Sunrise

Discovering (re-discovering) the Alps

2010-06-28T03:12:00.001-07:00

The sun has come out in Switzerland and we have been taking advantage of it!

Below is Bargis, an hour hike away from Flims

Spring flowers cover the alps…

Frauenschuhe (Women’s shoes) a wild orchid in the forest around Flims.

Falera – a beautiful church where Anita’s brother was married…

Below is the view from the church in Falera…

The view from Anita’s summer cabin in the mountains…

Flimserstein and Flims. Anita’s house is really small on the bottom left.

Chur

Anita’s good friend Max flew out from LA and we had a blast seeing the Alps and Northern Italy…

Rare flower called “Narzisse” only found in a few regions of Switzerland. One of the regions is close to Flims.

Juf – the highest, in terms of elevation, populated village in Europe. Habitants roughly 19.

Anemonen flowers (Tal’s favorite)

Behind us in the picture below, one can see Roman tracks carved into the rock from when they crossed over the Alps…

Lake Como in Italy…

The streets of Italy along Lake Como were beautiful….

The sun came out half way through the day and we drove through the cities with Anita’s Italian music playing…

Locarno, Switzerland at the Lago Maggiore…

Valle Verzasca in southern Switzerland – the last time Anita was here was in 1979.

The dam leading into Valle Verzasca – where Golden Eye was filmed. Tal definitely wants to jump!

The Glacier Express

We took a tourist train through the alps that was really worth the cost. It has panoramic views as well as an audio guide that was very informative.

Tal had to take this shot…

We crossed Switzerland on “The Slowest Express Train in the World” and this was our first glimpse of the Matterhorn.

On the same day we took the train up to the Gornergrat, where we had one of the most amazing views of the alps. We can’t say it enough…Switzerland is incredibly beautiful.

On top of the Gornergrat with the Matterhorn in the background.

The beautiful and majestic Matterhorn.

Monte Rosa and the Dufourpeak along with their glaciers on the left. The Dufourpeak is the highest mountain in Switzerland.

The next day we took the train to Bern. On the way we stopped in Montreux on Lake Geneva.

Bern, the capital of Switzerland…the river Aare runs around it. It’s clean and one can get in and float around the city like those lazy river attractions at water resorts….

A bear is the symbol of the Canton of Bern and they keep a family of bears near the above river. Everyone in Switzerland is excited because the bear family recently gave birth to two new bear cubs (seen below)…

We got to visit the temple in Bern. The church members from Verona were there so we got to speak a lot of Italian….

Anita and I were really to find a string of 4 days with sunshine to see this beautiful country… And to our joy, the full moon also came out!

Munich

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Tal had a job interview in Munich the day after the French Open so we went straight to Munich from Paris…

The first thing Tal noticed in Munich was that the taxis are Mercedes! Tal enjoyed seeing the plethora of beautiful German-made cars.

Fraumuensterkirche in Munich

The Rathaus in Munich

The Hofbraeuhaus in Munich

This was the first time we have ever seen a stall like this in the bathroom and we had to take a picture. Yes, it is for those that have had a little too much to drink, and have to get it out…

A typical street in Munich…

We had some tasty traditional meals in Munich.

While Tal had his interview, Anita had the chance to take a tour of Munich to learn more about Hitler’s rise to power…

In 1920 the political party of the Nazis was officially founded in this room at the Hofbraeuhaus.

Below is one of the few Nazi buildings that was not destroyed by the bombs. It was the Nazi headquarters in Munich. The door on the second floor led to Hitler’s office. The building is now used as a Music Academy.

Odeon’s Platz. A lot of propaganda meetings by the Nazis took place here.

Germany is certainly not proud of this part of their past, but the importance of remembering these events and learning from them is important to all. So in 2011 the first Nazi Documentation Center will be built in Munich.

The French Open

2010-06-14T13:40:00.001-07:00

One of Tal’s life goals is to go to all four of the major professional tennis tournaments. The four majors are the US Open, Wimbledon, the French Open (also known as Roland Garros) and the Australian Open. This spring we had the chance to complete 75% of his goal by going to the French Open.

We took the TGV train, which is the bullet train of Europe, and got to Paris in a few hours. The picture below was taken when we were going over 200 miles per hour…

The first few days were spent seeing to some of Anita’s and my favorite places in Paris…

Sacre Coeur…

The Rodin Museum…

The Eiffel Tower

Tal’s little brother Noah and his wife Kristi arrived with their son Jacobson a day later. They too have the desire to see all four of the Opens. It was so fun to see them and although they had spent the night on the plane, they were excited to go out and see the sights…

Noah and Kristi did a good job of staying awake for most of the day. Little Jacobson, on the other hand, was asleep for most of the day…

Noah and Kristi sort of ran out of gas when we sat down in the subway. It was pretty funny because Tal asked Noah a question and he answered it completely coherently and then fell asleep within seconds…

We went to the Louvre…

Sainte Chapelle

Versailles…

Notre Dame…

Little Jacobson was so good the whole time! His routine was to eat, sleep, and cry a little when he wanted to eat again.

On Monday we went to Roland Garros…

Tal thought the poster for 2010 was a good fit for the French Open…

Anita was happy to see a Swiss player (Stefanie Voegele) give Serena Williams a run for her money (see below on the jumbo screen)…

We saw Andy Murray play a great five set match.

We actually got tickets into the players areas (long story) so we spent some time with the families of the players in the area below…

So happy to be there!

Next tennis trip… Melbourne.

Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore

2010-05-05T06:30:00.001-07:00

We stopped in Bangkok on our way to Vietnam and had just enough time to go downtown and have some great Thai food. Our hotel (that we had booked months ago) was within a few miles of where all of the political unrest is going on in Bangkok, so we stayed close to our hotel and had a very satisfying meal.

Our hotel room (from reward points) was much nicer than our Cambodia lodging. We enjoyed every minute…

Hanoi

Unfortunately our stay in Vietnam was very short, in fact, we only had a few days in Hanoi. Instead of trying to see it all, we decided to sit down at a street corner and watch people go by. Watching people and life going on around us brought Hanoi to us (see below).

We liked Hanoi very much. It has a very pleasant feel to it, with a mixture of French with Vietnamese, modern and traditional and a carefree approach to life versus the remains of burdened past.

We thought it would be a good idea to invest in a tailored suit for Tal.

Stage two of the fitting. He already looks nice in it. I (Tal) look huge in this picture…

The nice tailor didn’t even make Tal pay extra for all of the extra material (because of his height) and Tal was able to get him to throw in a free tie with the purchase.

While the suit was made, we went to Halong Bay to see some of the 3000+ limestone islands around Halong Bay…

We got to do some kayaking in the bay…

Were able to see a cave (sadly, it was along with about 100 other tourists)

At this point, we felt like we were more at Disney World than in Vietnam because there were so many boats and tourists around… but it was still beautiful.

Halong Bay turned quite romantic at night with all of the boat lights reflecting off of the water. It was relatively quiet with an occasional party boat doing karaoke.

The next day we went to a more remote part of Halong bay (which was nice to get away from all of our fellow tourists). We went on a bike ride to a nearby village on Cat Ba Island.

A little rain didn’t stop us…

We also went to Monkey Island which lived up to its name. This aggressive monkey accosted us (without getting close enough to hurt us) on our trail which made us turn back to the beach pretty fast.

The beach was nice though…

The boat ride back the next morning was a favorite part of the trip because the water was placid and the birds were chirping on all of the cliffs as we floated past. Truly beautiful…

We had a great time with our fellow passengers. We especially enjoyed the company of a family from Canada and look forward to keeping in touch with them. We also had a nice chat with a French family and an Australian couple.

The suit was finished when we got back to Hanoi and we packed for Singapore.

In Singapore, we decided to go to the highly recommended Botanical Gardens. It was a perfect place to spend a few hours before we boarded the plane for Switzerland.

Red Bamboo? Who Knew?

Wow, Singapore is clean and organized. We think it was a good preparation for Switzerland. Yes, we were careful to not jaywalk and yes, we ate some crackers on the subway only to find out that we could have been fined over $500 for doing that! To put it mildly, Singapore is serious about cleanliness and order.

Here are all of the options for throwing something away…

Then clean metro system…

On to Switzerland. It was so great to see the snow-capped Alps from the plane…

We arrived in Zurich to a beautiful spring day. The leaves had just come out and it was about 75 degrees…

We spent a few days at Anita’s brother’s place. He and his wife took such good care of us and it was really fun for me [Tal] to get to know them and their children.

Eating the wonderful food has been one of my [Tal’s] favorite things about being in Switzerland… I really missed salads, lasagna and tomatoes with mozzarella cheese while traveling.

We went into Zurich for a day…

Burger!

I [Tal] got to see where Anita used to live, work, study etc.…

On to Flims… On the way to Anita’s childhood home, we were telling her parents about how we had missed the snow while traveling… We didn’t have to wait long to see it because the next morning, May 3rd, we got some…

The view from Anita’s room…

Flims Dorf

It is fun to see how happy Anita is to be back home. The below picture, she is looking out the window of her childhood room…

We’ve spent the last few days resting, eating lovely Swiss food, and catching up with Anita’s parents in their home in Flims. Anita went through her old room and we found some true treasures from her childhood while Tal started his European job hunt.

Below Anita is not just holding a purchased US flag - she painted it herself when she was about 13.

And she found her old glasses… now these are a real treasure!

Ski passes going back all the way to 1981. As you can see, the same hat was a favorite for years! If you look hard, you can see the the same red rimmed glasses on the bottom pass.

Malaysia and Cambodia

2010-05-05T05:56:00.001-07:00

Between India and going home, we decided to see a few more places. We started with a layover of a day in Kuala Lumpur to see the sights. It was quite a change from India, as we were stepping back into western culture again. We were sort of shocked to see the Prada and Gucci stores and to be honest, we were not quite ready for it. It was interesting for us to notice how much India and its culture and customs had changed us during the past 4 months. We were not too happy to be bombarded by all the commercialism and materialism again.

The climate, however, was really pleasant and it reminded us of a combination of Hawaii, Southern California, Florida, and Cape Town. It was still hot, but not nearly has hot as India had been.

Of course, we had to see the KL Towers…

These massive structures are quite impressive from close up…

The fellow we asked to take a picture got the following shot…

This shot is for Eli. He has one that is similar…

We enjoyed some local food…

We also liked to see how people eat “family style” in Malaysia. We enjoyed some really good noodles from this same restaurant.

Cambodia – Siem Reap

Then our next stop was Cambodia. We only had a few days so we focused on the two main places – Angkor Wat (near Siem Reap) and Phnom Penh.
The temples of Angkor Wat truly live up to the hype. We can now see why they are considered one of the seven man-made wonders of the world. We were struck by the lure of this very powerful ancient empire. It reached its peak in the 10th and 11th centuries when nearly 1 million people lived in the Angkor area. There were so many temple sites in the Angkor area that we couldn’t see them all in 2 days, but here are some of the highlights…

Angkor Wat:

Angkor Wat is considered the biggest religious complex in the world…

Impressive bas reliefs surround the temple with pictures depicting war stories. Angkor Wat has both Hindu (from its early history) and Buddhist (from its later history) influences.

I [Anita] tried to pull an “Eva” right here and catch the lighting in just the right way. I know I don’t get near to Eva’s talent, but I can be inspired by her, right?

This is Taol, our Tuk Tuk driver, who drove us around Siem Reap for two days. He was a funny guy who would drop us off at a temple that should take about 1 hour to see and would say, “see you tomorrow” as a joke…

We had our best meal in Cambodia at this place right in front of Angkor Wat. Fish curry in a coconut. I [Tal] had the BEST coconut juice of my life at this place as well. It tasted like a bit of heaven and this type of fresh, cold coconut juice is now my favorite drink.

One more look at Angkor Wat…

Bayon Temple

Because of the color contrast, Anita loves getting pictures of Buddhist Monks in their orange robes. Whenever a monk was within picture range, she would get our her camera and try to sneak in a few shots. I’ve got to say, they do add to the aesthetics of the shot.

This temple had 36 towers with large smiling faces. Walking amongst those faces made us happy!

This temple was one of our favorites. The forest had grown over the whole area. The movie Tomb Raider was filmed here…

Below are some really beautiful carvings done at one of the temples. It is assumed that women have carved the images and writings in the following pictures, as they are extremely delicate.

A Cambodian lady that we met outside the temple. She gave us an idea of what life is like in Cambodia.

Anita snuck this shot in…

Phnom Penh

Visiting Phnom Penh’s historical sights was difficult in very much the same way it was difficult to go to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. The atrocities that happened here in the mid to late 1970s were very difficult to see and it was nearly impossible to comprehend that kind of cruel, brutal behavior. We first visited the “Killing Fields” where some 30’000 people were killed under the Khmer Rouge regime. Sadly, that is only a portion of all the people killed under Pol Pot’s regime; it is believed that around 2 million Cambodians were brutally tortured and killed during a period of less than three years. It was all done in an effort to “ethnically cleanse” the people of Cambodia. It was almost too much for us to read and see that men, small children and innocent women were brutally murdered and thrown into mass graves - and it was so recent! The regime set up incredibly strict rules within the country so they could control the people and give them no sense of belonging other than the regime. There was a poem written after this genocide that helps understand the the conditions the Cambodians had to endure during that time. Here are some parts of that poem:

No education. No training. No school. No learning. No books. No library. No science. No technology. No pens. No paper.

