Week One in India

I just finished my second week in India and have one remaining. It has been wonderful and full of adventure. I hope to summarize my first week in this update and another of the second week soon. As you may recall my initial interest in this trip was to see some of the sites where FCN (Foundation for Children in Need)is supporting some of their 2,000 children here in south central India. My sister and I just became sponsors of children last June.
I joined three other Americans in Hyderabad on Jan 27th. We met the founder (Tom Chitta) and his wife (Dr Geetha)and were shown around an orphanage and a primary school the first two days. My sister's sponsored child (age 7) was at this orphanage which had about 25 young boys. They were all charming. Tom was a formerly a priest and Dr Geetha was formerly a nun, both for 20 yrs. The founded this organization 10 yrs ago.
The city of Hyderbad is very large with 10 million people. It is 5th largest in this country of 1.3 billion. The first thing you notice is people and villages everywhere. Fortunately 60% of the land is farmable compared to 20% in the US and 5% in Tanzania. Hyderabad is a mixture of rich and poor, young and old, modern and ancient. The most shocking was probably the silicon-valley type city on the edge of town, where very large high rise office parks are everywhere, with names like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and many, many more. It is nick named Cyberbad.
We visited several schools each day and were given charming dance performances at each school. Most of these school were around the village south of Hyderabad where Tom and Geetha have their home and main office. It is also Tom's home town of about 30,000. We all stayed at their house which is a new 3 story , 5 bedroom home. It was very comfortable. There were no hotels there. We arrived there by night train and stayed 4 days.
Besides the schools we visited a "tribal village" which was almost like going into an aboriginal village about an hour from Tom's village. These people live on the edge of the forest and spend the week collecting tree gum for sale to the government at the end of each week. Their homes or like tents made of sticks and the children go with them into the forests. Tom's brother is a social worker and tries working with these people to provide schooling for the children (maybe 15 total). FCN is trying to get them to clear a spot to build a car-port type structure so they can get a government teacher to work there out of the elements.
Following that we drove on into the forest where a new Hindu temple is being built with local donations. It was really amazing how much the stone work looked just like the much older temples all around India. They still have 3 or 4 years of work left. They have pilgrimages there already for up to 50,000 people at a time and provide food for all of them at no charge from local donations.
At the end of the week we all drove 7 hours with Tom and his driver to Madras on the East coast (Bay of Bengal). We stayed there overnight and separated, me to go south and the other three to finish there tour near Delhi in the north. Our last day in Madras (now called Chennai) we toured the cathedral of St Thomas the Apostle and his tomb, then the beach and finally St Thomas Mount where he was killed. That evening we went shopping. The following is my thank you letter to Tom and Geetha.
LETTER
Dear Tom and Dr Geetha,
My visit to India and your sponsored projects in Andra Pradesh has been the experience of a life time. I was so thrilled to meet Devendra, my sponsored child at the St Mary school in ______________. Even though he is only 8 yrs old and has no father he seems to be doing extremely well and is already writing me letters in good English. I think he will even be speaking it in a few years. I look forward to sponsoring him for many years to come and probably visiting him again, God willing.
I was especially impressed with the way the sponsorship programs are set up for those not attending the FCN school, which is most of your 2000 sponsored children. You have documented and organized things extremely well and at the same time are teaching the children good accounting practices, organization and communication skills. These skills will all be extremely beneficial to them as they mature and is not something they would normally get in school.
I was also very surprised at the variety of projects FCN is supporting, all of which are dear to my heart. These include an orphanage for HIV positive children, a home for the elderly, a school for sewing classes of young and middle aged women, and housing for handicapped children next to a good school they attend. The dancing and singing performances at each school we visited were very impressive, but the one at the handicapped home was truly amazing. And the joy of the performers and the children in the audience was very obvious on their faces. I cannot say enough about how valuable these lessons in dance in each school will be having on their confidence and joy for living. Very impressive.
The one week tour allowed us to get to know you and your family and staff very personally and I am very appreciative of that. Your hospitality is beyond reproach and is an example to us all. I think we Americans have a lot to learn in that area from other cultures like India. I have seen it on a much smaller scale in Tanzania where I have worked in mission. They, like you, truly believe that any guest is a real blessing to the household.
I look forward to many years of support of FCN both financially, spiritually and through volunteer projects back in the US. Congratulations on a wonderful tour and thank you for introducing me to the other Americans who have similar mission support interests. They were charming.
Tom Scott

