower arrangements were fantastic as well as the veggie art work. Note the crocodile made from bitter gourd! Following the show we went treated Leann to a vegetarian South Indian food festival, where we all pigged out!!

All this was followed by a family get together with more food and cake, and lots of birthday singing. All in all a great day, and the start to another great year!