Ashok and Raziya Mallya visited today from Missouri with their family. It was their first visit to the island and they found out about us through the Kauai guidebook.

They met with Bodhinatha and asked him some wonderful questions. Ashok asked Bodhinatha for advice as to what a couple should focus on once they have raised their children and got them married. The younger ones also asked Bodhinatha some insightful questions.

Here they are hugging a rudraksha tree with their son Apoorva and his wife Smitha and their daughter Rohini and her husband Ajay.

As it was the last day of the phase, a sunny Saturday, we had a big group of visitors.

Chipping the stone….

About fifty people….

We have this report by email from Patrick Harrigan who is in Batticaloa today:

“Right now I am in Akkaraippattu Gurukulam. We are given to understand that the boys from the Thirunavukkarasu Orphanage are OK, except for one who perished, but they have been split up between families and some are here.

We would have reached Thambiluvil today, but the causeway had not yet been fully restored so motor traffic could cross. So we turned back and tracked down some survivors from the Pillaiyar Kovil Adi at Tambattai, a tiny coastal village that was hard hit.

By now they would have repaired the causeway, so tomorrow morning we will try to proceed to Thambiluvil to survey the damage to kovils and ashrams there. Taking photos is not a problem; only finding a phone line is a problem and then the line is usually so poor that it is hard to maintain a dial-up connection–even in the best of times. So at least you know that all but one of the boys escaped with their lives, and that they are now safe, if scattered. In the photo you notice that these orphan boys in front of the Akkaraippattu Gurukulam, are all wearing an odd assortment of clothes, since they lost everything and are now wearing whatever was donated. One item that should be donated soon is vettis, enough for all the boys to have two new vettis each, so they will not have to go about wearing these ridiculous donated street clothes, which are bad for their morale and discipline and sense of being representatives of their Hindu faith. You know, good cheap vettis come from India, so this donation ought to come from Indian devotees.

About foreign volunteers, you know that skilled people are needed here badly. But without language ability in Tamil their use would be limited. I met a whole team of foreign doctors today at Ramakrishna College, now a refugee camp until school starts on January 20. Those several foreign doctors are sharing a single translator–they simply cannot understand what their patients are saying. Perhaps from your side you could get the word out that Tamil-speaking volunteers are badly needed as adjuncts to foreign teams of doctors and engineers, etc. The foreign teams are badly hampered by shortage of Tamil interpreters. English speaking Tamils from India would be useful here.

Although there seems to be ample flow of relief supplies coming by land and by helicopter, coordination is challenging and it is hard to it is hard to obtain any information. So it is really hard for me sitting here in Akkaraippattu to answer general questions, apart from what I have seen with my own eyes.

I have been trying to publish photos of the East coast as often as I can. These can all be found on the Pada Yatra web site. http://www.padayatra.org.