INDIA 2009

Team India

Chennai airport. We arrived at 2:00am.

Things are different in India...the signs, smells, sights ;)

All our luggage!

Taxi from the airport to the YMCA.

We stayed at the YMCA the first night, where we slept for about 3 hours and had a nice breakfast in the morning.

Our room at the YMCA.

Breakfast at the YMCA.

Then we headed out into the chaos to shop for some Indian clothes. All of the women on the team had to wear Indian clothes and all the men had to wear pants and button-up shirts with collars.

Shopping for our salwars (Indian clothes). We had to buy and wear the Indian clothes before we arrived at the Orphanage.

Crazy traffic!

Little Flock Children's Homes

Chapel

One of the hard working kitchen staff doing dishes.

The Kitchen and Dinning room.

Ding Ding Ding...lunch time.

Wonderful people cooking our meals.

Typical Indian meal. We usually made it into a burrito like this.

Our bed.

Our toilet/shower.

Our new dryer

Roomies

The Children of Little Flock

They lined up in their line everytime before meals, school, chapel...

So Happy

Finding anything laying around to play with.

School

The Directors of Little Flock Children's Homes and their children.

After school chores.

One of our team members gave the kids his iphone to look at and this is what happened...

The Clinic

Eric's work station.

Our Pharmacists.

Medical Clinic

The youngest and newest children to the Orphanage. We were able to check and clean all of their teeth.

Making goodie bags

Our amazing Dentist Team

This man needed lots of help. He came in very sick with a fever and a bad infection because of a rotten tooth. Both dentists were working together to extract his tooth.

Dental Clinic

The crowd waiting to be seen in the clinic.

Amy being a dental assistant :)

She was so beautiful I couldn't resist taking a picture after we cleaned her teeth.

He came with a stick and left with a walker.

The Village

We walked into the nearby villages almost every day. It was great to see all of the villager's smiling faces and invite them to come to the clinic. The children especially would always come running out to talk to us and ask for pictures. They loved their picture taken.

The village well

A Hindu shrine in the village.

We were proud of her brushing her teeth.

School Bus

This family was a Christian family which is very, very rare because this area is still a very traditional Hindu stronghold. They are extremely suspicious of Christians even when they are doing good works like taking in orphans and offering free clinics.

Jeeva. A special friend :)

This is a typical way a family traveled around.

Bath Time

Lots of goats

This man was dressed in a sari with garlands of flowers like a woman. He was surrounded by a group of Hindu worshipers at a shrine. They were dancing and drumming. Later we found out that they said he was "possessed" by the goddess and could tell the future for people.

This shack belonged to a elderly man in the village.

This was a "rain dance". They only do it once a year and we got to see it. They paraded around the village going up and down the streets, dancing, chanting, and drumming.

This man (with tears of joy coming down his face) was expressing how thankful he was that we were able to give him glasses.

This man was using a coal powered iron.

Tea Time.

This is the tea shop in the village that we would often go to at 6a.m. to get some delicious Chi Tea. The Orphanage also provided chi tea for us every morning at breakfast and every afternoon at around 4:30p.m. Although we would usually miss the afternoon tea time because we would be working on patients late into the evening. We had very loving teammates who would bring the tea to us if we couldn't leave the clinic.

We walked into the village one afternoon and repainted the Little Flock sign.

Eric Federline

Our trip into town to get some snacks.

Eric was dying for some food, that wasn't Indian food. So we took a trip to the nearest grocery store (about 20 minutes away).

Holy Cow

This was a funeral precession that passed by the Little Flock Orphanage. When someone dies in the village, they walk through the whole village carrying the body while chanting, playing drums, dancing, whistling and throwing flowers.

Teaching the kids

We gave a hygiene lesson to to Little Flock kids on Saturday when they were home from school. Some of the women from our team made up a song about brushing your teeth. Very entertaining :)

Animals and Creatures found at the Orphanage.

On our last night the Little Flock children did a performance for us with songs and dances. It was adorable. The children also gave us each a little gift as a thank you.

They are so cute.

Team India along with Gilbert and Nalini (directors of Little Flock Children's Homes)

A Hanumanthapuram sunset

Thank you everyone for helping us bring a little bit of Heaven to Hanumanthapuram.

Little Flock will always be in our hearts.