Monday's Picture of the Day

Thunder rolls in at the administration building at Sooch Village. The monsoon season lasts from approximately June to September in India. (Picture taken August 2008)


Each day we'll post a picture from our tours to India. To learn more about traveling to India with us, click here.

Ice Cream Party at Sooch Village

One of the best treats we give our children in India is ice cream. When you live in a country that routinely has triple digit temperatures and air conditioning isn't even a thought, ice cream is probably the best treat you can get.

Here is a time lapse of an ice cream party at Sooch Village back in October.



As you can see, the children absolutely love the ice cream. I think the most quiet I've ever heard the orphanage with children there is when they were eating ice cream. It's all business when that treat comes out.

A New Orphan Comes to Sooch Village

"Talk to Joyoti. She will help him."

That was the statement made by our driver, Rajesh, as we were leaving Sooch Village two days ago. He was speaking to a man who had pulled up next to our car on a motorcycle. Sitting in front of the man was a young boy about six years old.

This boy is the newest orphan at Sooch Village. The man on the motorcycle was his uncle, who had been caring for him for the last three months but was no longer able to do so. The boy's parents had been traveling back from the city one evening months ago when they promptly disappeared. As the Sooch Village director Jyoti put it, "Their bodies were never found."

I had seen the later conditions of orphans at The Miracle Foundation - the smiling, happy faces and the sad ones too - but not the initial face of a boy who was literally dropped off moments ago to start a brand new life.

Later that evening, the first day the boy was in Sooch Village, I was eating dinner in the dining hall of building #5. I ate a scoop of rice and looked up. There was that new boy. He had wandered out of his room and was looking up and down the inside of the building, surveying his new surroundings. The look on his face spoke deeply to my primitive, human side. He was confused, scared and still wiping his mouth from his first meal at the orphanage. Other children quickly ate around him, regulars who knew the drill and had already found comfort in the habits and rituals of Sooch Village.

Eventually, this boy will find comfort too. But not yet. Not now.

After we finished our dinner, I asked to see that boy before we left for the night. I walked into his room, where he was lying on the floor with eight other children, sleeping away his first night in his new home. As Jyoti put it, even though the children had beds of their own, they liked to sleep together when they first arrived at Sooch Village. The boy was sleeping soundly. So for now, he had found enough peace to rest.

I kept wrestling with the idea of how tough it would be to be that boy. How difficult is it for children to be forced to have adult emotions. I took solace in the fact that he was no longer a lone orphan staying with his uncle but that now he would have a new, much bigger and more capable family at The Miracle Foundation.

Life is tough now for that boy but he only has good things to look forward to. It's been a blessing to see not only the end results of The Miracle Foundation's work but the beginning of it too. It makes the good times here that much more rewarding.

Durga Puja in Orissa

As we've traveled in the state of Orissa visiting two of The Miracle Foundation's orphanages, we've seen the beginnings of the celebration of the Durga Puja festival. One of over thirty festivals celebrated each year in India, Durga Puja is celebrated throughout India and is one of the many, many days off of school and work during the year. Sasi, our accountant at the Bhawani orphanage, said that Indian children only go to school 215 days out of the year because there are so many holidays. Here's a bit more info about Durga Puja:

The pujas are held over a ten-day period, which is traditionally viewed as the coming of the married daughter, Durga, to her father, Himalaya's home. It is the most important festival in Bengal, and Bengalis celebrate with new clothes and other gifts, which are worn on the evenings when the family goes out to see the 'pandals' (temporary structures set up to venerate the goddess). Although it is a Hindu festival, religion takes a backseat on these five days: Durga Puja in Bengal is a carnival, where people from all backgrounds, regardless of their religious beliefs, participate and enjoy themselves to the hilt.

Durga is the goddess that the celebration is centered around.

In Hinduism, Durga or Maa Durga (Mother Durga) is a form of Devi, the supreme goddess. Goddess Durga is considered by Hindus to be the mother of Ganesha, and Kartikeya. She is thus considered the fiercer, demon-fighting form of Shiva's wife, goddess Parvati.

Durga is depicted as a warrior aspect of Devi Parvati with 10 arms who rides a lion or a tiger, carries weapons and assumes mudras, or symbolic hand gestures. This form of the Goddess is the embodiment of feminine and creative energy.

Puja means "worship" and one of the first signs of the coming of the festival is the many tent-like structures that are constructed for the festival. We've seen lots of colored lights and lots of these tent-like structures being built for the upcoming festival.



People will stay up all night exchanging gifts, dancing and singing. One of the reasons this festival is held during this time of year is that the farmers have just sold their crops after the monsoon season so they have lots of money to spend.

There's really no American equivalent to these Indian festivals. Sasi points to the many holidays in India as one of many reasons that Indians lag behind America in terms of development. To a certain degree, he's correct. There would never be a ten-day holiday in America.

Read more about Durga Puja here.

Thank you for the Ice Cream Party!

The children at the Bhawani orphanage want to thank Amy Hart-Jones and Bill and Linda Carson for donating an ice cream party! We just had the ice cream party yesterday and the children loved it. The party was in honor of Andy Jones and Bill and Linda's nephew. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.


A couple of the older boys brought over two tables to set up for the party.


Nichole (right) and the staff begin unpacking the ice cream and ready the plates for the children.


We had two flavors on the menu - strawberry and vanilla. Each child got a slice of both kinds. From what I've seen in India, ice cream comes in brick form instead of the tubs you find in America.


The children line up, youngest and shortest at the front and the older kids to the back. They're watching Susan, the director of the Bhawani orphanage, cut the ice cream.


And we have our first customer!


