Hello friends and family and blog-followers near ‘n far! Tonight is Sunday, October 11, 2009 and we are marking eleven days since our departure from home and Ulster County. We’ve been staying in Bangalore for five complete days and we’ve experienced comfortable sleeping arrangements, delicious Indian food, and good times spent with old friends, new […]

To the right is a partial shot of the “welcome tray” sitting on the table in our newest room on our journey throughout India.  It is late in the night here in India; we are 10 1/2 hours ahead in time zones. I am tired but I wanted to let everyone know that we arrived […]

After riding Adirondack Trailways bus from Kingston, NY to Port Authority, New York City, on Thursday, October 1, 2009 Sarah Bird and I made our way through the bustling terminal with the help of a Trailways luggage porter to the Airport Shuttle pick-up on 42nd Street which transported us to JFK International Airport. Our Korean driver navigated […]

Sarah is returning to India and Nagaland.  At this same time last year Sarah traveled with Jacinta Vondell to India and Nagaland.  This year Sarah, my wife, will be traveling with a young woman, Sarah Bird, who I am sure is going to be an excellent, fun and inspirational travel partner. I won’t attempt to […]

I cannot answer that question in one blog posting but I will tell you that my heart has been enlarged to embrace the women of India. Look at the faces of these women. I met them in October, 2008 and listened (through an interpreter) to some of their personal accounts of both dealing with hardship […]

This is a phrase that’s been part of my conversations for a number of years. I’ve been blessed to have known a number of “great” people classed so according to my defintion of greatness; one singular individual from my personal coterie has been classified as “great and influential” by secular pollsters but the others have […]

Leo nakewenda kliniki = Today I went to the Doctor (Clinic) and got my shots for Africa.  My arm is sore = Mkono mlangu ni kidonda. I received my Yellow Fever, Typhoid and Hepatitis A shots.  Tomorrow I have to get my malaria medicine = Kesho nakwenda pokea dawa da malaria.  Other than the malaria […]

In the summer of 2008, I began moving forward with plans to visit my friend, Tia Ao, in Mokokchung, Nagaland. Back in May, 2002 Tia and her husband, Chuba Ao, visited with our family here in our New York home. That was Tia’s third visit to the U.S. and our home. Chuba then wrote in precise detail instructions for obtaining […]

Globes are great.  If you can..go out and get a globe.  It doesn’t have to be a big one.  Even if you get a beach ball with the countries of the world on it get yourself a globe.  Why?  Well, you will be amazed at how your geography skills will increase (Africa is a continent, […]

With only five weeks left until the end of the school year I asked Sentila how the children’s health has been this year in comparison to previous years. “Oh, we have had less sickness than last year; the quantity of children getting sick has been much less as they play more in the playground with […]