Day 7 Meeting up with Reena!

Introducing my "Indian Grandchildren" Ashish and Sakshi!  Ashish is nearly 4 and Saksi will be 3 in August.  I met Reena in April 2005 when I first came out to Asha, she was about 16 then. We meet whenever I come out to India, despite the language barrier, we manage pretty well, I'd say! It's been good to see her growing up into a woman.


Ashish (his name means blessing) and Sakshi (her name means witness)

Reena changes Sakshi into the dress we bought her!  The bright pink colour went down very well!

She loved it!  Ashish's tiger T shirt will be modelled on a different occasion, but he smiled when we showed it to him!

Reena,

Me and Reena

Sakshi in the front, Ashish behind her.

Reena, Me and Mukesh's sister (Mukesh is Reena's husband)

Reena with me holding Sakshi.

Reena with D

Me with the children.

The family photo which will be framed on our dresser!

Sakshi being cute!

Day 7- The womb, the unsafest place for a baby girl?

Arrived back in Delhi at 05:30 and made for the cafe outside the station where we could have a coffee and wake up properly and in my case, watch the families and travellers come and go, admire the saris etc!  A couple of men were seated on a table next to ours, one of them asked if we we were part of "something" ministries.  We wondered if they had been on a conference in Delhi as they were both Pasters, it transpired. The older chap was Paster and was part of "Everett Mission Charitable Trust"  which is based Jharkhand near Calcutta, he gave me his card with all the details  which included a family photo, his wife and three children. It turned out that in fact he had nine children, two of them were their birth children and seven they had adopted  who had been abandoned. He pointed out one of the children, a little girl, sitting between his other son and daughter.  They had found her on a rubbish heap, in a terrible state.  He said that he too had been brought up in an orphanage and didn't know who his parents were, now it seems his heart is reaching out to these unwanted ones.  I wished I had asked if the other six they had adopted were also girls.

It is a timely story as there has been so much written in the Indian Press about female foeticide and infantacide following india's recent Census. A few days ago I wrote the following paragraph, it seems appropriate to include it here:

The womb, the unsafest place for a baby girl

I saw this headline in one of the National newspapers this week, it caught my eye and I read more of the article.  Like us, India held a  National Census last week.  The results are not good news for girls.  In Mumbai, for example there are only 838 girls in the 0-6 age group for every 1,000 boys.  The provisonal results for the Census across India are "sounding an alarm over the falling child sex ratio (CSR)  Despite several awareness campaigns worth millions run by the state to check dwindling numbers, the results are worse than 10 years ago.  Who is committing female foeticide and infantacide?  Apparently it is not the poorest and least literate communities, to the contrary the reverse is true.



However, every day there are horrific stories reported about discovered girl foetuses and  various descriptions of how newborn girls are killed....not easy reading, but there it all is in graphic detail in the daily newpapers,  I'll spare you the knowledge, it will break your heart....

Healthy baby girls are quickly  taken home from hospital before they are registered, later pronounced dead.

Injustice, in your face......

Day 6- Just chillin'

Today is a much needed Chillin' out day! As I type  by the side of the swimming pool, Nigel is reading his Kerala Guide, probably hoping for more nerd points as he impresses us with his "knowledge" of the entire area in preparation for Saturday.  Sue is deeply engrossed in The Far Pavillions, a book I have read twice now, perfect Indian historical, romantic fiction..sigh...Ashton......D is into "The girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and me, I've been cutting and sticking into a scrapbook and have made a mess all over my hands with pastel chalks!

Behind me, some members of staff are having a break, playing...I wonder if you can guess....the sound of runs being scored with enthusiastic cheers!

I can hear the Brain Fever bird going up the octaves and she gets more fervent, a chipmunk is running past my feet, a red wattled lapwing (ooh err listen to me!!!) has come to drink out of the pool. D and Sue are keen to inform us of all bird varieties that cross or paths or fly overhead. We are on a steep exotic bird learning curve!  I stand amazed as Sue makes small notes against each bird she sees and dates them on the page.....

A monkey has come to join us, Sue says "Quick, grab your stuff!" however he is more intent on having a drink too, as you can see!

Tonight we are catching the Night Train back to Delhi and then it will be full on at Asha for two days. We arrive at 05:30 and are hoping the train is delayed again as the American Diner doesn't open until 7am, then we'll leg it over to "On the House" and dump our cases, get changed and then out ready to be interviewed and do workshops.  Let's hope we get some sleep tonight!


21:45

On the train now, not nearly as stressful as before, names on the board with compartment letter and even markings on Platform to tell you where the A1 carriage will stop.  D and Nigel had to  dodge running cow on platform, whilst Sue and I were in the corner of the waiting room with men gradually invading our personal body space. Thankfully cases provided  a sort of moat! By now Sue and I didn't know where to look, having discovered that eyes right meant Men's toilets and eyes left meant young men staring....

Station announcement "Stand clear of the cow!"

Just because they were teasing me about charging up my netbook on the train!

Now the train is making good speed and there is even a plug to charge up your mobile/lap top so I'm well happy as it means I can get this blog up  sooner rather than later.

Day 5-Afternoon- The Bear Necessities!

This afternoon we had our 5th and final safari.  D. has bought an Indian Bird book which has been invaluable in identifying all the varieties we are seeing fly overhead or perch.  Nigel is getting some great close ups with his zoom lens.  Sue hasn't been on tripod duty today!

White throated storks....

Parakeet nesting in a tree...

We've seen vultures and woodpeckers, tree pies, kingfishers, honey buzzards and a whole assortment of others!

Breastfeeding monkey!

More monkeys which are everywhere!

Ancient Ranthampore Fort above....

and then this...The Sloth bear!  Very rare to see, the driver of our vehicle had never seen one! What a day we are having! He was up a tree when we first spotted him....

He had knocked down a bees nest and we watched him climb down the trunk and proceed to scoop out the honey with his claw and lick, whilst all the bees encircled him!

It was a classic Winnie the Pooh moment!

"That buzzing-noise means something. If there's a buzzing noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee. ....
And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.....
And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it." So he began to climb the tree.”

After this episode of watching "Baloo", we heard that some people had seen a leopard "Bagheera", but that was not to be us today!  We were all quite stunned to have seen 2 tigers and one rare Sloth bear in one day!

Day 5 -Morning-The wonderful thing about Tiggers!

Another 5:30 wake up call and we're off!   Within 5 minutes of arrival at the National Park, a tigress strolls down the road!  Everyone is amazed!  We don't get a very close view, but it gets us all excited and on the look out.  The guide tries to track where she might go, but after a while we move on. Little did we know what lay ahead....

Sitting out in the open was a tiger, panting in the heat, no one could believe their eyes!  We thought yesterday was a good sighting, but there was more to come!

Panting in the heat

After a while, he gets up and slowly ambles off, we follow...

He walks in front of the Cantaur (Open topped vehicle)

and down to a small pool beside the road....

Had a drink whilst we all watched from above....

and lay down in the water to cool off!

Look at the pads on him!

We watched him for about 20 minutes!  I can't believe we'll ever ger a better sighting than this! Some people we have met haven't had a single sighting after 5 safaris.  We feel very privileged.