Made our base in Porbunder

A few hours after reaching Ahmedabaad, we had over 20 cases of "welfare" families waiting for us at little shed in the housing society. One very old man said it's been 3 years that he has been asking to get his roof fixed as all the rain water leaks into his little "house". My colleague, Razia, was surprised why nothing had been done about this. He said, " asked me to move rather than fix my place, but I don't want to move out".

The next day, we went to visit his place, it was in the poorest area called Itjaad or something like that. Once Razia had a look, she said even spending over $600 would not fix his roof as there were deep cracks in the foundation and the walls and the new roof would just collapse. The money would be better spent moving this old man and his son, his wife and their 4 young children out.

This time the son promised us he would convice his dad to let go of this place. We offered them a lot of help to move them to a much better place. This was only one case, each case has its own unique needs. One very old lady who sat on the floor due to her high blood pressure is looking after her only son who is totally handicapped and in bed all day, no amount of medicine could help him, they are also being looked after both by Razia and the local welfare society from our community as the govt has no welfare plans.

We drove 7 hours into Porbunder after that - that is 6 of us inlcuding the driver and with 8 suitcases - were we ever cramped!

I had already become sick after eating a slice of veg. pizza and roasted veg. sandwhich with cheese. It was the cheese that made me ill. After vomitting and having diarrhea for the whole night, I took 2 immodiums so that I could travel the next day and had nothing but bottled water to keep me going. Three days later, I am still having stomach cramps even though they are feeding me nothing but freshly cooked home made food.

In Porbunder we began our visits to the parent's whose children we have put in hostels. We visited 7 "homes" , all of them were wreaking of stench from open sewers all around them. Some of them had communal washrooms only. Unfortunately, no time to put our pics up yet. There is no internet here, so I get a couple of hours access every few days from a doctor's house. His wife has very kindly made available their ethernet cord that I can plug into my laptop so I can do my work - which beckons! Bye for now. Thanks to all of you for your comments, Abbie, I missed the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabaad but I shall try to visit the Gandhi shrine/temple they have over here in Porbunder.