No currency. No bartering. No buying. No selling. No begging. No giving. No purses. No wallets.

No human rights. No liberty. No courts. No judges. No laws. No attorneys.

No kites. No marbles. No rubber bands. No cookies. No popsicle. No candy. No playing. No toys. No lullabies. No rest. No vacation. No holidays. No weekends. No games. No sports. No staying up late. No newspapers.

No radio. No TV. No drawing. No painting. No pets. No pictures. No electricity. No lamp oil. No clocks. No watches.

No hope. No life. A third of the people did not survive. The regime died.

-Sarith Pou from the book Corpse Watching

Below is the recently built pagoda to remember the people killed and tortured at the Killing Fields.

It is full of the remains of the victims of the Khmer Rouge regime.

The photos of the victims were especially hard to see. Their faces say so much…

To brighten things up a bit, our first night in Phnom Penh we randomly sat next to a lovely Cambodian couple at a local restaurant. We found out that they were getting married on May 8th and had only known each other for one week! We still wonder if we heard incorrectly because they seemed so comfortable around each other.

It was beautiful to see two well educated people (he was born in 1979, which was the end of the Khmer Rouge era) and that they are a good example of the Cambodian people rising up after such a sad era of their history.

After dinner this couple took us to a Buddhist Temple where we all gave flowers and incense to the Buddha. It was a really fun night.

Last days at Rising Star Outreach

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We were happy to see that the Star Program turned out to be a success! It helped teach the children ownership as well as improve their behavior at school and at the hostel. Below is the line outside the Star Store on a regular opening day. The children are lined up based on their earned stars. The ones with the most stars earned for the week can enter the store first.

This is shortly before opening the store and the little ones are really excited.

These children have worked hard for their purchases at the Star Store and we think it is easy to see the excitement and satisfaction in their eyes as they earned their very own item in the store…
Below is Nagaraj with his new small soccer ball.

And here is Jennifer with her new bracelet. She was a real success. In the beginning of the program she got 0 stars for the entire week. By week five she was up to the maximum of 7 stars. For those of you who do not remember, the children are given one star per day for completing certain tasks and behave well. If they do not, they don’t earn a star. So Jennifer went from not behaving to behaving very well in a matter of weeks.

Amirtham with some beauty products.

Vimal Kanth is one of the kindest and most polite people at RSO. For example when we asked him “how are you?” he would answer “Fine. Thank you for asking”. How adorable is that!

Papitha got a gift for one of her relatives.

Some of the top performers in the Star Program decided to buy the most expensive item in the store – a field trip to a nearby town for Parothas (a popular local food) and a shopping allowance of 75 Rupees. Below is the group of 10 that saved up 40 stars for this trip….

From left to right: Rajesh, Rahamath, Krishnamoorthy, Logeshwari, Karpagavalli, Priya, Malavika, Tal, Sujatha, Vijayalaskhmi, Anita, Pasitha.

We had an absolute blast! The boys went with Tal and looked at things like toys and video games, while the girls shopped with Anita and Kristen for necklaces, greetings cards, and other girl things…

Below are Logeshwari, Priya and Karpagavalli with their newly acquired birthday cards for their uncles.

Krishnamoorthy and Rajesh shopping for the coolest guy’s stuff.

And below is Kristen with Sujatha, Malavika, Viajayalakshmi, and Rahamath. (counterclockwise)

Here are the girls and Anita looking for bangles and necklaces. We ended up getting matching necklaces we all wore at the Annual Day.

After a very gratifying shopping experience with these wonderful children, we all went to a popular restaurant and had Parothas… Below again are Sujatha, Vijayalakshmi, Malavika and Rahamath.

Anita, Karpagavalli, Priya, and Logeshwari.

We all had fun showing our purchases…

On the last week of the Star Store, Anita and I asked the top three performers in the Star Program to help manage the store. They were so happy to help and did a great job and will actually continue running the store now that we are returning home.

Cole Hendershot (the son of the Directors) took over as he banker and loves his new responsibility. We were thrilled that he would be willing to help us carry this program on when the children get back from their summer break. Poor Cole did not realize that being the banker in the Star Store is utterly exhausting as 150 children want your immediate attention and keep asking how much they have to spend etc. But he and Krishnamoorthy (who will assist him in the future) will do a great job, once they are used to it all.

Becky Douglas, the President of RSO, came to visit for a week. She loved the Star Program and wanted to make sure it stays as a program at RSO for years to come. That news made us really happy because we didn’t want to see something that we had put so much work into just fall apart when we leave. Sarah Hendershot (Director at RSO) has taken on the management of the Star Program and the Star Store which we are really excited about.

On the 17th of April all of the parents were bussed into RSO to pick up their children. The children had prepared a program for “Annual Day” which included dances, skits, a magic show, and a keynote address. Anita and I had the chance to teach the 2nd graders the “Wide Mouth Frog” skit, which they performed rather well. For those of you familiar with this skit, you know how fun it is and the kids did such a great job being different animals etc. (For those of you who do not know the skit, have Tal tell it to you when you see him next. It is worth the wait!!)

Here are a few pictures from Annual Day…

Below is Eswari with her father. Eswari, like most of the children, had been talking for days about going home. This was a happy moment for everyone.

The Kindergarten children performing a dance. It does not get much cuter.

The “boys” doing a dance.

The teachers and housemothers looking on. We will miss these ladies a lot.

And yes we look gigantic next to Meera, one of the cleaning ladies. We loved her as she had some real spunk.

And this marks the end of our experience at RSO. We will miss the children and the staff and will look back on it with fond memories.

Ownership Star Program and Holi - Festival of Colors

2010-03-30T01:41:00.001-07:00

As stated in a previous blog post, we have been given the responsibility of helping the 160 children at Rising Star to feel responsibility and ownership of their things, their lives, and their futures.

Because the children live on Rising Star’s campus during the school year, they are split into groups of 20-25 and have a full time “housemother” or “housefather” that acts as their parents away from home. The children are able to see their parents once a month on “Parents Day” and they also spend their holidays with their families in the leprosy colonies.

To fulfill these responsibilities, we launched the “Ownership/Star Program”, modeled after the Eyre family program that Tal was involved in when he was young. This program gives the children the chance to earn a star a day for doing four household duties in the morning and four more duties in the evening. These duties include getting up on time, finishing homework, washing clothes, brushing teeth and obeying their housemother/housefather.

The children have learned that they must behave in order to get a star at the end of the day. As they accumulate stars, they can eventually purchase items in the Star Store that is open once a week.

We set it up so that the children learn to earn their own things instead of getting free handouts. As it is with most of us, when we get anything for free, we don’t value it as much as the things we have worked for.

In the short time that we have been here, the children have shown us that they can improve their behavior during the day, accumulate stars, make purchases, and then take care of their purchases. It is something wonderful to see.

Below, Tal’s little sister Charity (on the left) and her friend Dani are helping to make the Star Program posters for each room in the children’s hostel. These posters list the duties the children have to accomplish in the morning and evening in order to earn a star. The housemothers/father helped us with what these duties should consist of for each age group. In order to target each age group the duties vary slightly. Putting these posters together was a lot of work and we really appreciated Charity, Dani, and Sara’s work (and beautiful hand writing).

After the posters were completed, we placed them in each room where the kids would see what they needed to do daily in order to earn a star…

Charity then helped us make the first Star Banks. The Star Bank comes into place at the end of the week when the children deposit their star earnings for the week. The banker (currently us) collects the cards and adds the points up for display at the Star Store.
This was fun to do with Charity because this whole system is modeled after the Eyre family economy/ownership system that also used cards or “slips” of paper that were deposited into a family “bank”.

Sadly, Charity, Dani and Sara had to get back to the US, so we carried on our work without them. They are still talked about around here as some of the best volunteers at Rising Star…

So, after the first week of the program, we went around to the different rooms of the hostel and helped the children deposit their cards into the Star Bank. This was a great teaching moment because we were able to congratulate each child and ask them what they can do next week to get more stars. The children have loved the whole system of earning stars and and are constantly telling us, with pride, how many stars they have earned during the week.

The Star Store got its current inventory mostly from Sarah’s mother, Janet or “Mimi” (on the right) who brought a ton of toys to Rising Star during her visit a few weeks ago. She was nice enough to donate them all to the store so that the kids could earn them in stead of getting free hand-outs. This is fantastic because up until now the children would get all these items for free from all the visitors without appreciating their value or really taking care of them.

We set up the store with labeled index cards that tell the children how many stars each item costs. Below you can see mostly school supplies or coloring items.

Kristen, a fellow volunteer, helped us open the store and in the below picture she is showing the very popular “magic wand” which costs 10 stars. As you can see, the children are very attentive. Anita is the strict cashier and had to block the children from possibly entering the store on their own (see below). Once the children have selected an item for purchase, they need to pass by the cashier where their spending is noted.

It is so fun to see the expressions on the children’s faces when they look at the items in the store…

Below is a princess suitcase that is a big hit with the girls. It is one of the most expensive items, so many girls are proudly saving stars for it. As you can see Tal, once a salesman always a salesman, is doing an amazing job getting the children excited about different items. Also, take a look at Anita’s stern arm (lower left side) keeping the kids out of the store area.

As part of the process, the children are learning how to “spend or save” and it is so interesting to see their thought processes. The big ticket items are either a really nice toy or a trip to eat ice cream in a nearby village. The biggest item is a trip to Chengelput, a town about 45 minutes away, to eat out at a restaurant and do some light shopping. This kind of treatment is a first at Rising Star and you will see on the picture below that some of the boys are curbing their immediate desire to save for a more expensive item.

It is exciting to see how they are learning the concept of immediate or delayed gratification and its consequences. We can see that these current experiences will help them later on in life with real money.

Holi – the Festival of Colors

On the first of March, Rising Star Outreach, as the rest of India, celebrated Holi. It was a day that will be remembered by all…Before we go into the details, we want to share a little background on Holi that we found on Wikipedia.

“Holi, also called the Festival of Colors, is a spring festival celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and others. It is primarily observed in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and countries with large Indian diaspora populations, such as Suriname, Guyana, South Africa, Trinidad, UK, USA, Mauritius, and Fiji.

The main day, Holi, is celebrated by people throwing colored powder and colored water at each other. Bonfires are lit the day before in memory of the miraculous escape that young Prahlad accomplished when demoness Holika carried him into the fire. Holika was burnt, but Prahlad escaped without any injuries due to his unshakable devotion to the god Vishnu. Vishnu is the one of the supreme gods in the Hindu faith and is known as the preserver of good. This story then signifies the triumph of good over evil, and the death of Holika is celebrated as Holi. Holi is celebrated at the end of the winter season on the last full moon day of the lunar month Phalguna (February/March).”

So we got all of the children that wanted to participate onto the field and started giving them small amounts of paint powder… things soon got crazy…

I think Tal is telling a little guy (rather firmly) that he can’t take the paint from Tal’s pocket and that he needs to wait for his turn.

They all wanted as much paint as they could get their hands on… All Anita remembers hearing is “Auntie! Auntie!” and lots of cute little hands coming her direction. We had to make sure that the little kids got their turn as well, since their hands could not reach as high.

The kids had so much fun!

Fun was had by all…

We made it back to the Volunteer Hostel in one piece! It took two washings (clothes and us) to get all the paint off. And we were only handing out the paint! Okay, we may have thrown a little… and received a little…

Many more stories to be shared in the future!

Sponsor a Child at Rising Star Outreach

2010-02-28T07:42:00.001-08:00

We have now been at RSO for four weeks and have loved getting to know the children. As you have seen from our previous pictures, they have bright smiles, radiant personalities and sparkly eyes that make our hearts melt.
The other morning we had little Archana come up to Anita while we were eating breakfast. (See below)

Archana was starved for affection and hugged Anita for about 15 minutes. It reminded us of the effects of leprosy and how, for so many generations, leprosy affected people were shunned by society both physically and emotionally. Additional effects of this segregation were, and still are, poverty and low education. As a result of Rising Star Outreach, this stigma is changing for some of these leprosy affected children in India. Here, the children are not only loved and cared for, but are also becoming well educated and responsible which helps them to be able to break this cycle of leprosy. But, as with most non-profit organizations, without the help of people like you and me, Rising Star Outreach would not be able to provide all the education, housing, food, love and care to the 150 children that currently are under their jurisdiction.

We have decided to write this blog post about how you, our friends and family, can help a child here at RSO. If you are looking to give to a charity, there are of course many options worldwide, but we thought that our first hand experience here at RSO would give you some confidence that your money is going to the right place.

