FUN!

Today we had a great day with our friend Deepak! He took us to the Monkey Temple, Buddha Park, and to this beautiful lake. It was an awesome day! Everything was so beautiful!!! Enjoy the pictures!

Bye from Team Tiik Chha

Nicole, Amanda, Jacque, Paul, and Nick (who previously was known as Victor)

A Monkey Temple Day in Nepal

Greetings All,

Today marked a trip to the Monkey Temple. I never imagined such beauty in my life. What I thought would be a trip to the zoo was perhaps the most eye-opening place of wonder, and perhaps the most difficult tourist attraction that one could ever access--definitely not for the weak-at-heart or those out of shape. A gradual but steepening uphill climb which ends in the longest, steepest 45 degree plus staircase one could imagine, the monkey temple sits high on a hilltop overlooking the Kathmandu valley. Upon nearing the top, the name says it all--monkeys all over the place, and I am not talking about just a few--try a few hundred, or more. Quite amuzing creatures, these monkeys are a sight to behold. Try too hard to get a snapshot, and they are very shy--patience is a virtue for a real photographer here. Try to get too close, and get attacked, as Nick (Victor) found out! An absolutely hilarious action photo of Nick's encounter will follow via Nicole's quick (and lucky) photography. Fortunately, the monkey didn't kill Nick, but only gave him a haircut--don't worry for those concerned, no skin broken!

Our other in-counrty partner, Deepak, was our tour guide to the temple--again, the friendliness and hospitality of our in-country partners becomes quite evident.

Only part of the day was spent sightseeing, however. The other part was spent prepaing for teaching. Nicole is an excellent leader, and I am fortunate to be a co-leader at her side. She has a tremendous amount of experience with the teachings, and knows (through trial and error) what works best on this side of the world. Her knowledge will prove invaluable as we now begin teaching--again, what we came here to do, and what we all look forward to the most. Happy new year to all!

Paul Bosseler

Team Tiik Chha

Hello from Team Tiik Chha (Nepali for we're good)

Today we will be traveling to the Monkey Temple. According to our Executive director, the best place in the world, so we are excited to see it!

The streets here smell so good here. Everyone is burning incenses.

The hospitality here has been amazing! We have met so many new friends and they have shown us such great time. We are always having Nepali Tea with our new friends. We are so ready to start teaching here! We are anxious to teacher after just finishing our group meeting and practice session of teaching. We start teaching on on Jan 3rd.

Until next time...

Namaste!

Acclimating to the Culture

December 30, 2010:
Hello all,
Our entire team of volunteers made it in on time (couple of very small delays here and there, but nothing major), and we spent the day familiarizing ourselves with the culture, language, and people in Nepal. Yubraj, once again, proved to be a major asset in this department, as well as introducing us to more of the very friendly people here in Nepal. In addition, we toured Durbar Square--what a beautiful district, filled with so much history and fascinating architecture.
Our teaching days are prepared, and we are just about to begin the Water Safety Education Program in a number of schools--in all, our students numbers are climbing, and should be well into the thousands. I go to bed tonight proud of the feeling of accomplishment in the number of lives we are about to help. I feel honored to meet and work with the people of Nepal--they are definitely a unique society--very friendly, outgoing, giving. I look forward to giving back.
Sincerely,
Paul Bosseler
PSI Nepal Group

Namaste! From Nepal!

Namaste from Nepal!

We are having a great time so far! I went to the airport last night to meet up with Jackie and Victor and now we are all here! The wonderful group I have the privlage of Leading is composed of Paul (my co-leader), Amanda, Victor, and Jackie, and of course me Nicole. We are really going to have a great trip while we're here! We met with our contact Yubraj yesterday and met with the president of a school district and confirmed our teaching days. It looks like we'll be busy! We were also able to purchase first aid kits here to use and give to the schools that we'll be teaching at.

We had a great Day yesterday getting to meet many of Yubraj's friends, and having my favorite tea! From my travels in India with this group I loved Chi tea from India and they have it here! LOL! I'm set ;) We were able to walk around a lot yesterday, and now today we will have our language and cultural class and then we will be off to see some tempels, hopefully.

Will post again soon!

Nicole

Greetings from Kathmandu, Nepal!!!

