Sri Lanka

Alice, Sophie, Emily, Logan, Jennifer, Holly, Mason, Margot, Juliet, Helen, Ted, Fraser, Bob and Allen

This past weekend a group of us decided to flew to Sri Lanka to take advantage of the 3 day weekend. We flew into Colombo which was an hours flight from Chennai, a nice short flight. Their were 14 of us...6 kids and 8 adults. What an incredibly fun weekend we had! We left Chennai at 6:45 am and arrived in Colombo at around 8 am.

uh oh...flat tire

We've safely landed!

waiting for our rooms

the only water sport around...

fun times playing

Sophie and Emily

We arrived at the Brown's Beach Resort and after sorting out the room situation we were floating in the pool by around 1o am. I must admit I was very nervous about going to Sri Lanka due to the fighting amongst the Tamils and the Sri Lankans. You could tell this when sitting at the pool I heard something like a gun shot that made me jump about 10 feet! The kids had so much fun playing with the guys in the pool! The sun was really intense even though we were just a bit farther south. By afternoon everyone was a little red! The kids spent time in the pool but really enjoyed playing in the ocean and running on the clean beach! I was amazed at how similiar Sri Lanka was to India but in some ways so different. Sri Lanka was so clean, had no cows wandering the streets, few stray dogs and women in saris (just long skirts). It was nice to walk on sidewalks (yes they had sidewalks too) and not having to worry about what you were stepping in. I had a man propose to me on the beach...I have decided to keep Ted though! On Sunday morning we all boarded a bus that took us to Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage which was about a bumpy 2 hr drive. The scenery was very pretty, rice paddies, rubber plantations, hills and palm trees. We arrived just in time for our group to get the last of the feeding tickets...thank you Margot and Juliet for sharing with us! I must say that I got a bit teary eyed when it was my turn to bottle feed the elephant. I have bottle fed a lot of animals in my life and nothing was as amazing (or quick) at witnessing the baby drink its milk! I have loved animals since I was little and elephants have always been at the top of the list.

The Rubber Plantation

Mason seeing how stretchy the rubber sap is

Feeding time at the elephant orphanage

Okay a few tears...

Emily's turn

We then watched an elephant tear and eat the pulp from a coconut tree. I must admit the elephant was very clever about tackling this. It looked like he would surely tip over the way he leaned.
We then were able to walk out into a large field that had lots of elephants, each standing with their mahout or trainer. At one point a baby elephant pulled my hand into his mouth and tried to suck on it! Okay, it may sound gross but it was kind of cool! How many people have had their hand in an elephant's mouth (okay so maybe you wouldn't want to?)? The elephant were not chained or tied to anything, they could have trampled us if they had wanted to but they didn't (note...the big African Elephant I believe may have been chained up).

my hand is in his mouth...

We then walked towards the river and sat out on a deck over looking the river and had drinks while waiting for the elephants. It was such a beautiful site to see these magnificent creatures heading into the river. There was one elephant missing his foot, it was blown off in landmine. The poor elephants spine is all out of whack and I read that they are trying to work on making a prosthesis foot for him. It was absolutely beautiful watching the elephants in there natural environment. The drank and sprayed water. They laid down and were scrubbed by the kids. When heading back to the bus we headed through a tourist area and I saw my very first cobra and snake charmer! The cobra was pretty neat to see...from a distance. There was also a man with some pythons.

Then headed to another elephant reserve where we rode elephants bareback, scrubbed elephants in the river and were given a shower by an elephant! We had our choice between a 15 minute ride and a 3o minute ride and lets say due to the size of the elephant the 15 minute ride was more than enough. We rode the elephant to the edge of a rice field and I will never forget the view. The field was such a brilliant green, waving palms trees and a nice gentle breeze on our face, all from atop an elephant. Once again I am so thankful to have had these adventures!

Please note: several of the photos were taken by Bob Blair, thanks for sharing!

