Announcing Clio's Dog Album

   For those of you who know Clio, you know that she loves animals.  I remember, with astonishment, having arrived in India and driving home from the airport. We were jet- lagged and seeing India for the first time.  Clio sat in the car oohing and ahhing over the dogs.  She'd remark about how some dog was adorable, so I'd look out the window at the object of her attention.  All I could see was a skinny, mangy, pathetic dog lying in the street.

    Clio has continued to be enamored by the dogs she sees.  Her enthusiasm is contagious:  we have all come to see the beauty in these dogs.  They have great ears, long necks, and because they live mostly on the street, aggressive dogs don't last, so by and large,  they are docile.  In fact, we'd love nothing better than to bring one home.  (Barney has dubbed them, "The Perfect Dog".)   Meerkat Dog (see album) is the one of the most beautiful creatures I've ever seen. 

   Please follow the link on the slide show to see Clio's pictures of dogs.  I also have a new album posted:  "In Our Neighborhood".  Please vet the album before sharing it with children: there is a dog with a tumor, a woman with leprosy, and a very sad, sick dog.  

Catherine

The girls had henna applied to their hands in Madurai.

Hulk

Hulk is a gray and black Great Dane puppy.  She is six months old.  She is not trained very well so she jumps up on people.  She is very fun to play with.  When we went to Nagercoil, we bought her a squeaky chew toy because she didn't have anything to chew.  At first, Hulk did not know how to make her toy squeak until I showed her how to.  

Clio

All Catherine's recent photos can be viewed at:

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/muanddu

Madurai >Thekkady> Madurai> Nagercoil >Madurai

A tea estate

We spent  October 18th through the 31th traveling in South India.  We took the night train to Madurai, the city Noah had his first several birthdays.  I hadn't been to Madurai in over 15 years and the girls met their Indian family (Ismail's clan) for the first time. From Madurai, we took two side trips: one to Periyar Tiger Sanctuary and the other to Nagercoil.  We took several trains, watched a feast for 700+ being prepared, learned how to check for leaches, saw rice being harvested, got sick, saw elephants in the wild, and received many hugs.

  

Catherine

How to Cook for 700

Isabel here:

I am on a two-week vacation, which is half over.  On the first day of the vacation, we traveled on a night train to Madurai, where my father’s teacher’s wife lives.  We stayed for two nights: on the second night, the power went out and I got 222 mosquito bites because the fan and the insect repellent went out, as they are generated by electricity.  The mosquitoes kept buzzing in my ear every three seconds, even when I covered up my face.  After a while, it was too much, so I woke up my mom and she got out a mosquito net.  We took the mosquito net outside, and tried to sleep under it.  About an hour later, when no one fell asleep, we went inside and managed to get some sleep for the last hour or two before morning.  That is the story of my 222 mosquito bites.

The next morning, we left for the mountains and went on a boat ride to see wild animals.  Near our cabin there was a nice restaurant.  I was delighted to see that our cabin had a mosquito net and repellent.  They kept away mosquitoes for the whole night so we could get some sleep.  When we woke up, we went on a jeep safari, and saw many animals.  On our second jeep safari, we saw two elephants.  When we came back, I felt sick.  I was sick the whole night, and couldn’t go on the last safari, (a walking one), so my mom stayed with me.  Afterwards, my dad said he could have stayed behind, because it rained.  Then we went back to Madurai.

My Trip to the Mountains

by Clio

I went to the mountains on Tuesday, October 21st 2008.  There were a lot of leaches.  (Isabel wanted us to call the leaches "spaghetti" because she couldn't even stand to hear their name.)  I got three and Isabel got two leaches.  

We went o a jeep safari and we saw two elephants eating, some Sambar deer, buffalo, monkeys, wild boar and a peacock.  We had a lot of fun riding through the jungle in the jeep.

In the lobby of the lodge we were staying at, there were a lot of nature books and there was a TV and I watched Animal Planet.

I was sad when we had to leave.

Go here to see more pictures from the Madurai portion of our trip:

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/muanddu/MaduraiIndia#

Go here to see more pictures from Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary:

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/muanddu/PeriyarTigerPreserve#