Pay no attention to the date of posting shown above (Tuesday Dec. 7 is incorrect)--should be Wednesday December 29, 2010:
Well, most of us have made in into Nepal safely, and have had very fun experiences in our short time here. The final two volunteers, Jacque and Victor, are currently en-route and due in shortly. On the final connection of my long flight, I experienced and air traffic jam holding pattern of 50 minutes--continous circles over the Nepal countryside while the runway at Tribhuvan Airport was being cleared for landing. After seeing such beautiful Himalaya peaks (over and over) as Cho Oyu, Manaslu, Langtang, Everest, Lohtse, Makalu, and even a distant Annapurna, I was in no hurry to land! But let me be the first to say that once I did touch down, I clearly was not in Kansas anymore! What simple items we take for granted in the United States are essentially non-existent here, yet we are making due just fine with the assistance of our in-country partner, Yubraj. A man of many talents, Yubraj is an excellent guide and a well-respected member of the Kathmandu community. He has taken us under his wing and assimilated the group into the Nepali lifestyle in just 36 hours. I feel like I know so many here already, and ALL have proven to be the nicest, friendliest, and most interesting (and interested) people I have ever met. We will begin some cultural and language training tomorrow (although Yubraj has already taught me many important, and funny, words and phrases for survival); we then begin the water safety education program day after tomorrow. One local school group leader met with us over breakfast this morning and has lined up 1,400 children in just her school alone! This is what we are here for, and this is what I look so forward to. More soon...
Sincerely from Nepal,
Paul Bosseler

Getting Ready for Nepal

Hi to anyone out there,
I'm getting ready to take the trip of a lifetime to Nepal. I can't wait to go--leaving Tucson on December 26th, and will arrive Kathmandu on the 28th . I will be sending in many pictures once I get there.
Paul Bosseler

Kathmandu Class starts off Great!

Hi everyone!

The LG class is off to a great start. We have 56 participants, and are teaching two separate classes. All our our students are very excited to be there, even though some of them have been working as lifeguards (without certifications) for years. Drew and I both feel that they are learning a lot of new information that will surely be put to good use and save countless lives. The local newspapers have also taken a big interest in our work as well! Yesterday there were close to 10 articles published in different papers about the class we are teaching.

Our teaching days start very early (630 am), and we usually get back to our hotel at 7pm! Our partner Yubraj takes us to lunch everyday. Yesterday he took us to a traditional Nepali lunch of dal bhat. It was Drew's first experience with the local fare, and he ate with his hands and made a big mess of his plate. The food was tasty though!

Speaking of food....Yubraj and the Nepal Swimming Association are making sure we never go hungary. We have more tea breaks than we can count and we also have cute box breakfasts and afternoon snacks.

Check out these pictures from our class and the newspaper!! We hope you like them!

Kathmandu w/ Drew day 2..kinda

Dear readers,

Today started early. Drew could not sleep past 6am and Bree woke up shortly after due to the seriousness of the light protruding through our dear curtains. Anywho, we went with Yubraj to scope out the pool where he is conducting his swim lesson project here in town. The series of lessons are held at a local hotel/apartmtent/fitness center on the outskirts of town. They are split up into two classes, boys and girls, and are held before and after the children go to school. The lessons are much larger than what we are used to, but they consist of the same concepts to the T.

After lessons were finished we headed into Thamel to arrange our rafting trip for later this week, and found a peddle rickshaw which we took to the "Monkey Temple." On the way up Drew was almost assaulted by taking a photo of one of the monkeys but we managed to push ourselves through the endless stairs and found ourselves among the locals at the top. Here are some photos.

More to come later...hope you enjoyed the pictures, we did our best :)

Love,

Drew and Bree

Excited to begin LG training!!

Hi everyone!

I am currently in Kathmandu awaiting Drew's arrival! He will be here tomorrow and we will begin teaching our class on Sunday. Our partner here, Yubraj, is really wonderful. He has been working day and night to get people registered for the class, and currently we have close to 50 people signed up with more on the way. He is even making t-shirts for all of the participants! I think that this will be a great program, and I know that Drew and I are both excited to have the opportunity to teach in Nepal.

While I have been waiting for Drew to get to Kathmandu, I went on a 7 day trek through Langtang National Park. It was amazing! Here are a few pictures that I thought everyone would enjoy.

Well that is all for now! We will post more when Drew gets here!!

August Projects Begin Today

Beginning today, Project: Swim International will be teaching more drowning prevention programs across South Asia for the next three weeks.