Rising Star’s sponsorship program makes it easy for you to make an impact. To see how it works, take a look at the RSO web site under “sponsor a child”, http://www.risingstaroutreach.org/sac There, you can see short bios of each child that is in need of a sponsor and then choose which child you would like to sponsor. The bios are fun to read and the current Sponsorship Program Director (Kristen, our neighbor at the Volunteer Hostel) does an excellent job. She is a natural with the children and the children love her. She knows each child personally and has written some great bios that really capture their personalities.

The cost to sponsor a child is minimal. It’s $30 per month/child and it covers all expenses from education, to food, to housing, to transportation, to supplies, etc. of that particular child.

The great thing about sponsoring a child here at RSO is that you will have a personal relationship with one of these children. The children are asked to write one letter every quarter to their sponsors while, you, the sponsor, can write whenever you please. This can be as rewarding for those that sponsor as it is for the children that receive the donation.

You can decide on the length of your sponsorship. The donation occurs on a monthly basis, but the ideal length of a sponsorship is a year or more. That way you can truly make an impact on their lives. You may like the program enough that you continue your support of the child you sponsor until he or she graduates RSO (around the age of 18).

Here are some recent pictures of the children at RSO…

Below is a picture of Rosemary, Tamil Selvi, and Ramya

Below is Ramya on the left and Sathya on the right

Sathya, the taller girl, LOVES Tal because he teaches her to play basketball. Little Rosemary is also hanging out with Tal.

The guy in blue Jazz jersey, Sathish, is the oldest on campus. He is a responsible young man and has a nice jump shot.

Below are the three Anita’s here at RSO. I don’t know how many times I have heard in India “Your name Anita? Anita Indian name!!” I am happy to know that wherever I travel, Anita is a common name of that particular country.

The two trouble makers at school. On the left is Moorthy and on the right Kanmani. But they are so cute you would never believe it.

Mymonisha, seen below, is always eager to chat with us.

Christraj loves the phone!

Let us know if you have any questions regarding the sponsorship program. Don’t feel pressured in any way, but if you have been looking to donate some money to a charity, we thought RSO may be what you are looking for.

Let us know if you do decide to sponsor because we would love to keep you updated from our perspective.

Anita’s Birthday

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And I swore that this blog would never be about “me”, but rather about the experiences we are having on our adventures. So with a title like this you may wonder if we will start deviating from what we set out to do – to inform you of our travel/volunteer work.

BUT….these children here at RSO are so cute that this entry is almost a must. And to be fair, Tal suggested this blog entry. So…on Wednesday I turned one year older and as many of my friends predicted, this birthday will be one of the most memorable.

The excitement started on Monday as cute little Mariami (see picture below) came up to me, with a beaming face, saying. “U birthday on Wednesday?” and followed by “me too!!” and then an even bigger smile that reflected her deep joy.

On Wednesday she came running up to me first thing in the morning and all the children gathered around us. I look a little funny, but you can’t get much cuter than little Mariami. Also, I was handed two bouquets of paper flowers (see below).

Then another highlight of the day was that the RSO cook Padmini was making Dhosas for breakfast – one of my very favorite Southern Indian specialties.

They are so good, that they deserved a picture. Dhosa is the crepe looking piece, with a potato filling and the coconut chutney on the side.

The rest of the day was filled with teaching four classes, which all turned out pretty great. The children kept pointing out to me that it was my birthday, which was very cute.

For the later afternoon the volunteers and directors had the grandiose idea to head to town to get some ice cream as a treat. Ice cream is hard to come by in India and so we were all very excited. Here we are waiting to leave, spending again time with cute Mariami and her friends.

It’s hard to top a birthday where 100 children with deep brown eyes, fantastic smiles and a heart of gold congratulate you!! I will never forget it.

But of course this birthday would not have been half as special without Tal. He was so good to me all day and surprised me at night with a copy of the Hindu “scripture” called Gita, which I have really been wanting to read. And we had a memorable time up on the roof of our volunteer hostel, under a sky of brilliant stars (cheesy, I know, but very special and beautiful).

And yes it was Tal’s birthday last week also and we had a great day together as well. But he is truer to our blog mission and does not want to have it documented.

Teaching experiences

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We had quite a good time teaching the 1st graders about responsibility today. We used an old Joy School (Joy School is a pre-school that Tal’s parents invented) idea/teaching called “Gunny Bag”. Gunny bag will eat anything that is left on the floor or is out of its place. We will never forget all of the 1st graders scrambling around to clean up the classroom before Gunny bag ate it all. It was really fun!

Below is Tal with the 1st graders after the hour of Gunny bag. I (Anita) will never forget these children run around in sheer excitement cleaning up their classroom, as Gunny Bag (Tal) was roaming the room growling hoping to eat anything that was on the floor. One girl, whose name happened to be Anita, was so excited, and scared at the same time of the Gunny Bag, that she was scurrying around with her arms stretched out and her big brown eyes and an even brighter smile. A moment I will hopefully never forget.

It is such a great experience to teach these classes together. Something we may never get a chance to do again. This was week one….with many more stories to come in the coming weeks.

Our responsibilities at RSO

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Our main responsibility over the next two and a half months at RSO (Rising Star Outreach) is to help teach responsibility and ownership to the 180 children at the school. One of the biggest problems here at RSO is that the kids receive things and do not take care of them… so our task is to plant ownership and responsibility in their minds. We have already found that this will be no small task. It involves changing the way the teachers, staff, and children think about their things, their lives, and their futures.

We are currently interviewing and observing housemothers (the caretakers while the kids are in the dorms) and the teachers in order to implement a simple “Ownership Stars” program. We will model it after Tal’s parents “family economy” system that taught ownership to his family as he grew up. The program will allow the children to earn a star a day by correctly performing tasks throughout the day. Some examples of the tasks are: getting to school on time, having good behavior in class,, doing homework, and getting to bed on time.

These stars will accumulate in each child’s individual “Star Bank” account. The children will be able to save their stars, with incentives for saving, or spend their stars to buy school supplies, computer time, shoes, and even a trip down the road to get some ice cream.

Our other responsibility is to teach the “Moral Science” class to each grade level (Kindergarden to 8th grade) every week. This teaching started this week and most of the classes went… okay. The third graders were very difficult while the 5th and Kindergarten classes were quite good. We are teaching them about ownership and responsibility in these classes, which ties in nicely to our “Ownership Stars” program.

Here are some pictures from our past week at RSO…

RSO had a “Sports Day” on Saturday (in honor of Tal’s birthday…ok not true, but fun anyway) and it went really well. Many of the leprosy affected parents came from surrounding colonies to see their children compete in the 100, 200 and 400 meter races…

The opening ceremonies were intense. They included a very focused, military style march with steps synchronized to the sound of a large drum.

A torch was even lit…

The races were quite competitive…

We have found that being a teacher is really hard work! We were exhausted after the first three classes. Here is Anita giving some instruction…

All of the children now call her “Auntie Anita”.

This is the Kindergarden class. Luckily we get the help of the regular teachers Kala and Shama, who translate for us every now and then, as the children do not understand everything we say in English. And our Tamil is pretty much non-existent.

Lunch… This is a typical scene as the boys gravitate to Tal and the girls to me.

Walking to Lunch…

We took some time one morning to visit a local bird refuge and we had never seen so many large birds in one place! To be honest, we thought it was beautiful but a bit overwhelming…

My dad was quite intrigued by the birds and we liked his observations. He thought that storks and pelicans were named well… they really fit the look and sound of their given names. He also observed, “storks are clumsy on the ground, but are quite the opposite in the air”…

Anita was slightly overwhelmed by the masses of birds so she took some time to walk to the edge of the refuge to see the quiet rice fields…

Not a bad idea by Anita because those rice fields were beautiful…

This was our beautiful pathway at the bird refuge… rice fields on the right, masses of large birds on the left…

In the meantime, my mom could not get a good picture of a monkey. She must have tried 10 times, but the monkey would jump back on the roof before she could get a good shot! We thought it was pretty funny.

It was so much fun to have my parents here for the past few weeks. They were able to really help RSO with some some great ideas, books and teachings. We loved having them around!

Rising Star Outreach

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Rising Star Outreach (RSO) focuses on a variety of areas, but, from our observations thus far, everything revolves around the 180 children that are cared for at RSO and attend the Peery Matriculation School. Most of these children come from leprosy affected parents and have been given the chance to come to RSO and attend this school to break the cycle of poverty and begging that their families and ancestors have had to live with.

Just as an FYI here are some facts on leprosy:
- Leprosy is an ancient deforming disease caused by a bacteria and exists to this day in many parts of the world.
- It is commonly believed that any exposure to leprosy affected people can cause transmission. This is not true because the overwhelming majority of people are not susceptible to leprosy and will not develop the disease even after extended exposure. Much is being done worldwide to educate the general public on this fallacy.
- A multi-drug treatment, which stops but does not cure leprosy, has been introduced over the past three decades. This development has not eliminated leprosy, but has drastically reduced the effects of the disease.
- For more information on leprosy in India please visit:
http://www.risingstaroutreach.org/understandingleprosy

In the below picture Anita is with Nary and Agnas Mary, two of the many adorable girls at RSO. These children, boys and girls alike, are the highlight of our day. We cannot resist their beautiful dark brown eyes and their most amazing smiles. There is happiness written all over their faces, even though their lives outside of RSO do not always reflect that. We feel immensely loved by them and enjoy being in their company.

Below is Tal’s mother in front of the children's dorms.

A regular dinner scene. These little boys eat twice as much as we do and you would never be able to tell.

Below is the daily morning assembly, which is held at the school. The wing on the right is completed and RSO is building another wing on the left.

This is a math class that we were able to attend and observe from the back row…

Linda teaching a class to the 1st graders. Don’t they look so well behaved? That can be very deceiving and we have increased respect for any teacher that can discipline and teach any group of children.

Tal’s parents taught a class while they were here for a week… The children loved Rick telling them stories about animals and their behaviors. I (Anita) was spellbound as well.

Below Rick performs his hugely popular “take off the thumb” trick…

A beautiful computer lab…

This is a common view that we often see as we go running in the morning…

There are two families that direct the work at RSO. They live on campus with the kids and teachers. We have really enjoyed being around both of them and are so inspired by the sense of adventure and just taking off and living in India with their families.

…

In order to keep with Indian custom, Anita gets to wear this cool outfit called a Salwar. It is mandatory for all women at RSO to wear either a Salwar or a Sari and Anita isn’t complaining because it is comfortable and cool.

This will be our home for the next few months. We were blown away by how nice our accommodations are. The volunteer house was completed in December of last year so we are among the first occupants!

It was so nice to walk into a very clean volunteer Hostel, which has to be some of the best accommodations in the volunteer world.

We went to a leprosy colony last week and here are some pictures from what we experienced…

The streets were paved and every house had been donated by a Christian church. It is hard to explain the experience so we will just show you some of the pictures…

Dr. Kumar is a wonderful doctor that visits hundreds of Leprosy affected people every week. Fortunately, he had the help of two nurses for the past week which gave him time to explain each patient’s story.The stories were fascinating and inspiring. My mom documented some of the stories in her blog. If you would like to read more about our visit to this colony, please visit: http://eyrealm.blogspot.com/2010/02/incredible-feet-and-faces-of-leprosy.html

In our next blog we will tell you more about what our responsibilities are while here at RSO.

Picturesque Udaipur and Modern Mumbai

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We thought our visit to Udaipur was a perfect way to finish our tour of Rajasthan. It was warm, beautiful, and a perfect place to meet up with Tal’s parents.

Our hotel was near a place where many women would go to wash their clothes…

Below is a picture of The Lake Palace, a palace which has been turned into a 5 star hotel. It is the centerpiece of the city of Udaipur.

Below is the Udaipur City Palace. We had a fun time discovering the rich history of this city and how it fits into Rajasthan’s history…

The walls of a beautiful temple in Udaipur…

Yes, that is an old plastic bag next to that beautiful bird!

This was our hotel room…

We loved this hotel. It was our big treat at the end of our India travel (before heading to our next volunteer experience). For the past 8 weeks we had been staying at some rather questionable places and so this was such a special place for us. We commented every day about how much we liked the room.

Here’s our view from our room…

The biggest highlight of our stay in Udaipur was the arrival of Tal’s parents. They were such great company and they treated us to a whole different world of luxury than we had seen in India. Below you will see what we are talking about. The prices at this restaurant were many times as high as anything we had seen in our travels. One dinner for $25? We were used to $3 to $4!

Lots of girl talk, which was fun…the guys were off talking about basketball.

We got to do some shopping with my parents which was fun because they offered to take a few things home with them. The thought of carrying anything more in our backpacks was enough to help us not purchase anything until this point.

Mumbai
This is the famous Victoria Station in Mumbai. It was built by the British and the first train left from here in 1853. The outside is pretty grandiose, while the inside looked rather plain.

The promenade in Mumbai… it was interesting to see lovers showing affection since that is a huge taboo in most of India…

This picture below shows you the luxury we enjoyed thanks to Tal’s parents. There was a gym in the hotel and Anita went twice! The food was also superb and the whole experience was such a nice treat!

