Melanie's Trip to India Jan/Feb 2007
Full report and photograph album http://www.unesco.8m.com/India/india_home_page.htm
Thank you to British Airways who made this trip possible and for the extra baggage allowance enabling the transportation of necessitous children’s clothes, blankets, educational material and toys.
Melanie’s visit to India.
When the day finally came for me to go to India, it was a dream come true, and I could still barely believe it. I’d only ever dreamed of going to the land of my father having been brought up in the very English countryside of Devon. We have been supporting an orphanage in Andra Predesh in India for 20 months. From Manchester I went to London Heathrow, where I caught my flight to Chennai, Madras, on the Bay of Bengal. It was a 10 hour flight. The cabin staff opened the plane door, and a wave of heat just hit us like an oven door opening, after the turkeys are cooked. Immediately the smells of spices and curries wafted up my nose. Galli, and his sons met us, and took us to the train station,. Coolies carried my very weighty bags on their heads : with out a flicker...I stood in amazement. We caught a train to the city of Tirupati. Tirupati is a Temple city, where 1000s of people come on pilgrimage to visit the Hindu Temple. There are still a lot of villagers and city women aborting the little girl babies. Sometimes, when a baby girl is born, they put poison in their mouths, so they will die. This is because of the dowry. Every girl is expected to give her in-laws a very large sum of money. Parents who are poor and have no chance of their girls getting married, if they do not have this dowry. The culture also has a casting system. If you are born a Brahman, then you are the very highest caste, but 7 castings lower, and then you will be an untouchable, and that means literally, no-one must touch you, or you would be contaminated, well I touched them, and hugged them, and kissed them, and told them I loved them. ....................
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