Lifeguard Training in Nepal

Two lifeguard instructors, Gabrielle Johnston and Drew Droegemeier, will be training as many as 60 lifeguard candidates in Kathmandu in the next few weeks. Candidates will learn first aid, CPR, and basic lifeguarding skills. Upon completion of the course, each candidate will receive American Red Cross certifications that will qualify them to work as a lifeguard anywhere in the world!

As you can imagine, there aren't many lifeguard positions available in Nepal. But these candidates will be able to obtain lifeguarding jobs throughout resorts in the Middle East and Africa, giving them the opportunity to earn a living to support their families!

Swimming Lessons and Instructor Training in Kerala

In the southern Indian state of Kerala, we have a four-person team that will be teaching a variety of programs. Jessica Silvertooth, Rebekah Streeter, Ellie Johnson, and Ishita Malaviya will have the opportunity to teach water safety education to local children. But they'll also spend lots of time training a local nonprofit group called Trauma Care how to teach our programs so that even after our volunteers leave, their work can continue.

The volunteers will also spend several days in the pool, working with children and adults, improving their swimming skills so that they can survive any water emergency!

Check back with this blog often over the next few weeks as our volunteers post their stories and observations from the field.

January's Project Accomplishments Exceed Expectation

Last week, all of Project: Swim International's 24 volunteers who had been working in India returned home, marking the end of the organization's most successful trip yet. Going into each project, there are always expectations as far as the amount of difference our volunteers will make. Not only did this group of 24 meet those expectations, but they went above and beyond anything Project: Swim International could have imagined for this trip!

A SUMMARY OF OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR SWIM INDIA, JANUARY 2010:

- 4,779 children were taught our Water Safety Education Program in 100 different sessions.
- Tour boat operators in the southern Indian state of Kerala were taught water safety and basic rescues.
- A "how-to" CPR video was shot and used to teach villages with over 1,000 people.
- 42 swimming lessons were taught with 538 participants.
- Successful partnerships were made in Varanasi and Kolkata, paving the way for future projects.
- Long-term plans were made with the Nepal Swimming Association.
- PSI's volunteers and their work were featured in 10 local and national Indian newspapers as well as Indian TV national news.

It's clear from their accomplishments that our volunteers' three weeks were busy and well-spent. Perhaps the greatest achievement is that our volunteers returned with a deep respect and appreciation for people from a different culture. They were able to work successfully in a challenging environment and gave back something that is very tangible and will ultimately result in lives saved.

Project: Swim International is already gearing up for our next round of volunteer projects in India and Nepal this August. For more information and to find out how you can be involved, please visit our website: www.projectswiminternational.org.

Thank you,
Ben Schaub
President and CEO

Progress in Nepal

I've been in Nepal the last couple weeks meeting with our partner here and exploring the region around Mt. Everest. Our partner, the Nepal Swimming Association, first helped Project: Swim International back in August when we sent our first team here to teach drowning prevention programs. Our missions are similar and the meetings went well. We both envision a long-term partnership where we try to provide our drowning prevention programs to as many children as possible across Nepal.

The last few days, I had the opportunity to do some trekking in the Solu Khumbu Mountain region, home to Mt. Everest. It was an amazing experience! One of the best things was to be away from all the smog and pollution that plagues much of South Asia. See some photos from the trek below.

-Ben


Prayer wheels around a stupa in the mountain village called Namche Bazaar.


Tablets with the Buddhist mantra "Om mane padme hum" carved into them can be found everywhere.


Me at Tengboche. Mt. Everest and Lhotse, the 4th largest peak in the world, provide the background.


Presenting Mr. Ashok Bajracharya from the Nepal Swimming Association with goggles and swim caps for the national swim team to use in their upcoming championships in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

LAST DAY IN INDIA!

Hello everyone! This is our last blog because it is our last day in India. We are all sad that this trip has come to an end but we are glad to be returning home. We have all had such an amazing experience and we are all glad to have had this opportunity. We have gained so much insight to the culture of India and everything it has to offer. We have all made lasting friendships with our group and we are sad to leave each other and return to reality. We will never forget this trip, how it made us feel, and what we have accomplished here. We taught over 3,000 children and adults and we are so proud of this accomplishment. Thank you all for following our trip and supporting us throughout! See you all on the flip side! LOVE TEAM BELIYA!
Becca, Stephanie, CJ, Nicole, Albert, and Stacy

MAMY POKO PANTS! (our chant)

OUR EXPEDITION!