3 Idiots is Bollywood’s biggest hit in the last 10 years. We watched it in Hindi, since it has not come out with English subtitles yet. Tal and Linda made it through the 3 hours, while Rick and Anita left after 90 minutes.

Listing of the times movies are shown in this local theater in Mumbai. It was really cool, but honestly we don’t think they still use it.

My mom and I were the only ones that made it through the 3 hour movie so we got to spend some time together in the city after the flick. We laughed pretty hard about some of the dramatic dances and sound effects. We found a local restaurant that served great Thalis. Mom and I loved it!

We loved the sign in our restaurant and tried to heed to the very direct request…

This is Anita – While in Mumbai, we had the chance to accompany Tal’s parents at their Young Presidents Organization (YPO) event at a beautiful house next to the ocean. YPO is an organization for very successful young professionals under the age of 40. Tal’s parents have the privilege of addressing these young professionals all over the world on the topic of parenting. In fact, they just returned from a fascinating trip to Saudi Arabia and if you’d like to read more about their trip you can visit: http://eyrealm.blogspot.com/

Most of the YPO members are eager parents wanting the best for their children, but many are struggling with the materialistic world they find themselves in. In their speech, the Eyres gave these young parents great tools to help “un-spoil” their children and to help raise them to be independent, responsible adults. It was a treat for us to see Rick and Linda speak.

We pulled out our best outfits for the event. That was tricky because our backpacks only had some cargo pants and t-shirts. So our “best” meant wrinkled pants and a shirt. Thanks to Linda, Anita ended up looking somewhat dressed up. She let Anita use this really great shawl and a necklace – things Anita has not seen in months.

No, this wasn’t the only lady we talked with (there were about 60 people there) but we only took a few pictures. The people of the Mumbai YPO Chapter were so good to us and we had a great time getting to know them. The host of the evening (pictured in the red and black dress) is a jewelry designer. We wish you could see her earrings up close… all rubies and diamonds…

Rick and Linda in action…

On to Rising Star Outreach in Chennai…

Rajasthan – A feast for the eyes

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Our eyes are happy here in Rajasthan. After a long day of sight seeing and traveling through India's cities and towns, we close our eyes and they feel as if they have just feasted on thousands of aesthetically pleasing images.

As we rode to our hotel today, we zipped through crowded streets and on both sides of the auto rickshaw we could see so many scenes of people in every day life. Some of the things we saw were: cows, a barber shop, bright colored turbans, bright saris, shops selling only pots and pans, shops with candy, people deep frying all kinds of salty treats, dirty walls, paint shops, various craftsmen and women. By the time we got to our hotel, our eyes felt like they had just feasted on a delightful meal.

This same thing happens when we see expansive forts with such beautiful architecture and attention to detail in the carved stone.

Fatehpur Sikri

This fortified ancient city was the capital of the Mughal empire between 1571 and 1585. Akbar (Tal loves that name) was an eclectic, broad thinking, and tolerant Emperor who constructed this whole city because saint Shaikh Salim Chishti predicted that the heir to the Mughal throne would be born there; and his prediction came true. Akbar (again, Tal’s favorite current favorite word/name which he says spontaneously as we walk down the streets) built this impressive Mosque…

The entrance gate to the Mosque was breathtaking…

Below are some shots from Fatehpur Sikri’s palaces and pavilions….

Jaipur

We were in Jaipur for their annual Kite Festival which was fun to see. There were literally thousands of kites flown by very excited children and then there was an impressive firework show after dark…

This crazy city is packed with cars, buses, auto-rickshaws, cows, and an occasional elephant. We found some great food in Jaipur, but our favorite two places in this crazy city were the City Palace and the Amber Fort.

The City Palace…

Amber Fort…

There were so many fun hallways to explore and it was all open to the public!

Jaisalmer

A city made rich by its location along the trading route across the desert of India, this whole city was built by the local sandstone and had incredible carved buildings everywhere.

A Jain Temple…

Our hotel used the sandstone and light really well. We were happy with it…

Jodhpur

You will see many houses that are painted blue in the next set of pictures. For those that are curious, there are four reasons that many of the houses are blue:

1. To distinguish who is from the Brahmin caste: If the house is blue, that meant that the house anciently belonged to the Brahmin people. The Brahmins found it vexing to have the warrior class caste drink alcohol and invade their homes so all of the Brahmins came together and decided to paint their houses blue, which meant that the other castes were not allowed to enter.

2. The blue is famous for handicraft work: because the sun shines off the blue and makes the workspace bright, which makes the fine work easier to see.

3. The limestone in the blue paint keeps the mosquitoes away.

4. It’s cheap: the limestone and blue color is inexpensive and yearly painting is necessary.

This was our view from our hotel rooftop…

Our hotel…

A nice father and son from Sweden that we enjoyed a few meals with. It was fun to talk with them about various topics and compare notes on our travels.

Bundi

We liked this town because it was slower than other places and allowed us to walk around the markets and area without feeling like we will be run off the road.

The palace on the hill…

The sage cows…

We are excited to see Tal’s parents in Udaipur in the next few days and then go via Mumbai to Rising Star Outreach in Chennai. We start our humanitarian work at Rising Star on February 1st.

The Taj Mahal

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The craftsmanship, the dimensions, the symmetry of this building (and surrounding area) really, to us at least, made the Taj Mahal live up to all of the hype. Below was our first view of it as we walked through the gate.

As we looked at the beauty of the construction, we had differing thoughts. Tal thought it was quite a love story: Shah Jahan’s second wife dies in childbirth and in his agony, his hair went grey over night. He decides to build this memorial (the Taj Mahal) as her resting place.

Anita saw it differently. She thought that the building of the Taj Mahal was this emperors way of self-aggrandizement rather than showing his love for his diseased wife. So, according to her opinion, the Taj Mahal was more about him than his wife.
As for you, you can pick either side…

This 17th century masterpiece was constructed by around 3,000 stone masons and it took 24 years to build (from 1631 to 1653).

The picture below has a fun background, because I (Anita), as I was walking through the adjacent Mosque, found an open door that lead up to the roof of a side building. So I snuck up to to explore the area. I was really not supposed to be there, because I made it past a guard, who happened to be on his cell phone and did not notice me. When I made it up there, this was my view.

Tal hanging out with a local Muslim family.

The sun finally came out towards the end of our 4 hour stay… When we got there it was a miserable 4 degrees, Celsius that is, so we really appreciated these sun beams.

The details of the craftsmanship on the Taj Mahal are beautiful…

On both sides of the Taj Mahal are decorated with identical red sandstone buildings. One is a “Guest House”…

and one is a Mosque…

As you can see, because of the cold, Anita and I had about eight layers of clothing on in these pictures…

Delhi

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As we arrived in Delhi, we noticed three distinct differences from the south of India: 1) Delhi had a “city feel” and reminded us a little of NYC - people dressed differently, there is a subway, and the streets seemed a little cleaner and much wider than in the south. 2) The food had more taste. 3) It was much colder than we had anticipated! We were told by multiple news sources and our travel books that the average temperature was 70 degrees …

Nope! We were lucky if the high reached 50 degrees! On one day it was barely 36 degrees….

So we each put on two pairs of pants, every t-shirt we own, and one sweat shirt/fleece per person and tried to enjoy a few sights in Delhi.

At one point, Anita had 8-10 layers on and in her opinion she looked like a “stuffed chicken.” We only ended up seeing two sights because the cold was really unbearable. We saw the Ashkardam temple, which was unique experience in Indian culture… We were not allowed to take our cameras into the temple area, but here are a few bad pictures from the outside…

We also saw the Gandhi Smirtri, which was Gandhi’s home in New Delhi and where he spent the last 120 days of his life. It is also the place where he was shot to death by a Hindu extremist in 1948. The memorial was quite poignant and we are reading his autobiography, which made the visit even better.

Gandhi’s last steps… and the place he was shot is under the little pavilion…
And yes we are very much in love, but hugging this tightly was also one of the only ways to keep warm on one of the coldest days in Delhi this year.

I asked a lady to take my picture in front of the above place where Gandhi spent his last hours and I got the following picture of just me…

Love it when that happens!

It seemed that the whole city was under construction as Delhi is preparing for the Commonwealth games in about 6 months.

On to Agra and Rajasthan!

Alleppey

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Tourists from India and from around the world go to Alleppey to board a houseboat and cruise the laid back palm tree lined backwaters. Alleppey is said to be the Venice of the East, but because the New Year is a peak of the peak season, we decided to take a public ferry for 3 hours from Kottayam to Alleppey. The price difference was immense – 21 rupees A(about 50 cents) for both of us on the public ferry versus 12’000 rupees (about $240/night) on a house boat for about the same vistas. We were pretty happy to have beat the system especially when we saw (from the public ferry) that there was a house boat traffic jam.

Alleppey was not so great until we found a quiet guest house at the beach. We had a very relaxing four days, filled with reading, listening to the waves and enjoying new vegetarian dishes with morning runs on the beach. Here are some pictures.

The 21 rupee public ferry

The 12’000 rupee houseboat

The backwaters

Our fellow passengers

Our spot at the beach

On one of the days we watched a local basketball tournament. They loved that Tal was there – an American basketball player (and twice their size).

The score keepers…

And cricket players on the beach…

The next day we headed up to Delhi for a tour of Rajasthan.

New Year in Munnar

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To steal the words of our travel bible, the Lonely Planet, we could “hear the collective sigh” as we entered the mountain air of Munnar. We decided to round the year off the best way we could and set off on a 7 hour hike in the hills of Munnar. The views were absolutely breathtaking as you can see from the pictures below. We hiked around the many tea plantations of the region and loved to see the scenery. But what topped it off is that we could actually hear birds chirping versus cars incessantly honking.

This is the group we hiked with. A highlight of our trip has been to meet people from everywhere. Here we are with a couple from Sweden and a couple from Scotland.

Munnar is surrounded by tea plantations.

Even the cows drink tea here…ok not true, but they love the leaves.

Happy New Year!!!

Christmas Day in Kumily

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We had quite a memorable Christmas here in Southwestern India. It included a morning elephant ride…

followed by a traditional Keralan lunch with our rickshaw driver and his family. It is his business idea and we think it was a very good one. Anita was able to help prepare the food…

They use tons of oil. Below we fried cashew nuts and raisins followed by onions and carrots.

Our hosts – Sheril the rickshaw driver and his wife Asha.

Part of their cooking experience provided to foreigners is the BBQ in their front yard.

Their 2 year old son is the joy of their lives.

While we waited for the final product, we were shown their wedding album…

The final product was beef biryani, to us a great Christmas feast.

Later on in the day we each had a “full body massage” that left us both laughing pretty hard and we had our funny stories to share after the fact. At one point the guy giving me (Tal) a massage told me that he practices martial arts. Shortly after this comment he started hitting my head so hard that I could literally feel the fillings in my teeth start to loosen! Let’s just say that it wasn’t a relaxing massage for either of us, but it sure made us laugh!

We then found a cyber cafe that allowed us to read Christmas cards and send some Christmas wishes. We were also able to skype with Anita’s parents which was so fun because they just installed Skype along with a new web cam. It was also nice to see the white Swiss mountains outside and to see their cat Diana.

We then had our own little gift exchange which finished the day well.

Merry Christmas to all of you! Thanks for keeping up on our lives and we wish you a happy new year!

Spices and Black Tea Production in Southwestern India

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So today is Christmas Eve and we are far removed from the usual Christmas frenzy, which is quite nice, though we miss our families and the usual festivities at home. It is so nice to not be bombarded with Christmas songs, the materialistic aspect of Christmas, the pre-holiday stress and the Christmas trees/Santa Clauses everywhere. (Sorry, I guess that’s only how I feel, because as I write this Tal is listening to Christmas songs from the soundtrack of the movie “Elf” on his ipod).
In order to “spice” up our Christmas (meaning Christmas Eve and Christmas day), we have placed the following on our agenda: visits to the spice garden and a tea plantation, an elephant ride, a home cooked Indian meal and a typical Indian massage. Maybe we should make it a tradition!

Today (the 24th) was a very informative day and we wanted to share what we learned. We first visited a spice garden where we got to see, touch, and taste spices that we usually only know from a glass container or a can at the local supermarket. Our guide was amused by our ignorance of recognizing these very common spices in their natural environment, but was happy to share with us both the name and use of each herb/spice.

First – pepper. After years of knowing pepper only as a basic on the spice rack, seeing how it actually grows was very enlightening and exciting to me.
These bush-like pepper plants, as seen below, do not stand on their own, but rather find a tree to wrap themselves around in order to gain height and spread out.

The pepper kernels grow in a string/cluster form (see below). One can easily taste the pepper by chewing one of these kernels.

The following is a vanilla bean. We have now learned of two ways that one can extract vanilla flavor. We were told last year during an orchid exhibit at the Bronx Botanical Garden in NYC, that vanilla is extracted from a specific orchid. The guide here in Kerala was unfamiliar with any other type of vanilla plant outside of the bean seen below.

