My Birthday!

I spent my 26th birthday training the HPWDS in data capture procedures, IRB protocol and ILS facilitation. I loved it. Leigh and planned for three days of work after Alleppey. In true India fashion, this did not happen. On Monday before we left the house we got a call from Mohanan and his mother is in a coma in the hospital about to die and Jincy (other main staff person) had her grandmother's cousin die. So, it was a no go. Mohanan managed to come the next two days, but he is stressed out, needless to say. His mother is 76 years old and the brain damage from a stroke has been to intense for her to survive, so his family is waiting. Our thoughts have been with him. Additionally, our neighbor Komala is in the hospital due to Diabetes complications and so Graham has not met her, we've had to cook for ourselves and Leigh and to leave without saying goodbye. We left and all hell broke loose. Despite this poor news, things have gone smoothly and I am finished with work directly related to HPWDS. Yesterday Leigh and dropped off all of our documents and showed them everything and handed over the reins. Ahhhhhh, it felt great to hand over the responsibility.
Leigh left this morning on a bus headed north since she flied home Aug 15th. Graham and I will also start heading north to arrive in Bangalore to pick up Freda on the 15th. First, I must finish my schoolwork related to this internship. Then we plan on seeing Munnar and going to Mysore before Bangalore.
I will have some more photos the next time I blog, but then the rest of the trip I will only be able to talk for you because I have gifted my laptop to HPWDS and will be leaving it here with them. They could hardly believe it when we told them yesterday, it felt good to make them so happy. But, alas, I will not be able to load pictures. It just means you will have to come over and suffer India stories when we get back. TTFN!

The staff brought me a cake for my birthday and sang and clapped. It was festive.