Jenna, Andrew, Hannah, Lyndsey, Bek-Nasty, and Me (Nick) went on our excursion a little farther north in Dendeli and Hubli. We went white water rafting two days ago! It was extremely fun and than had a campfire and a little scare that night in our campgrounds and woke up at 5am to go on a jungle safari! we saw monkeys, bison, peacocks, and a couple different deer. we had a lot of fun and now we are relaxing in the nice town of Hubli before we catch our overnight train tomorrow to Bangalore where we will part ways with Lyndsey and than catch our flight a little later that day! The end of the trip came up so fast! I don't wanna head back and start school:( but until next trip this one was amazing! had a great experience and taught over a thousand kids! I will always remember it! See you all soon! love and miss you :)

The Varanasi Wrap-Up!

Hi everyone,

I know it has been a few days since our last post. Apologies!!! We have been very busy working with two exciting partners- Buddha Smile School and Raj Ghat Besent School.

The majority of our time this week was spent with the Raj Ghat Besent School in Varanasi. It is a very progressive school and the students and staff have been delightful to work with. The school has beautiful campus that spreads across 325 acres, and borders the Ganges River for most it. Although the scenery is exotic with peacocks running all around, its proximity to the river makes it an unfortunate target for drownings to occur (although none, thankfully have!).

We were able to teach all 300 Raj Ghat Besent School students, along with the 50 faculty and staff that run the school. All of the students, and especially the staff, were very excited to hear our lesson. Every class we taught had students asking countless questions!! This truly made the group feel that everyone had understood our water safety lesson, and that it was something that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. The faculty especially, was eager to learn about the advantages of CPR and how it related to drownings.

The school was also kind enough to offer us a delicious Indian meal every day for lunch, as well as many cups of chai and biscuits! At lunch we were able to eat with the students giving us more time to talk and answer questions, which was something very special for all of the volunteers.

When we haven't been teaching, we have been exploring the maze of Varanasi. A few nights ago, the WolfPack took a sunset boat ride down the Ganga to look at the city by night. It was a once in a lifetime experience that offered a great view of the city. Tomorrow, we will be walking a few ghats down to watch the evening Hindu ceremony that takes place every night. Lots of bells are rung, and everyone sends lit candles down the river. We are all excited to see it in action!

With our time in Varanasi ending very soon, I know that we will all be sad to say goodbye. Although the weather (which has been very, very cold) has been a bit of a burden, everyone has gotten a great feeling for this city and, I believe, India as a whole. This group, as a leader, has been a pleasure to work with. They have all done a great job teaching despite the weather and illnesses that have popped up along the way. Everyone should be truly proud of their hard work and dedication to Project: Swim International's mission!!

Until next time,

The Leader of the (wolf)Pack

aka Bree

Today we had a very productive day. We taught about 300 children in a river. Besides the fish nibbling at our legs in was pretty fun. We had lunch in the middle of the jungle which was very cool. The men taught us how to climb the coconut trees and CJ and Albert got to climb about 20 feet up the tree! Then the owner of the school in a local village took us to a very nice lunner(meal between lunch and dinner). It was a crazy but fun day. We will post pictures tomorrow!

Team Veliya

Becca, CJ, Nicole, Albert, Stephanie, & Stacy

Hello family, fans, and friends!!!

Here we are in "little ole'" Kolkata just having a smoggy old time. We continue to teach at the Samaritan Help Mission, with Mamoon our partner. Tomorrow will be our last day with this group as we are all out of students to teach... But we are hoping to connect with another partner tomorrow, and work out a schedule. We are also planning on visiting the Mother's House (An organization of Mother Teresa) which has scattered locations throughout this massive city. This past Sunday we went on a three hour bumpy and scary bus ride to the Sunderban Tiger camp which turned out to have a ton of monkeys but we failed to see any Bengal Tigers... The afternoon and morning boat rides all but made up for the lack of tigers. The "camp" was amazing though, western toilets and actual mattresses to sleep on. No worries we have hard mattresses at our hotel, but we were expecting to be sleeping on the ground. Looking forward to our last week here in Sunny India. :) Over and Out!

Alex, Samantha, Rebecca, Kaitlin, and Momma Dea

Hello again!!!