The next spice is taken from the bark of this tree. It can be tasted when chewing the bark, but it is a very faint taste and so it was hard for us to guess. It is cinnamon.

For everyone who has never seen how pineapples grow, this next picture is hopefully as exciting as it was to me the first time around. This is not the first time I have seen it, but it still gets me excited. Perhaps because I enjoy pineapples so much or perhaps because the plant seems so quaint.

At the same time, the pineapple plant somehow appears to me as if it should be poisonous. Perhaps I feel like this because it reminds me of a very poisonous berry in Switzerland that looks equally as inviting, but is in fact deadly. (Mami, Du waisch wellas, gell!) Luckily pineapples are not and they are particularly delicious here.

Guess what this is…

It is coffee beans laid out to dry before they get roasted. The best coffee in India, the Arcadia, gets exported all over the world. Coffee consumption is getting more popular in India, especially in the northern cities like Delhi, but in most parts of the county, tea is still the preferred beverage.

For all chocolate lovers, the following picture shows a cacao plant. When the fruit turns yellow (as seen below) it is ready for harvesting. Inside the fruit are many beans that are dried and roasted to produce the chocolate so many of us love.

And now on to a non-spice tree, the rubber tree. In order to extract the rubber from the bark, the bark is cut with a knife. The trick to this is to not cut too deeply into the tree, because once the wood of the tree is touched, the bark will no longer yield any rubber. So it has to be handled very carefully. The cutting can only take place between the cooler hours of 5–7:30 am, after which the bark will no longer discharge any rubber (due to the rise of temperature).

The picture below shows how the rubber gets collected in a little container as it runs along the cut in the bark.

This is all from the spice garden. From there we went to one of the many tea plantations here in Kerala.

BLACK TEA PRODUCTION

First a few facts:
- tea is mostly harvested in the south and northeast of India
- tea consumption in India in 2008 was 701g/person, which means about 2 cups of tea a day per person.
- tea production in India in 2008 was 980 million kg
- the tea plant is actually a tree, but is kept as a bush for better harvesting
- tea bushes live for 100-200 years. But after 50 years of harvesting, the plant needs to be replanted to improve its productivity.

Below is a picture of the tea plantations in Kerala.

One more…

And one more….

At the tea plantation we visited we learned about the harvesting and process of black tea. We wish we had pictures of all these steps but were not allowed to take pictures inside the factory. Hopefully the words describe it well enough.

Collection
Tea is harvested in a variety of ways. Originally it was hand collected, but with the growing demand , it is now mainly harvested with large machines. It is interesting to note is that tea does not have a specific harvesting season, as it can be harvested 26-38 times/year.

Withering
The tea leaves are dried in a trough for 12-14 days.

Shredding
At this point the leaves are being cut into small pieces.

Crushing
Then they are crushed into even smaller pieces. It is at this point that the leaves change their color from green on the darker brown/black color.

Crush, Tear, Curl
During this process the leaves are cut even further until they appear like a mushy paste.

Fermentation
For 90 minutes the leaves are placed in a large metal tube where air, along with some water, are blown in to cause fermentation.

Drying
Then it is moved to a large machine where it is left to dry for 15 minutes at 135 degree Celsius. During this process the remaining waste (stems, fibers etc.) is removed.

Cleaning
Further cleaning is performed.

Grading
The tiny particles of tea are now separated into kernels and powder. The kernels are used for lighter tea and the powder for stronger tea.

Winnowing
Some more cleaning is performed.

Final cleaning
There cannot be enough cleaning going on for some good tea!

Tea tasting
Specialized workers taste the tea for taste, flavor, aroma, strength, etc. They do not drink the tea, but rather gargle it for 10 sec and then spit it out. During this short process they can tell if there are any defects with the tea.

Packaging
From the local tea plantation it gets sent to larger distributors, who then sell the tea worldwide.

First week in India

2009-12-18T02:09:00.001-08:00

And so on December 12th we made it to India. Our first stop Chennai. Here are some words that Tal wrote down to describe Chennai:

Kind people, smiles, auto rickshaws, head bobble, rank smells, cacophony of sounds, cows, horns!, no personal space, squalid streets/houses, vivid colors…

So of all the words listed above the head bobble may stand out to you. It did to us, because when we arrived here we did not only get a nod for yes or no, but a head bobble. We first were not sure whether it meant yes or no, but by now we figured it simply means “yes, ok”.

India is crazy – we have never seen anything like it. I personally have never heard that much noise all at once and it’s just chaotic. But it’s wonderfully beautiful and we are getting accustomed to it quickly.

Here are some pictures of our first week.

The first night we arrived we took a little rickshaw to a guest house. Here is Anita buried under our packs…

Hindu colors to be applied to their foreheads.

Offerings to the gods in front of pretty much any Hindu temple.

Hindu Temple

Cute kids we met on a little detour off the main road.

Scenes in Chennai

The next day we made it Puducherry. Our first meal…$1.50 for both of us. After that we decided to step it up, because it was just a bit too dirty (found two flies in my dish). From then on we have started living large by spending $3/meal.

This is the nicest place in town. The French Hotel L’Orient. It was a fortune and still only $16 for a three course menu for both of us.

And here Tal very happy eating some fine French food

We wish we had more pictures of Puducherry, because it’s one of the most charming places we have seen (ok it’s only been one week, but still). The French resided here for quite some time and so it has a European flair. There is also a beautiful Ashram in town that pretty much dictates the atmosphere here. It’s the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and we felt it was the oasis we needed after Chennai.

Here are a couple of shots of the people in Puducherry

You can find anything here…literally.

Loads of bikes…

And motorcycles..

Fresh eggs in the market

And no we did not want to eat those fish. Flies were swarming around them and the smell was horrendous.

So tonight we are off on a overnight train to Kerala. Don’t know yet how well we will sleep, but we are excited to make it to Kerala. According to me brother (Martin), it is paradise and so we don’t want to wait any longer to get there.

Talk to you soon and if we won’t be able to write another blog before Christmas – Merry Christmas to all of you!

Dubai

2009-12-18T01:38:00.001-08:00

So here we are in Dubai now. A whole new world and it was fascinating all around. Here are some pictures of our two day experience in Dubai.

This is currently the tallest building in the world. It opens on January 4th and is 800 meters high. But Dubai has already the next building in construction. It will be 1 km tall and therefore the tallest building.

So we wanted to have a picture of us and the building and so I asked this really nice German guy to take it for us. Here is me talking to him.

We really got a kick out of him taking this picture, because you can barely see us on the picture he took. Because the building was so tall, he backed up 10 feet, looked up, backed up some more, looked up…and so forth. We were worried he was going to take off with our camera, he was so far away. And as you can see, he still did not get the whole building on it…

We then entered the biggest mall in the world, called Dubai Mall (to the right of this picture). Since we both don’t really like malls, we ditched the high end section (where you can find anything you want) and went to the Arabian section, which was so much more interesting. I had so many questions regarding traditional wear and so I entered this store to ask some questions about traditional wear in Dubai and the Middle East. This guy from Syria was very nice and in his best English explained it to us and started dressing Tal and me (see below). It was only under those circumstances that we felt comfortable putting them on. We learned a lot and appreciated the store managers openness to teach us.

The famous 7 star hotel in Dubai…

One of the beautiful mosques in Dubai.

Another mosque…

Now on to the “best” part – Ski Dubai.

The entrance was closed off for non-skiers. So we told them that I am from a ski resort in Switzerland and they got us in immediately so we could see how authentic it is

Two locals eating dinner by the slopes…

Trying skis on….

We could not help but have some dinner at the St. Moritz Cafe here at Ski Dubai. And what did we eat? Fondue. And believe it or not it was very tasty.

This was our white Christmas!

The next morning we were off to Chennai….more on that in the next blog.

Zululand!

2009-12-18T01:13:00.001-08:00

We decided to take another short stint in South Africa to try to see the Leatherback turtles lay eggs and hatch. A good area to do so is on the northeastern coast of S. Africa right by the border of Mozambique. So we rented a car and headed towards Sodwana Bay.

We walked up and down this beach at night to see the turtles, but it wasn’t to be. We made the most of our trip though because we serendipitously found “Coral Divers”, a true divers camp and Anita learned to scuba dive!

This is Anita – I absolutely loved it. It’s absolutely amazing what the ocean has to offer. The fish were so beautiful and colorful, but the corals were spectacular. It was a totally new sensation and it took me a second to realize that I am fine breathing under water. Once I was over that hump it was paradise. The only bad thing was that I got terribly nauseous on the boat out and back.

Here she is just after her preparation course. I have to say she was a natural at scuba diving (I am certified and she was teaching me things).

And here is our high class accommodations at Coral Divers. And I think I am cutie…

On the way to Jo’burg we stopped somewhere and came across the King and Queen of the Universe contest. Here are some pictures of their trial run.

That night we flew to Dubai. We will post some pictures from there.

Finishing up in Mozambique

2009-12-18T01:01:00.001-08:00

We finished our time in Mozambique (and finished our 38 page analysis paper) a few weeks ago and have not had the time (or internet access) to post so we will go ahead and post it now that we are in India.

After analyzing the assessment results from the three years that CFL worked with Mungassa, we have taken note of the following changes:

The first set of percentages indicate when CFL first entered Mungassa in March of 2006 (and the FPP had not yet started), and the second percentage indicate the latest assessment, which was performed in December of 2008.

Greatest improvements:

Latrines: 28% to 90%

Pest problem free: 28% to 82%

Tarimba (dish holder): 42% to 90%

Kitchen (separate from the home): 13% to 63%

Treating drinking water: 32% to 93%

Sleeping under mosquito nets: 13% to 71%

Deaths: 68 people to 3

People tested for HIV: 2 to 141 or 0% to 17%

History of Mozambique

http://www.statoids.com/umz.html and Wikipedia

Mozambique’s first inhabitants were the San hunters, who were joined by Bantu farmers and iron workers around the 1^st to 4^th century AD. Around the 9^th century Arab migration to Mozambique started, so when Vasco da Gama reached the coast of Mozambique in 1498, Arab trading settlements were found in many places along the coast. It is interesting to note that the name of the Arab Sultan during the time of the first Portuguese colonization was Musa bin Ba’ik, after whom eventually the entire country was named.

From about 1500, Mozambique became a regular post on the way to the east and the colony flourished for the next 200 years. By the late 17^th century, Portugal started to devote itself more to the lucrative trade with India and the colonization of Brazil. As a consequence, Mozambique’s coastal settlements slowly fell into ruin. The local population, however, continued to cultivate the land for the European leaseholders, a system which was kept well into the 19^th century. It was also during this time that slave trade with Arabia and the Ottoman Empire was in full swing.

In 1891 the Portuguese shifted the administration of much of the country to a large private company called the “Companhia de Moçambique”. The “Mozambique Company” established railroads into neighboring countries such as South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo, and Malaŵi, which made international trade soar. The period between the 1920s and the independence of Mozambique in 1975 was marked by a gradual growth of several economic and social developments in the Portugal administered territory. This growth included a great expansion of commerce, industrial development, agriculture, education, transportation, and health care infrastructure.

After World War II many European nations granted independence to their colonies, but Portugal decided to keep Mozambique as an overseas province of the mother country. Following this decree, Portuguese emigration soared.

The drive to independence, however, rose after that decree and in 1962 several anti-colonial groups formed the “Front of the Liberation of Mozambique” (FRELIMO), which initiated an armed campaign against Portuguese colonial rule in 1964.

After 10 years of combat with the colonial presence, the people of Mozambique gained independence and FRELIMO took full control of the country. As a consequence, all Portuguese settlers left the country and Mozambique officially established its independence on 25June 1975.

This rapid exodus left Mozambique’s economy in total disarray and caused the eruption of the Mozambican Civil War (1977-1992), which destroyed the remaining wealth and left the former Portuguese overseas province in a state of absolute disrepair.

With this lack of resources FRELIMO responded by moving into alignment with the Soviet Union and its allies. FRELIMO quickly received substantial aid from Cuba and the Soviet bloc nations.

In response to FRELIMO’s alliance with the Soviet Union, the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) was formed. RENAMO was an anti-communist group sponsored by the Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) Intelligence Service, South Africa, and the United States. RENAMO launched a series of attacks on transport routes, schools and health clinics, which actions caused a dissention into civil war.

It was not until 1990 that RENAMO and FRELIMO were able to talk. This happened because apartheid was falling apart in South Africa and support from the United States had also dried up. In November of 1990 a new constitution was adopted.
FRELIMO won the elections and by mid-1995, over 1.7 million refugees who had sought asylum in neighboring countries, returned to Mozambique. In addition to this, four million internally displaced persons (many in the community of Mungassa) returned to their homes.
In early 2000, a cyclone caused widespread flooding in the country. It killed hundreds and caused widespread destruction of an already weak infrastructure. There were widespread suspicions that the powerful leaders of FRELIMO diverted the foreign aid that was pouring into the country due to the devastation. The reason for this suspicion was because the charges were never fully explained and the main journalist that was doing the investigations was murdered. The slow recovery of Mozambique from the aftermath of their civil war was being led by investors from South Africa, East Asia, and a number of Portuguese nationals along with some Italian organizations.
More elections were held in 2004 and FRRELIMO won again with their candidate, Armando Guebuza. The economy has seen an upswing in the past two years (8% GDP increase in 2008 and a projected 5% GDP increase in 2009) and there is hope that the economy is on the way to a better future. At the end of October 2009 elections were held again and the FRELIMO party won again.

