Dear All,

Again, my apologies for not getting anything onto this site for a long time. So much has happened.

I finished up my stay in Chennai with Share and Care Children's Welfare Society on 26 February. I'm writing their website for them, so I learned an awful lot about their work with the disadvantaged populations in Chennai and Thiruvallur District, which is just north of Chennai. Over the next few days I hope to document more of what I saw and put it up here. The website is in progress.

On 27 February I arrived in Kakinada, Andrah Pradesh, to visit Sarada Vidyalayam, primary school, and Srikiran Institute of Ophthimology founded and run by Dr. Chandra Sankurathri and documented by CBC's film, A Ray of Light. The film is incredibly inspiring, and I was moved to give the proceeds of my last yard sale (plus some) to Dr. Chandra's Canadian fundraising arm, Manjari Sankurathri Memorial Foundation (see link on 'Links' page).

By 28 February mid day I was on my way to Rayagada, a small-ish town in the south of Orissa. Here I visited with Ankuran, an NGO that works primarily with some of the many tribal villages in this part of India. My primary interest was to see what is happening with the situation around Kashipur, an area of significant interest to Alcan and other aluminum-producing companies because of the large reserves of bauxite. Angad Bhalla, an Indo-Canadian filmmaker, has documented the issue in 'From Kalinga to Kashipur', a film I saw at the last Planet in Focus festival in Toronto (see 'Links'). Responding to an email update about the situation, I found myself rearranging my plans to include a visit there. While I was not entirely successful, I did learn a lot, and will make at least one blog entirely for that. When I return to Canada I hope to raise awareness about the issue, which seems pretty unknown to most.

I arrived in Varanasi on the morning of 5 February, and stayed at a truly wonderful hotel, Hotel Surya, in the farthest north part of the city. My main goal here was to visit the Ganga Mahal Children's Program, run by World Literacy of Canada (see 'Links') to simply see it in action and learn more. What I saw were poor children, neatly and cleanly dressed, learning—doing homework or catching up on skills. They were all attentive and polite—a teacher's dream. Because the program is well funded and has an excellent website, I simply refer you to that to learn more.

I left Varansi on a train at 10:40 p.m. on the 6th, arriving in Delhi at 12:30 p.m. the following day. Less than 24 hours after my departure, everything changed. At 7 p.m. last night (7th Feb) I turned on the TV to watch the news. Scrolling through the channels, I saw that something horrible had happened, carnage, bodies being carried away, people shouting more than usual. The words 'mandir' and 'Varanasi' stuck out amidst the Hindi flow, and I found the English version on CNN. As the news unfolded, I learned of what had happened only a few minutes before, and watched, as the rest of the world has, in horror as this holiest of holy cities responded to the attack. I thought of the young drivers I had met, in particular a young Muslim boy/man who drove me and a friend out to Sarnath only 2 days before. And of the friend I had met, Charlotte from France, who was visiting India for the first time, really longing to go to South America but came here because her dear friend was longing to see her. I called Yogi Lodge, and there she was, safe and sound. And now Varanasi is bravely moving on. And everyone is praying (yes, praying) that communal violence will not be the result.

And now I'm here in Delhi, writing as much as I can before moving on to Mussoorie, where I will want to be immersed in Hindi as much as I can.

Here are a few photos to go with this entry.

Take care all—

Ellen