Sorry it's been so long since our last post!! We've been super busy. So far we've taught over 2,500 kids (not to mention our daily swim lessons, which we don't have the exact number, as it changes every day), and tomorrow we'll be teaching an entire villiage; Wish us luck!! This weekend we had the first 1/2 of our excersion. We got to hang out and shop around Fort Kochin, and go to an Elephant Training Camp where we got to bathe, pet, and ride them. It was an AWESOME trip, and a much needed vacation from our teaching schedules. In addition to the entire day of teaching, we will take a Sunset Hike to a waterfall, where we can swim, relax, and enjoy the beautiful scenery.

Until next time,

Team Veliya

Ernakulam group in Calicut!

We migrated up here two days ago in search of better teaching opportunities! and Success! Yesterday we taught 18 classrooms and over 600 kids! Yay!! and today our luck was bad and lost our teaching opportunity :( but tomorrow we will teach at an orphanage and than we will head back to Ernakulam and spend Saturday night and Sunday with Nicole's group than they will leave and we will hang out Monday and Monday night leave on our excursion through Bangalore and near Hompi and Hospet! will post again soon! love all! Miss you and times coming short! before you know it we will be back in the light cold of Tucson! Peace and love! -Nick

Leaving Kolkata Behind :(

Today was a sad day; I had to leave the group in Kolkata as I make my way to Kathmandu where I will work on finalizing partnerships there to continue our international volunteer programs in Nepal.

We have partnered in Kolkata with an organization called Samaritan Help Mission. The org. was created by Mamoon Akhtar who grew up in the same slums where the org. is based. His work is admirable. He provides vocational training for women so they can earn a living as well as provides a low-cost school to children who ordinarily wouldn't be able to receive an education. Mamoon has so much drive and truly is an inspiration. He even moved his family to live at the school to save costs!

Mamoon has recognized the value of our program and has even asked to be our Ambassador to West Bengal (the state that Kolkata is in)! He even mentioned to me that he would like us to have an office at the new school he is building (to be done in three years).

The Kolkata group has been having a great time! In the last few days, some have been struck with an illness but they're recovering, slowly but surely. Alex, Kaitlin, Becca, Dea, and Sam: I had a great time with you and am so impressed by your adaptability and confidence in such a foreign environment. Keep teaching hard and I'll see you when we get back.

-Ben
New Delhi, India

       The Wolf Pack has begun teaching, and is lovin' it! We began teaching on Wed at a small school in Sarnoth. (The countryside of Varansi) The school is called Buddha Smile school, and was founded by a lovely couple who opened this school for the less foutninate kids who otherwise would not be able to recieve an education. They not only run the school but the also run a cute little resturant that is attached to the school that has absolutely amazing food! We have all agreed its the best Indian food we have had so far!, Bree thinks its the best Indian food shes ever had out of all 3 of her trips here!

We all arrived at the school Wed morning egar and excited to teach! We had a group of about 125 adorable kiddos, grades 1st and 2nd. It was so refreshing to have such a enthusiastic group of kids who were egar to learn. The kids responded well to all the teachings, although many didn't speak English. We didn't have a translator help bridge the language barrier. After we would teach a section we would have some of the kids come up and demonstarate the various techniques we taught them. The loved that! :)

Our second day of teaching was with a much smaller group of kids, about 25 who were much older and for the most part could understand what we were teaching without a translator. They were very responsive to the teachings and wanted to perticipate in everything! It was a lot of fun! We all are excited for days to come!! Hope all is well back home!
xoxo,
The Wolf Pack

let the teaching begin in the northern India!

Today Bree, Sam and I met with the partners of two of the schools we will be teaching at the next week and a half. Everyone is extremely nice and welcoming of our program! The students seem excited and very curious as to who we are and where we are from. It was quite an adventure today making it to the schools. Even experienced a water buffalo stampede outside of one of them!! It is overcast here in Varanasi and the city is freezing! Im pretty sure we all underestimated how cold it really would be here, and are forming some type of acute Indian cough (nothing serious not to worry, simply a cold).
Teaching starts tomorrow... wish us luck!!

~Jessica :)

First Day Teaching!!