This was just a little historical info for anyone interested. Now here are some fun pictures of the last days in Manga, Mozambique.

The staff (Field Officers) of CFL and us!

It had been raining a lot and our regular route got some huge puddles on the way. Not that we are water shy, but there are some puddles you just don’t want to be stepping in. This is one of them. This cute little guy offered us a “ride”. If you think I am about to brake his bike, just think of Tal sitting on that bike. Unfortunately we don’t have a shot of that, but I have it etched into my mind forever. Half way through the puddle the bike stuck in a little rut and the guy barely got Tal across. Tal was sweating bullets just thinking of all the diseases he could catch….

So on the next day we thought we would take another route to avoid those puddles. I (Anita) had the glorious idea of taking a short cut via the railroad tracks (everyone is doing it!). About 2 minutes into it we realized that this idea was not as glorious as we thought, because the tracks are pretty much the public bathroom. I think we have never been that grossed out…until then at least. We have found some pretty nasty things in India now too.

With that we bid good bye to Mozambique and are on to S. Africa. See next blog.

Women of Mozambique

2009-11-21T00:09:00.001-08:00

Tal and I find it hard to believe that we have been in Mozambique for only five weeks, because in some ways we feel like it has been multiple months! We feel like we have immersed ourselves in Mozambique’s beautiful culture and traditions. Along with this understanding of Mozambique’s beauty, we have also come to understand some of its harsher realities. One of those harsher realities is the situation of women here in Mozambique.

This is Tal… The topic of women and women’s rights has been close to Anita’s heart long before we left for Mozambique. In fact, we have had many discussions about how women may feel all over the world and so I am not surprised she is writing a blog about it.

Back to me again… Just to clarify – I am certainly no women’s rights fighter, but this topic of women is close to my heart, because I am a woman and I can sympathize and empathize. And I am also writing about this topic because we have all heard this statement that people in third world countries seem so much happier than people in first world countries. So much so that some wish to figure out their secret to happiness. And I am not going to negate that we have found a lot of happiness here, but we have also found hardship and pain. And that is what I want to blog about today. Talk about a downer – sorry. So if you are not up for that, you can stop reading here…or skip to the end where there is good news.

Polygamy

So why not start of with Polygamy? Polygamy is a big, harsh reality here and I don’t think it is something that most women anywhere would like to deal with.

History - Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese around 1500 AD, but long before then, around 900 AD, Arabs started settling various areas of Mozambique. Alongside their culture they also brought with them their religion and as a part of that, polygamy. It is interesting to note however, that polygamy is not an exclusively Arab import here in Mozambique, because many tribal traditions were already supporting the practice of multiple wives as a status of power and wealth. I also want to point out that polygamy in Islam is no longer the norm and is only found in countries where traditional Arab cultures prevail. Many countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia etc. in fact prohibit polygamy.
But over the centuries Mozambique, along with many other traditions, was able to hold on to polygamy and it is still a common practice today. In fact it is so widely acceptable that it has spread across many faiths and it is not surprising to see men with multiple wives around here.
Women, of course, have little to no say in the practice of polygamy and often have to simply accept the men’s decision on the matter. Even after a second or third marriage, most of the women will stay with their husbands, because much of their livelihood depends on their men.

There are, however, some signs of improvements as some women are starting to divorce the men who take on a second wife. In fact, there is a woman working for Care For Life, who divorced her husband because he took on a second wife against her will. So, although the percentage is low, many have started to stand up for themselves.

This is Tal… Above is a picture of Anita with the two strongest women in the community of Mungassa. The woman on the left (Boneze) wears with pride a T-shirt of the first female Secretary of State in Mozambique. Boneze is one of the women, who has a strong will and has learned to fend for herself since her husband passed away in the civil war a decade ago. She has 5 kids and teaches the “Stay Alive” HIV/AIDS training class to the 9-14 year olds in the community. The one in the middle, Amelia, is a fire cracker. She doesn’t let anyone mess with her and has a mind of her own. She jokes a lot and the other day greeted me with “oi meu marido” which means, “hi my husband”. So we really enjoy the company of both of these women.

I tried to write about the third woman, the one on the right (and it was gooood), but my wife deleted it!

Women’s subservient role in the society

Men come first most of the time and this is especially true in the poorer communities like Mungassa. For example, when we conduct interviews it is very rare that the women speak up in the presence of their husbands. The man of the house is the “chef” and therefore speaks for the family. The women only say something when addressed directly by us, otherwise they sit there quietly, knowing their place in society. Another example is when we arrive at a house in the community, the women rush out to bring chairs to sit down – chairs for us and one for their husband. They then proceed to sit on the dirt floor. Even when Talmadge gallantly offers them the chair, most shy away from it. Gentlemen behavior is unheard of here.

It starts at a young age…

This subservience, of course, reaches across many other areas. Another one is that when it is time to eat and meat is available (it is very rare for them to have meat in their diet), the man gets the biggest piece of meat, his wife gets a smaller piece, and the children almost nothing. This takes place even when the women are pregnant and need the extra protein and nutrition or when the children are already malnourished.

We have noticed that many burdens of this society rest upon the women – literally. Women carry the heavy loads – we see them carrying water buckets filled to the brim (always on their heads), huge bags of sweet potatoes, tools for the fields, wood for building their houses, and pretty much anything else. And they will walk for hours carrying those loads. One woman told us that she just finished carrying wood (70 kg) for 6 hours back to her house! I have wondered what kinds of chronic pains they end up with from carrying those loads for all these years, but the sad thing is they hardly live long enough for us to know that. (The life expectancy of women is around 44 years).
Going back to the loads - up until now we have only seen one man carrying something on his head, but that was only because there was no woman by his side. If there is a woman with him, she is the one to carry the heavy load while he walks leisurely next to her. Talmadge is sitting next to me and just mentioned that he does see men carrying loads – just in a smarter way. :) Well, he is right in that men usually have bikes and carry their loads that way, but that brings up another question as to why women don’t have bikes... Anyway, so I guess I am only right in saying that men don’t carry loads on their heads…or in the presence of a woman.

The women also do all the house work – they work HARD every day. I often see women in the fields harvesting sweet potatoes, cooking the meals, tending to the children, cleaning their houses and surroundings while I often see the men sitting around chatting with their neighbors. At the same time, I guess a blog could be written about the hardships of men not finding jobs to support their families and what that feels like. The unemployment rate in Mozambique is currently at 90%. (Yes you read correctly – 90%!)

I am always impressed by the physical strength of these women, but know that their loads are certainly not only physical, but also emotional and we can often see it in their eyes.

While carrying their babies on their backs…

Tools on their head…

Even at a young age they know how to balance the weight

Making corn flour

Preparing lunch

Working in the fields

Women and sex

The topic that I find hardest to process is the way sex is viewed here. First of all girls get married off as early as 14 years old. This is rarely done out of their own free will – it often happens that their father negotiates a “deal” with a friend/neighbor (often an older man) to have his daughter married off (usually for a sizeable dowry).
The other way early marriage takes place is that the girl gets pregnant (often as early as 12) and marriage comes as an aftermath. These premature sexual encounters stem from the fact that many women don’t feel that they can say no when it comes to a man demanding sex. As a consequence they don’t have a healthy understanding of their own bodies and their personal rights.
We have also read that during times of need the husband/father will ask his wife/daughter to sell herself for sex to generate a little income for the family (never mind AIDS…). I cannot wrap my head around the emotions that these women may have in those circumstances.
Also, it is well known that many men are not faithful to their wife (wives) and often bring AIDS into the family. In Mozambique over 13% of the population is infected with the HIV/AIDS virus.

Young mothers…

Education

Women in Mozambique don’t have many “rights”. In a family, the boys come first and that is also the case when it comes to education. Boys are sent to school, whereas girls are often kept at home because there is no “need” for them to be educated. As a result, most of the women we encounter here in the poorer communities are illiterate and have had very little or no education. (Please note that in the cities changes have occurred and many women are attending school and the universities. What I am describing here is mostly found in the rural and poor communities).
Aside from the fact that they are deprived of an education, it can also be detrimental for them when it comes to raising a healthy family. For example, without reading they are not able to identify any road signs and so it is difficult to take the bus or read road signs. Another example is that if any family member gets sick and they receive medication from the doctor, they are unable to read the prescription. In order to change the cycle, women need to learn to read so that they can register their children and send them (both boys and girls) to school.

The faces of the future (see below)

The school in Mungassa (see below)

Typical classroom

At last a little bit of good news…

I hope you have stuck with me until here, because there is some good news too. Things are changing, although slowly. Just this year a domestic violence law was passed, because the women here had enough of being beaten up by their husbands without any repercussion and so now they have the law protecting them. This does not mean that domestic violence has diminished, but at least there is now a law in place.

The other good news is that more women are going to school. And through their education they are learning to support themselves and are no longer fully dependent upon their husbands. As mentioned above, there are many women attending universities in the bigger cities and men and women alike understand that education will change the future generations.

One of the girls in Mungassa studying for an exam

The women here have wonderful, strong spirits. It’s fun to interact with them, to laugh, to joke, and to sometimes hear their strong opinions of what a man’s role should be. They are strong willed and not much different from women anywhere else in the world. These characteristics can best be observed when the women are together in groups. This is when their true selves shine. Yesterday we were at a celebration that Care For Life put together and it was so much fun to see the women dancing, singing, arguing, laughing and interacting with everybody. In fact, in many ways they had more visible roles in the celebration than the men did.

These women are compassionate, they love their children and care for their families in beautiful ways. Care For Life is one of the hopes of change for the women as its program is supporting the role of women in leadership, at home and in the society. They are taught to read and write, they are taught to speak up about domestic violence and Care For Life encourages the men to treat their wives better. So in all of this, there is hope that things can and will be better for the women here in Mozambique. And they already are in some situations.

Women learning how to write with Care For Life

I hope you have enjoyed learning about the women of Mozambique and though this highlights some of challenges of women, it does not speak on behalf of all of the women and men here in Mozambique. We have also met outstanding examples of husbands, who love their wives and children and would do anything for them. Like all stereotypes, they exist because there is a huge population that acts like that, but that does not mean everybody. I in no way want to create an opinion of exclusivity, but I just wanted to show the reality of many women here in Mozambique.

Surveys, Interviews, and Focus Groups

2009-11-12T04:45:00.001-08:00

Our task while here in Mozambique is to provide a detailed report on how the community of Mungassa has changed (for better or for worse) while partnered with Care For Life over the past three years. Four days a week we walk the 35 minutes to the community of Mungassa to conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups with the families. There are 235 families in the community and although we have already met over 200 of them, we still have much to do on the surveys, interviews and focus groups.

We find new, unique personalities every day. For example, today we met the man in the picture below:

His name is Viegas Bango and he is a Zone Leader in the community of Mungassa. Viegas has the best looking latrine in the whole community (pictured above). It has a tiled floor, a lock on the door, windows and even a toilet paper holder!

Viegas has built his latrine with the rewards of Care For Life. Each family in the community has made 10 individual goals with CFL Field Officers that vary from having a family garden to treating their water with chlorine, to keeping their yard clean. If these goals are met within 6 months, CFL rewards these families with building materials for their homes or chairs for inside their homes. Viegas chose cement and zinc roof panels as his rewards and he used them to build his latrine, a large kitchen…(see below)

a bath house (see below)

and a zinc roof. (see below)

Viegas has been a Pastor for his church for many years and it was so interesting to hear his story. He and his wife had 12 kids, but only 5 are still alive. He lost one child in 1980 to malaria, because nobody in the area knew what malaria was at that time and they only found out how to treat it after he had passed away. Four of his other children were still-born and the other two only lived a week or two. He lost a lot of his children during Mozambique’s Civil War (which ended about 15 years ago and I am currently working on a blog post about that war and the general history of Mozambique). During that time of civil war, all the members of the community of Mungassa had to sleep away from their homes because Mungassa was in a war zone. This difficult living situation caused much unrest in the community and is the main reason that so many of Viegas children died. Mozambique has been through many difficult times in the last 30 years and we could see the pain from the civil war in his eyes.

It is difficult to walk around the community on some days because there are so many sad scenes and stories. People die on a regular basis (mostly because of AIDS) and it is difficult to see women and children who are alone because their families have died or been killed by war, AIDS, Cholera, Malaria, Tuberculosis, and many other causes. Yesterday one of the Field Officers of Care For Life had his baby daughter pass away of Jaundice, which is something that we have heard is treatable in most developed countries. Last week an older man in Mungassa died, the week before a young girl from our church passed away unexpectedly. These things sometimes weigh us down, but at the same time we see many more stories of the good things that are happening here. Because of CFL we see healthy infants that get bathed every day, we see healthy children running around, we see men that have hope in their eyes because Mungassa is becoming a community that now has a road and will soon have electricity.