Just some friends hanging out, having ice cream on a hot afternoon in Jharsuguda, Orissa.


Did I mention that the children love, absolutely love ice cream?


Even in India, the older boys play it cool.


There's no conversation. The food must be good!


Of course, there was enough left for the staff to have some too. I think they enjoyed it just as much as the children.


Even the local villagers that were working on the new office rooms at Bhawani (you can sort of see them in the back there)were able to join in. They grabbed their ice cream and quickly ran back to work.


And that's a wrap! The staff served approximately 200 children in about 15 minutes. Not too shabby.

A big thank you again to Amy Hart-Jones and Linda Carson for their generous contribution! If you'd like to donate an ice cream/birthday party for the children, please visit MiracleFoundation.org.

On Our Way to Rourkela

And the MayFair Hotel! The most luxurious hotel in the state of Orissa!

Okay, don't get me wrong. We're not spending your generous donations by putting our staff members up in 5 star hotels while they're in India. The MayFair is a fine hotel by Indian standards, meaning it has a restaurant, somewhat clean sheets and air conditioning. After 500 mosquito bites, the same basic meal for the last six days and uncomfortable heat at night, I'm ready to part ways with Sooch Village. Plus, The Miracle Foundation gets a generous discount at the MayFair, which makes the stay there all the more sweet.

We will be driving from outside of Ranchi to Rourkela, which the Indian staff says is about a 5 hour drive. Ha, I know better. I'm estimating it will be at least 8 hours. Indian time can be annoying if you're not used to it.

Talk to you when I'm in Rourkela.

Sick at Sooch

Well, it was bound to happen sometime, right?

I began feeling ill late Saturday night and much of today, Sunday, was spent battling wacky body temperatures and trips to the bathroom. Needless to say, it wasn't as productive of a day as I would have liked. I suspect it was something I ate on Saturday but I'm not sure what. Maybe the American Style Sour Cream & Onion Lays potato chips?

Sushma did a great job of rounding up the kids to write letters to their sponsors and I'll take a look at those letters tomorrow. We're slowly but surely building this program to be the best it can be.

Tonight, I'm going to bed early to hopefully wake up around 11 PM to watch/listen to my beloved Kansas City Chiefs inevitably get destroyed by their intra-divisional rivals the Denver Broncos.

On top of a stomach ache, I look like I have the chicken pox from the literally dozens of mosquito bites I've gotten. I sprayed my room with bug spray earlier today, shut the door for ten minutes and came back to at least thirty dead mosquitoes on the floor and in my bed.

Hopefully I wake up tomorrow well rested and nausea free.

Lots of Activity at Sooch Village

With a half dozen of the cottages at Sooch Village still under construction, there is a flurry of activity going on inside the orphanage walls. Right now, a saw is buzzing outside my window, cutting wooden boards. Men are banging on the windows, adding screens and metal barriers to the frames of the windows.

There are probably about ten men working on the cottages during the day. Just today I saw them working on the stone steps of one cottage; hoisting a water container to the top of another; grinding stones next to another building; and ferrying the house mothers via motorcycle to Ranchi to get baby's milk.

This is in addition to the usual work of the other staff here - the accountants working on the computers; sweeping and washing the floors of the administration building; and of course cooking for me!

Sushma and I have been working great together and the only impediment to success is the shaky internet. I am going to hopefully address that situation here and somehow, I don't know yet, get reliable internet to Sooch Village.

Back in India

After another American Airlines flight 292 from Chicago to Delhi, I am back at Sooch Village to work with our Sponsorship Coordinator Sushma to make The Miracle Foundation’s program the best it can be.

Sushma is responsible for updating the children’s information in our online database, as well as ensuring proper communications from the children to their sponsors with my help of course. I am here to learn about Sushma’s current tasks and her schedule and to find out how we can make communication between India and America easier. Together, we should build a fantastic program.

I can tell you that after my second arrival in India, only a month and a half after the first arrival, the excitement of being in such a magnificent country has not been lost. The feeling of arriving at the under-construction Delhi airport was less a shock than it was the first time, as I found myself maneuvering the terminal with an ease and confidence that would have been impossible to have on my first trip.

Any confidence I had on that first trip came from our indispensable, irreplaceable, (infamous?) and brilliant travel coordinator Barbara. Since I am alone on this trip, my confidence will have to come from seeing this terrain before. Wish me luck.

I am currently outside of Ranchi, Jharkand, India, at The Miracle Foundation’s newest orphanage – Sooch Village. The orphanage was officially opened in March 2008 and there are still tweaks being made to the administration building as well as many cottages still under construction. It’s a great feeling being able to come back here a second time and be familiar with the staff and the surroundings.

The plan is to travel with Sushma to our different orphanges and learn what can and can’t work for the sponsorship program. My philosophy and strategy for the program comes from one of those terribly clichéd, workplace team building sessions – What program would you create if you had no limitations? That is start of my thought process and we won’t disappoint.

Being the Web Manager as well, I’ve tasked myself with leveraging technology in a way like no other sponsorship program in the world has done. Part of this trip will help figure out how, over the long run, technology will bring the sponsors and the children of The Miracle Foundation closer together.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I look forward to updating you again on my travels and I hope you look forward to reading more.

India's Super Highway

Great article about India's emerging national highway system and the nuances of driving in India.

His specialty is the ritual called a puja, in which he spreads the munificence of the god Lord Ganesh upon a parade of newly purchased vehicles—cars, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, and auto rickshaws, along with the occasional bicycle or bullock cart—whose owners wouldn't think of hitting the road without the blessings of a happy, four-armed god with the head of an elephant who brings prosperity and good fortune, particularly to machines and those setting out on something new.

Read the whole article here.