It's Nick by the way! and i am all better, i got some india pills ha. Today we did our first teaching at this B-E-A-UTIFUL school where we taught three classes of about 30 students. I was nervous during the first one but after that it was a breeze! Our group did very well and the kids were very well behaved and loved us very much! After teaching all asked for emails and autographs and than we took a group picture which we will try to post next time! The principle seemed very nice and gave us all coffee (except bekah of course! ;)) and than we played rig shaw tag on the wzay home and Andrew, Bekah and I won!!!:) I cant wait for tomorrow to teach the boat operators how to do simple rescues and cpr! there is expected forty tomorrow and forty the following day! We also teach on our own very island!:)
Namaste for now! Love and miss you all!
-Nick

The WolfPack is alive and well!

The streets of New Dehli

Monkey Temple

Local Celebs(Cameron Diaz)

Varanasi at night

The Wolf pack at the Monkey Temple in Jaipur

Varanasi during the day

The Taj!!

Snake Dancer Man in Jaipur

We have been laggging slightly on the blogging due to our adventurous adventures and some slight travel delays... so to bring you all up to speed!

Jaipur was a fun city- did a lot of site seeing and walking around: saw the monkey temple, the water palace and the pink city. Did some exploring and had a calm, interesting new years where we saw an insight into India culture that varies from our normal new years celebration.

Post Jaipur we hopped on a short train to Agra! On this train ride we became parched and hungry- Bree suggested it would "be a good experience" for Anna-Alyse, Bryan, Catie, and Jessica to venture out at one of the stops to get Chi and snacks. The stop ended up being shorted than anticipated and we all learned a very valuable lesson: when the train starts moving you better be on it or be prepared to run and jump in the nearest door!- needless to say we all got a little cardio workout and an adrenaline rush- but WE MADE IT! even though Bryan's shoes was not so fortunate!

After the train ride excitement we finally got to Agra where we visited the Taj mahal! It was so amazing! Without a doubt it has earned spot on the list of the 7 wonders of the world! Words cannot be said on how beautiful it is and how breathtaking the experience was for all of us. Low and behold we were also local celebrities not only at the Taj but various places in Agra where we were continually stopped and asked to take "snaps" (photos) with the locals. The were convinced that Anna-Alyse was Selena (the singer) and Bree was Cameron Diaz. At times we couldn't even take a group picture because people were jumping in to get in the picture with us.

After a long and fun day in Agra we finally boarded our only slightly late train for our "14" hour train ride to Varanasi. However, when we woke in the morning expecting to only have a couple hours left until our arrival we soon learned that due to delays because of fog and 3 previous train wrecks we still had about 8 hours left. All and all it our train ride turned into a 26 hours adventure! We finally arrived to Varanasi at about 1:30am, but were thankful to have made it safely!

Varanasi has been an incredible experience thus far- we walked around the city all day yesterday and even got to see where they do the live cremations. Even though the live cremations are something taboo to Americans it is a very spritiual and natural way to the end of life here. It is a beautiful ceremony where the deceased are treated with the utmost respect, draped in colorful silks (in particularly the women) and bathed in the Ganga's before their spirits are sent to a higher place.

The city as a whole is old and has a lot of history and charm. It is a very sacred and holy place. There are lots of stairs (we are all going to be quite in shape and have nice buns when we return home!) and alley-way streets. The narrow streets are filled with tons of people and vendors. It is rather cold here, especially at night. But we are all keeping warm and taking in the experience! There are monkeys everywhere here, even on the balconies of our guest house! We have learned they cute appearance is all an act and they are quite fierce! Sadly, Catie has a cold that turned into an ear infection- but is doing much better have we got her some antibiotics from the local chemist!

We start teaching tomorrow which we are all very eager to do! We will teach for about 8 days straight! Can't wait to get that part of our trip underway!

Love,

The 6 Man WolfPack!

(Bree, Catie, Jessica, Anna-Alyse, Bryan and Sam)

Images From Kolkata

We've been doing our best to see everything we can in this huge city before spending the rest of our time teaching!

Langur monkey in the park. Alex's highlight of the trip so far.

The Botanical Gardens in Howrah. A great escape from Kolkata's hussle and bussle.

The Victoria Memorial is one of dozens of remnants left by the British. It always reminds us of the US Capitol.

Off to the races! January 1st is the biggest day of the year for horse races at the Maidan, Kolkata's equivalent to Central Park.

The fearless five! Bravely crossing (and surviving) Kolkata streets for nearly a week!

We're all having a great time, still healthy, and looking forward to teaching and making a difference in the next couple weeks.

-Ben