It is so interesting to interview these people and learn how their lives have changed with CFL. Below is a picture of Anita interviewing a man that was telling her about how many things CFL has taught him:

Most of the time we arrive at a family’s home and ask them if they have about 20 minutes to talk. They bring a few chairs out of their home and set them under a tree and we start to talk. The below picture is of a typical interview scene:

After the interview above, the woman in the purple (Jorgina) decided she would give something to Anita. We walked past her house later in the day and the pictures tell the rest of the story…

This lady had a very unique story because she has lived away from Mungassa for the past four years and was able to see the “before and after” effect of Care For Life. She told us that the road in front of her house used to be full of trash and was literally the community latrine. She said it used to stink at her house because of the amount of people that used the latrine along the road. She then explained that now all that has changed and that the road is now clean because everyone has their own latrine and the garbage is gone as well.

The above picture is the road that has improved so much while CFL has been here.

At times these surveys can be a bit tedious, because it is hard to get an honest answer out of them. Not because they are not honest people, but because they are in some way used to figuring out what type of answers organizations are looking for and that is the answer they will give. We eventually figured that out and were not satisfied with those types of answers, because they don’t tell us the real picture and that is what we are here for. So we usually dig around with more open ended questions until they open up and we are able to get to the bottom of who they are, what the community is all about and what their true feelings are about the work with CFL. And that is when it gets so interesting and rewarding. Because it is during those moments that we see how we are all the same – that we have the same frustrations, desires and needs, even though our worlds (literally and figuratively) are so far apart.

And so during those interviews we have formed closer relationships with some of the community members and today we felt the effects of that. Just to give you a little background…usually Talmadge and I head to Mungassa separately from the CFL group, but today we went there together as they are during their follow up work in Mungassa every two weeks. And as we sat there at the meeting and looked over the crowd of leaders from the community, we felt connected to them. We have met with them, we have heard their stories, we are aware of some of their strengths and weaknesses and we could tell that our emotional attachment was definitely different than a month ago when we had just arrived here. And that was beautiful and that is when we realize that 2 months at Mungassa is nothing -we are just scratching the surface and we are just getting to know them. There is so much more to learn and we’ll keep talking about it with you in this blog.

A day in the life of A and T

2009-11-06T05:31:00.001-08:00

Our typical day is as follows:

6:30am Wake

Get ready for the day, eat breakfast, prepare a sack lunch, etc.

8:15am – Walk about 35 minutes to Mungassa – the community we are working with

8:50-Noon – Interviews, surveys, get to know each family in the community. We are going to finish visiting all 10 zones (235 families) some time next week.

Noon- 12:30pm - We eat our prepared sandwiches with bananas in the village pavilion that was made for the use of Care For Life.

12:30 to 3 or 4pm – Interviews, Surveys, and Focus Groups.

Evening – Compile notes, survey results, and videos/pictures from the day. Dinner is usually at about 7pm.

Here are some pictures to give you an idea of where we walk and what we see during a typical day:

In the mornings, we walk out of the white door and head to Mungassa. Out of respect for the locals, Anita has started wearing the traditional clothes of the women here. The skirt she has on is called a “capulana” and 98% of the women wear them here in the Beira area. This is now Anita writing - we get stopped every now and then by women commenting on how happy they are to see me wearing a capulana. The other day somebody mentioned to me that it was okay for me to wear the capulana because I work here every day and therefore, I am almost a Mozambican! I was glad to hear I am not just a white girl trying to look African…

We then walk right next to a paved street (as seen above on the right hand side of the picture). The two young women pictured above are headed to school in their uniforms.

We walk past our favorite bakery on the left…Both breakfast and lunch come from this bakery. Unfortunately the only thing they have is white bread… we are really longing for some fiber.

We walk past our church on the right (only 5 minutes from our house)…

We then go off onto a dirt road where there are many little shops like the ones pictured above. Here you see the clothes hung up, but every so often they are just put on the dirt floor affixed by some rocks. Not the way I used to shop at Prada and Donna Karan!!

This area, where the shops are located, is usually very crowded with people. We stand out just a tad, not only because we are white and pretty much the only white people in site, but they have never seen a tall basketball player like Talmadge. We get stares and “hellos” all the way from home to the community.

These pictures were shot from the hip… This is Anita – picture this…we were walking down this dirt road today and Talmadge very inconspicuously held his camera at the hip and kept shooting. When I asked him a question he said, sorry I can’t answer right now, I am taking pictures… Maybe I am the only one that thought that to be very funny. You let me know in your comments.

Then we get to a smaller dirt road that usually has big puddles. We are a bit worried about the rainy season that is about to start. This puddle is only after one night of rain. We cannot imagine what it looks like after days of rain. Certain areas supposedly are completely covered and unable to be passed once the rainy season starts.

This is the biggest puddle of them all… It should really be called a small pond. We have to jump from wood stump to wood stump to cross on the right hand side. At times, this proves difficult for Anita and her capulana! And the last thing we want to have happen is to step into that water where all kinds of worms and diseases await us. A funny story about this place today was when the guy who lives right next to this small pond thought (and was very serious about it) that it would be a great business idea to charge people to cross…hmm…

We then walk through a small community and today we saw this man fetching water from the community well.

We stopped at a small vegetable/fruit stand and before we knew it, we were surrounded by children looking at us. This is not an unusual occurrence as children often flock around us and giggle. Some of them simply call us “Mozunga” – which means “white people” in their native tongue Sena. I guess that is the easiest way to identify us – the white people.

We are not only watched by children, pretty much all adults know our exact whereabouts. The other day we ran into a lady we know from the community and she said, “I saw you yesterday wearing the capulana as well, but it was a different one than the one you are wearing today”. So nothing we do goes unnoticed.

We walk on…

We cross this paved road…

And enter the community Mungassa. These women stopped today to say hello. We see women carrying loads like these on their heads all the time. It is very impressive how they can balance so much weight without dropping their load. We noticed as well that we rarely see men using this technique (which deserves another blog entry about men vs. women in this society). It’s very backwards and very hard to see. Especially as a woman – I cannot imagine life the way these women have to live it…being considered second class.

Behind one member of the Mungassa community, David, you see the pavilion or “machessa” that the community built at the beginning of their three year agreement to work with Care For Life. They use this machessa for community meetings and it is also the place that Anita and I take our break to eat lunch every day. You will also notice a well (to the right) that was built by our church independent of the work of Care For Life.

Here is a closer view of the well mentioned above.

Part of the work that Care For Life is doing, is instructing the community members to build a latrine at their home. Up until the arrival of Care For Life, the community was not accustomed to using a latrine. They instead would relieve themselves pretty much anywhere. This was a major health hazard (aside from the unbearable stench everywhere) and made living in these communities very hard. The introduction of latrines has improved their health immensely. They started out building temporary latrines and are now working on these improved latrines, built with cement blocks that will last much longer (up to 10 years). Above you see the base of an improved latrine. Part of our work is to look at the development of these latrines that are expected to be finished to this point by next week.

This family was preparing potatoes for storage during the rainy season (which starts at the end of November).

Many are starting to prepare land for their rice crops, which will grow during the rainy season.

There were some guys playing cards with NBA players on them (which is much better than the white bikini babes that are on most playing cards in these villages). I found some of the cards incorrect which was really funny to me. One card had a picture of Tony Parker and below the picture it said, Vince Carter. I love that kind of stuff! At least they got Karl Malone right.

Then we head back to the Care For Life office (which is also our home).

There are many more pictures from today and from other days that we have taken, but this will hopefully give you an idea of a typical day here in Mozambique.

How houses are built in Mungassa

2009-10-31T07:39:00.001-07:00

I found it interesting to see how houses are built in Mungassa. I find the houses interesting here because each one is very unique and has a lot of character. Here is the process on how they are made:

They start by making a skeleton with wood and bamboo and then fill it with rocks.

Once the walls are full with rocks, they usually put a roof on the house. The roof is usually made of straw (thatched) but I’d say that about 30% of the roofs are now made with zinc, which lasts longer and doesn’t leak as much as thatched roofs.

Here is another example of a zinc roof.

This is the thatched roof.

To finalize the house, one must mix mud (or if fortunate, cement) and throw it against the house until it is all covered. Then they make it smooth as shown in the picture of the mud finish above.

This builder is throwing cement on the house that he is building. It will last much longer this way.

Many people are now turning to the use of cement blocks to build their houses in Mungassa. This way of construction is preferred but more expensive so only some have this luxury.

Pure Joy

2009-10-24T06:33:00.001-07:00

I have found pure joy here in Mozambique…and its the children and their beautiful laughter that brings it. I feel that the joy of the people of Mozambique is summed up in its children.

In each community we are greeted by children – first they start out observing us from a distance until they get more confident or until we smile/wave at them. Then they start jumping up and down of joy and begin giggling. Then the following starts – some of them follow us for an hour or two never getting tired of staring at us and finding us terribly interesting. The interest and staring is actually mutual because they are beautiful, happy, innocent, some shy, some daring, some confident, some curious etc. Personalities come through fairly quickly and it’s fantastic to interact with them. Most of them don’t speak any Portuguese, (they speak the local language called Zena), but that does not seem to stop them or us from interacting. The best is when we pull the camera out. First they don’t know what’s happening to them, but then we show them the pictures we just took of them (thanks to digital cameras) and they start giggling, jumping around, teasing each other about what they look like on the picture and then they start lining up for more pictures – it’s like free candy. I have never felt like such a good entertainer – all I need to do is take a picture and I am the star of the show (or better yet, they are, but I am making it happen for them). I think only with children is it that easy to make somebody that happy that easily. So we are surrounded by laughter and giggling all day long and it is as I said – Pure Joy!!

As you can see from some of the shots I took the other day the children are incredibly beautiful. Some have tremendous smiles (though they rarely show them on pictures) or beautiful eyes or well done hair (though that’s mostly reserved for the more grown ups). All in all they are the cutest things ever…

Even after the picture was taken she was not quite sure what to think. She was shy and quiet, but curious as she kept studying our every move.

How can you say no to that smile?!

She was born in June – look at those lips…

Little Jaime – the youngest son of one of the leaders in the community

The older children seem to be a little more reserved than the very young ones. So they are usually quietly curious, as this one was.

He was one of them that could not stop giggling whenever we took a picture.

He and his friend (see below) followed us, I think, for an hour. They kept on laughing and jumping around and trying to get our attention and of course have us take more pictures of them.

He was wonderfully confident and though he was a little older than the rest of them, he was equally amused by all the pictures.

And that’s the friend I mentioned above. There are no words for a smile like that!

We were watching a community lesson and this girl was looking up at Talmadge.

Here are the two boys together that followed us all morning…and the famous camera that brings all that joy into theirs and our lives.

Our First impressions of Care For Life

2009-10-21T23:04:00.001-07:00

This is Tal...
We are learning so much these days and each day we feel like the learning curve gets steeper! We've decided that we are just going to just write the little that we know about Care For Life and then as we get more understanding, we will add more understanding in future posts.

Before Care For Life: Organizations would come into communities and give food and provisions to try to help the people of Mozambique. This would help people for a few weeks and then the people would look for the next truck full of food or provisions. It was all about GIVE, GIVE, GIVE.
Care For Life's approach is different. They work with families and not for people. They believe that the families (and individuals) need to take charge of their lives and their future. They believe that people need to work in order to better their situation. Each family works for rewards instead of receiving a hand out.

Family Preservation Program:
The core program of Care For Life is the Family Preservation Program. It is my understanding that the Family Preservation Program (or FPP) is exactly what it says it is… all about the preservation of the family. Joao (the program director) was telling me last night that the problem with aid in Africa is that many people are focusing on the wrong things. Organizations try valiantly to fix the results of broken families (orphans, vulnerable children, etc) and some have good results while others don't get anywhere. It's my understanding that Care For Life and the FPP is more about the offense (working with and teaching families how to strengthen) rather than the defense (working to fix the problems caused by broken families).
Care For Life started the FPP program about 4 years ago. It is basically a program where Care For Life is a partner (not a provider) to a community (they are currently working with 8 communities). CFL works with communities for 3 years and during that time the families in the community focus on self reliance and sustainability in all aspects of their lives.
When I first heard this, I thought well, that sounds nice, but I bet it is really hard to get people to change the things that they are used to doing. People like to receive handouts and don't want to have to work. Well, so far I am seeing that I was wrong. I have seen over the last few days that this approach is working. I know it has only been a few days and we are already seeing that there are lots of hitches and difficulties, but overall I have seen that this program really is working.