TIME TO START PACKING

It seems like I just said that back in April but this time my chances of success are higher in returning to Tanzania as planned. It should be a very interesting year since I’ll finally be visiting India, a long term goal that seems hard to believe may actually come to pass. It will be especially meaningful since I will not be visiting the typical tourist spots. I’ll be seeing two FCN mission sites, then the mother house of the Indian sisters that work in Tanzania, the Shantivanam catholic ashram established by Fr Bede Griffith and traveling the last 10 days with my friend Christel from Switzerland who has done mission work there before. Some of you may recall Christel was the engineer I first worked for in Tanzania. Like me she’s retired and works about 6 months each year in Tanzania. The two day trip by train from the East to West coast by myself should be especially interesting.

My biggest problem at this point is trying to decide what to pack. When I was initially heading straight back to Africa two bags was not a problem, but now the thought of toting two bags all around India, north and south, by train and plane does not sound so appealing. If I only had my clothes that would be one thing, but as usual I have things for friends that they would really enjoy and have been purchased for them long ago, like a camera, external hard-drives, books, clothes, gifts and 2 used laptops. I think I’ll have to cut back on my clothes. At first I thought about just shipping it but for $700 some things will just have to wait.

I was hoping to complete my income taxe calcs before I left but it does not look like that will happen due to a lack of 1099 and 1098 forms, so I just did a rough estimate. It will be my first year to pay state income tax except for a little last year since it was my first time in 5 years that I’ve lived in the country the entire year. It makes me appreciate those 38 yrs in Texas a little more; no state tax.

I got good news from my doctor and my niece this month so the year is starting out good. My heart surgeon said the recent echo shows no growth of the enlarged aorta, so I should be good for another 6 months before I have it checked again. It is staying at about 4.7 cm diameter and 5.1 is the point when they get concerned. My twin brother shocked me a few days ago when he reminded me that his first aneurysm grew from 3.0 to 5.0 cm in 6 months. The other good news from my niece Marisa was that she wants to live in my house while I’m gone and help pay the utilities. Wow. How nice is that. She’s lived here before and really likes the house and she won’t have to share it with anyone this time. She’s even agreed to continue feeding the fish so I won’t have to give them all away. I think her cat will like the company.

I had two wonderful driving trips last Fall to Houston and to Miami. I got to see Pam and Kyle and Charlene and a few friends in Texas at Thanksgiving. Then I drove to Miami (1600mi) to visit my three Maryknoll friends in early December. I stopped along the way to see old friends in Louisville KY, Asheville NC, Columbia SC, and Jacksonville FL. It was great fun and really broke up the travel time. Rose and Tara worked with me in Africa and are now living together in Miami and our friend Steve Pohl was returning home from Bolivia for his parent’s anniversary, so we gave his a nice surprise welcome. Tara just flew back from her first business trip to Africa and had lots of good stories. I got great tours and great food in all locations but it was best to just see everyone again and meet some of their friends.

If everything stays on schedule I depart Jan 24th and return to Baltimore Aug 2nd. I hope to see Claudia in Annapolis, Mary Orfao in Philly and Liz Mach in New York while I'm in that area, along with the grand-kids of course. I’ll be in touch by email, blogs and picasa web albums, so keep in touch please. I might even try Skype and Facebook once in a while, internet willing.

thomascott@gmail.com, scottintanzania.blogspot.com picasaweb.google.com\thomascott