Our Time in India

It would appear that our time in India is coming to an end. We just aren't sure how soon that end will be. We are hoping to remain in India to allow the kids to finish the school year out, which means June. While leaving Illinois was the toughest thing I (and the rest of the family) ever had to do it has been the most incredible experience we could have ever asked for. We have been able to see and witness so many things in this world that God created. I have loved witnessing the Indian culture even though it has frustrated me to no end. I will miss the Indian people and their genuine kindness. I will miss the good friends that have become like family. I will miss the blue sunny skies. And I will miss our life here. But all that being said we look forward to returning to the United States of America. There are so many things we took for granted living in the US and I pray that we never take them for granted again! There is much discussion to be had as far as the transition back and I will update the blog when more news occurs. Thank all of you for your loving support and prayers you have offered our family before the move to India, during the move to India and our time in India. I would ask that you would continue:-)

The rescue of an Olive Ridley Sea Turtle

Yesterday I had the incredible opportunity to go a observe the move of an injured Olive Ridley sea turtle. My neighbor Liz had heard from the local turtle lady Supraja late Thursday night that a turtle had came ashore near a resort about 25 minutes south of our house. Supraja accepted the challenge to relocate this turtle to a spot to recuperate and rest. Before the turtle could be moved out of the area permission had to be granted so a hole was dug beneath the deck at Temple Bay Resort and the hole was lined with a tarp and filled with sea water. The turtle rested in this make shift home over night. Thursday morning I met Supraja down at Temple Bay and did my first photo shoot....of a turtle none the less! The turtle most likely had an encounter with a fishing boat resulting in a cracked shell and missing front flippers. She probably was coming ashore to lay her eggs but had a difficult time moving forward and seemed to be stuck on the beach. With permission granted to move to a new location, the turtle who is about 2 ft in diameter, took her first and hopefully only one car ride up to a turtle hatchery not far from our house. The turtle is now in her temporary home where she will receive medicine on her cracked shell to help heal the wound and some time for her missing flippers to continue to heal. In a few weeks she will be taken out to sea, beyond the breakers and released. What kind a life she will live will never be known. Perhaps she will learn to survive without her front flippers or not. The turtle also shares a home with other turtles who have yet to hatch. This particular area in Chennai is a very active spot for these turtle to lay eggs and groups actively walk the beaches at night looking for nests. When nests are spotted the eggs are dug up and relocated to safe spot and reburied at the exact depth of their original nest and hatch around 60 days later. We had the opportunity to release these tiny turtles last March.

Caught at last

We have big news, our guest has been captured! It was a mouse and fairly large one too! The live trap worked. I came down in the middle of the night to see him nibbling on the cheese. We really weren't sure if the trap would work but fortunately it did. We think he is probably the only one but just to be safe the trap will stay out the next few nights along with the glue traps. We took the live trap outside this morning and asked the guards to let the mouse go a long way from our house, but being that neither of them are Hindu I believe the mouse may have met his demise instead.

An unwelcome house guest

We arrived home (that is really weird because I truly feel I have two homes now!) Saturday morning around 4am. The flight from London to Chennai was pretty smooth and time went fairly fast as our good friends Fraser and Helen from Chennai were also on the flight. We thankfully got all of our luggage and headed home. When we got home we discovered that we had a house guest, an unwelcome one! We seem to have some sort of critter that left little packages in the kitchen and ate some food while we were gone. Now granted the cat and dog were gone most of the time but they have been here with us the past several days and they haven't caught it yet! So yesterday I informed the driver we needed a mouse trap. About thirty minutes later the maid comes in with a live trap with a peanut (not peanut butter). So last night I anxiously set the trap out on the counter (thank goodness for bleach to clean it all up!) and I also put a little piece of bread to go with his peanut. Well, the clever little creature headed into the trap and dined on the bread and left. I woke up around 2 am to check to see if I had captured anything and found he had escaped! So I rebaited the trap, put some duct tape sticky side up and headed back to bed. I eagerly bounded down the stairs at 6 am certain that I had caught the critter (okay I am secretly holding out for a chipmunk) only to find that he did not come back. Disappointed Ted said it was time for mouse poison or a better trap. After a few emails I found out that they do have glue traps and I went and bought some. So tonight Mason and I tweaked the wire that triggers the door to shut, used cheese instead of peanuts and have set the glue traps out. So the wait is on. What could it be? Stayed tuned, hopefully I will have news soon!

Mason adjusting the trap

Glue trap #1

Glue trap #2