What does CFL want Tal and Anita to do?
One of the communities is now finishing its third and final year in the FPP. We have been asked to really dig into the community of Mungassa and find the good and bad outcomes of this program. We will do focus groups, conduct in depth surveys, and really ask the tough questions of how things went over the last three years. We are also interested in finding out if the families will now continue to practice the principals learned over the last three years.
I am excited to say that we had the chance to see "our" community of Mungassa for the first time today. It is a beautiful, verdant place where people take good care of their land. It has nice dirt paths between hand made houses and gardens. It has palm trees and banana trees everywhere and kids follow us wherever we go. The people all wave at us and are very familiar with Care For Life.
One of our tasks while here is to collect at least 130 surveys from individual families in the Mungassa community. We had the chance to do our first two surveys today with two different families.
After asking a bunch of questions, here is what our first interviewee, Dique, said about Care For Life and their involvement in his life and the life of his family:

"This work is for us to do... not for Care For Life. It is for us to do ourselves. The cleanliness, the building of latrines, the washing of hands, taking baths... These things are for us and for the good of our bodies... We, in Mungassa are very happy. Before [CFL] we didn't have very many houses, now we have houses. Before we didn't have bricks, now we have bricks. Mungassa is clean! This cleanliness will continue. Now that this has been taught, we won't stop and we will teach our children."

I know, it sounds rehearsed and like a perfect answer, but this shows the kind of impact Care For Life is having on at least one family. We are excited to really dig in and find out what has worked well and what really needs to be done better next time.

Below is a picture of Dique (the man who gave the quote) with his son

Weekend Activities

2009-10-20T09:25:00.001-07:00

This past Saturday Joao brought us to his favorite beach. The beach area was quaint and simple the way an old beach resort in Mozambique should be. When I say resort, I mean a bunch of small rooms with thatched roofs that surround a restaurant area. The beach is then about 30 yards away from this area. It was so nice to just relax there and take an occasional swim in the waves.

Before lunch we walked about 10 minutes down the beach to a to a tiny fisherman village and I have attached pictures of that below.

We had a nice lunch and then Joao went over what he wants us to accomplish while we are here. It is A LOT of work and that is OKAY with us because he has organized it so well and has told us exactly what needs to be done and why it is important to Care For Life and to the people of Mozambique. As he was explaining what he wants us to do, I had a very distinct impression that the work that he is asking us to do is very important. It will have a direct impact on the lives of many people here in Mozambique. Anita and I were talking about it a little later and we both feel an overwhelming desire to do the best that we possibly can while here. We have a unique opportunity to focus on this task together and we want to do a great job. I will explain our responsibilities in the next post. For now, enjoy the pictures.

After parking the truck, we used this boat to get across the tidal basin and to the actual beach. Later in the afternoon, we had to wait in the little “terminal” on the upper right when we wanted to get back to the car. A boat goes back and forth every hour.

Here is the walk to the beach

Here is the beach with little pavilions (which I thought were a very good idea). I loved how chill it was there. This couple next to us was doing a little bbq.

We took a 10 minute walk down the beach and saw this cool little fisherman village.

They let us take pictures of their catch.

They carved the boats from one piece of wood. It probably took about 40 man hours…

This is a typical sign in the “resort”.

We stopped at a market on the way back to get some veggies.

Inhamatanda community

2009-10-16T22:21:00.000-07:00

So we seem to not be able to put pictures and text underneath...for now. So until we have figured this out, here are some comments to the pictures:

Picture #1: The children love pictures. We take pictures and then show them and they squeal and laugh out loud.

Picture #2: A special woman that was thankful for Anita

Picture #3: Before the community meeting in the "machesa"

Picture #4: This is one of the new latrines that they just built. It is very well done and helps them significantly in terms of hygiene.

Picture #5: These guys wanted to see what was going on in the meeting house.

Picture #6: What's up?

What a day! We were speaking Portuguese all day and it has been a long time since we have used a full vocabulary in Portuguese and I must admit that I was a little lost at some points because it has been 10 years since I have spoken the language and the accent is different here. Also, the small villages speak another dialect called Zena, so there had to be some translation today.

There was a community meeting today at Inhamantanda that we attended today with Joao. It started with some beautiful singing which was so good that I looked over at Anita and she was a little cloudy in the eyes. This community has great voices. Anita and I were introduced and we said a few words. Right after we talked we asked if any of them had any questions. After a little pause, a woman got up and thanked us for being there but especially for Anita because she and the rest of the women had never seen a woman from Care For Life. The rest of the meeting was all about letting the women speak first on the community success and issues. It was great to see how having Anita here has already made an impact. I like this lady that said that about Anita so much that I asked her for a picture after the meeting. The picture above is of that lady with Anita.

Just a few impressions... smart people, good at building things, good sense of humor, happy, cute little kids, hazy streets filled with people, loads of people walking anywhere and everywhere, killer potholes in the road, many women carrying heavy items on their heads (up to 140 pounds), etc.

Care for Life is really doing a huge amount of good. Joao, the director, is a good man and has incredible leadership skills. He truly is in this for the right reasons as is Soloman, the country director, who is also the district president for the Church of this area. We had a long drive with both of them today and really enjoyed learning from them.

We are soaking in methods of Care For Life and feel like we are educating ourselves enough to give you a overview soon on what they are doing here in Mozambique and what they have asked us to do.

T and A

Manga, Mozambique

2009-10-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

So...we just got to Mozambique and are excited like on the first day of school. We are looking forward to visit the first community tomorrow morning and working with Care For Life on their Family Preservation Program.

But before we get there we wanted to show you our new home...and which will be our home for the next two months and where all emails, skype convos and blog updates will happen (in case you love to see where that all takes place). It's very simple, but we already love it.

This is Tal... It feels like I am back on the mission! (The best part of that thought is that my companion is Anita!) As many of you know, I was a missionary in Brazil from 1998-2000 and being back in a Portuguese speaking area like this is bringing it all back! The tile floors, the mold on the walls, the delicious beans and rice that we had for dinner, etc. They even have a shower here that is just like the ones I used in Brazil. It gets heated electronically as the water enters the shower head. The problem is that most of these showers are too low for me and if my head touches the shower head near the wires I get an occasional jolt of electricity! It's nothing to worry about but it certainly wakes me up in the morning.

Mozambique greeted us with a single runway airport and 90 degree weather. Luckily, a slight zephyr kept us cool as we walked to the very small airport. We are both a little nervous about how hot it is supposed to get over the next few months.

We were picked up from the airport and went straight to the Care For Life Office/House. It is on located a main road and we drove through the town of Manga before we arrived. The poverty is so much worse than in South Africa and much of the town of Manga reminded me of some of the very poor areas of Brazil.

When we walked into the Care For Life house we were greeted by some of the staff. They all seemed very nice and were excited to have us here. The Care For Life building has offices in the front and living quarters towards the back (which is where our room is located). We had a "orientation" briefing from Joao, the director, which was very good and it got us excited about what we are going to be doing here. We also got answers to some of our questions. We are excited to continue our orientation over the next few days and visit a very successful community tomorrow called Inhamatanda.

T and A

Kruger National Park, South Africa

2009-10-12T09:47:00.001-07:00

Quick update - we are in Kruger National Park in South Africa.

We got up this morning at 5 am and headed out of our Tent/Camp at 5:30 am in search for the "Big Five" (Elephant, Leopard, Lion, Water Buffalo, and Rhino). Within 10 minutes of leaving camp we spotted a small herd of Elephants right off the road. It was absolutely beautiful and it could not have been more amazing. Then not too much after that we saw Zebras, again just right off the road. (Just so you know in Kruger the best way to view the animals is to drive in your own car and explore. FYI - we are still in our mini car, that is so small it looks like one of those kiddie cars where the kids push with their feet in order to move.)
And so our day developed with sightings of the Big 5 as well as giraffes, hippos, warthogs, beautifully colourful birds, a very poisonous green snake etc. We are having the best time!!!

A and T

Mossel Bay, South Africa

2009-10-09T01:19:00.000-07:00

Brief update from beautiful Mossel Bay, South Africa.

You may wonder where that is, so here a little geography for you. We are on the southern coast of S.A. on the "Garden Route", an area stretching between Mossel Bay and Plettenberg on the south western cost of S.A. and one of the most beautiful places on the earth. It's about 4 hours east of Capetown where we have spent the past few days, visiting Table Mountain (which is on the list to become one of the next Wonders of the World), Robben Island (where we learned more about Nelson Mandela and the struggle of Apartheid here in South Africa), the most astonishing Kirstenbosch Botantical Garden (you think you have seen flowers, but wait until you get here - there are more species here than anywhere else in the world - it's remarkable), and last but not least the Cape of Good Hope, which brought me (Anita) back to 5th grade where I learned about Vasco da Gama and the sailors of that time discovering the world.
What we love most about S.A. though is how kind everyone is and ready to make sure we have a great experience.
We don't have any pictures right now to share, but when we get to Mozambique next week we should be able to update this more with visual aids. But to draw a little visual image, picture this - we are driving from the wine lands towards the Garden Route and as we are passing field after field we see some cows and then sheep grazing... a little later we approach a field in the not too far distance that has another sort of animal on it ...grazing? We get closer and the field is full of Baboons!!!!!
On that note, we leave you here as we are off to discover Mossel Bay that has the second nicest climate in the world after Hawaii.

This is Tal.... we also saw whales yesterday in a place called Hermanus which was pretty cool and then just five minutes ago a very inquisitive little old lady stopped me in front of our Bed and Breakfast and asked, "how long are you?"

Keep up the comments... We love them!

T and A

Married!

2009-09-30T23:24:00.001-07:00

Pictures tell the whole story...

For more pictures of the day, feel free to copy and paste the following blogs to your web browser:

NYC:
http://71toes.blogspot.com/2009/09/nyc-part-3the-wedding.html
http://sees-the-day.blogspot.com/2009/09/nyc-wedding-tal-and-anita.html
Utah Open House:
http://eyrealm.blogspot.com/2009/09/sunny-open-house.html

Voluntarily unemployed!

2009-09-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

Anita's last day as Director of Global Media at Donna Karan was on August 21st and Tal's last day as the Northeast Regional Representative for Maxis Tools was on August 31st. We both let our companies know that we would be "moving on" about six weeks ago so that they had enough time to hire new people and have a smooth transition. All went well and we both left on good terms.
We haven't had much time to think about the fact that we are unemployed because we are so busy getting ready for the wedding and for our trip. Many thanks to so many of you that have donated to our travel fund via pay pal or through a check or cash. It is so nice to know that you are supporting us as we get married and make this big transition to a new life together. We both feel strongly that this is the right time to travel and get involved with humanitarian/volunteer work and we are really excited about it! Only six days until we are married, Yeah!

A note from Amy Antonelli, Executive Director of Rising Star Outreach

2009-08-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

Rising Star Outreach is honored to welcome Tal and Anita Eyre to campus in 2010. They will be working in the leprosy colonies of Southern India providing medical assistance and micro-loans and at the school teaching children from the leprosy colonies. Due to the stigma associated with the disease, leprosy still claims victims in India every day. The Eyres will help Rising Star Outreach provide those families with tools to live a productive, happy life.

When Tal and Anita first expressed interest in coming to volunteer, their enthusiasm was obvious. Though they've never even seen the leprosy colonies, they still they feel compelled to give of their time and serve them. It will be interesting to see how Tal and Anita will add to the Rising Star story by sharing their unique gifts and talents. We felt strongly that they have something important to contribute, and we can't wait to see what it is.

My challenge to you is to support them, follow their blog, and join them in their service through your prayers and emails. India is hot, sweaty, and dirty - their work will not be easy. At the end of their visit they will likely be more exhausted than they've ever been in their lives. But in the process, they'll have been changed for the better in ways they can't imagine, and they will have changed the lives of those they serve. Be a part of that change as you partner with them to bless the lives of those with leprosy.

Sincerely,

Amy Antonelli
Executive Director
Rising Star Outreach

A note from Linda Harper, President of Care for Life

2009-08-24T04:56:00.000-07:00

We got our tickets to Mozambique this past week and we couldn't be more excited! Check out this note that the President of Care for Life sent us for our blog:

Care for Life is certainly excited to have Tal and Anita join us in Mozambique this year. They will be working in all of our 8 communities but particularity in the community of Mungassa. Our Family Preservation Program is a 3 year program, Mungassa will graduate from the program and will celebrate its freedom from Care for Life in November while Tal and Anita are with us. Tal and Anita will be meeting personally with the families of Mungassa to record their great accomplishments towards self reliance and a better life. The difference the Family Preservation Program has made in this community is amazing. This information is vital to our data that shows the success and progress that has been made. Please visit our Web site for more information, and if you would like to donate to the work that Care for Life and Anita and Tal are doing be sure to visit the donate tab. If you do donate be sure to note that you are donating in behalf of Anita and Tal in the "Message to merchant box"

Thank you for your support,

Linda Harper
President
Care for Life

Donation Button!

2009-08-03T22:19:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our good friend Jared, we now have a donation button on our blog! The Wedding Travel Fund will be used for our travels over the next year. One of the things that Anita and I are both passionate about is learning from being in new places. We love to travel and any financial support for our upcoming trip would be greatly appreciated.

Engaged

2009-05-30T16:12:00.001-07:00

Anita and Tal were engaged at 5am on May 23rd on the top of Cadilac Mountain in Acadia National Park in Maine.

They are happy.