photo taken in Dharamsala, India 2008
walking along the path behind the main temple of His Holiness the Dalai Lama...
soon....
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Horn Please!
Today...after only ONE Week...my T-Shirt from the "Fading Ladies" arrived all the way from Delhi, India! And let me tell you...they did Not dissapoint!The shirt is adorably amazing and the back of the t-shirt made me smile..it say's "Horn Please" on a little label that is sweetly sewn on~~~all cotton. Gorgeous!
They included two little cards connected with a bangle! What a class act!
If you love India..and Love to support worthwhile Charities..please visit their website and place your order. Only one week..all the way from Delhi~ Wow!
www.fadingladies.blogspot.com
and here is the charity that the money will go to
www.jaipurfoot.org
Thank You Fading Ladies! Keep on doing what your doing. I Will be back!
Namaste~~
Friday, April 9, 2010
"I'm not a Tourist, I live here"
This is from a fellow blogger currently living in India...
and what she and a few lady friends have decided to do to "Give Back"~
I placed my order for mine last week...
I love the idea of giving to a different charity each month...and may just follow suit in the future. As they say "Share the Love"..
the T-Shirt made me smile too, as that will be my status one day as well!
She ships directly from Delhi and the T-shirt with shipping is only 20.00.
If you'd like one please click on "Delhi Bound" in my friends link to the right~
OM~~~~
Last December, I posted about feeling as though I was disappearing. It was based off of a conversation I'd had with a friend about how your "who I am" mantra can easily be reduced to feeling as though you're accomplishing nothing.
Then a couple of months ago, several gals and I were sitting around discussing the same thing. We discussed the "I'm with Sir" concept of being an expat wife here in Delhi. That discussion turned into sharing some really funny (REALLY funny) t-shirt slogans ... totally tongue in cheek ... that we thought would be funny to actually have made.
One thing led to another ... and the Fading Ladies group was born.
There are seven of us gals ... all working together to create some pretty great tshirts (if I don't say so myself) .... all in the name of charity.
Our debut shirt has been a HUGE hit and with barely any marketing work, we've nearly sold out of our first production run!
It says "I'm not a tourist, I live here."
Perfect for those market shopping days when you just want the fair price! Already, we've gotten word of so many great stories from gals as they've worn their shirt around town!
100% of the profits of these t-shirts go directly to charities that we choose on a rotating basis.
Our first charity is Jaipur Foot -- and it is so exciting to be able to explain to purchasers of our t-shirts that they are literally putting legs on folks who otherwise would not walk.
We have many more designs ... up our sleeves ... and many more charities that we will be honored to support.
Check out our website! FADING LADIES WEBSITE
If you're in Delhi, we'll deliver! If you're outside of Delhi, we'll ship to you (with an increased purchase price). Once we sell out, we move to the next design, limited quantities!
Our second shirt will debut next week at a special morning coffee and will be available for sale (and highlighted on our website) on Thursday, April 8th.
* * *
This project may not mean we will be presenting a check of tens of thousands of dollars to our selected charities, but it sure feels good to be having fun and helping as much as we can along the way!
The Fading Ladies are armed with a sense of purpose and an excitement to give back to the community we're living in AND at the same time put a smile on the faces of those IN our community.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
from the Executive Director of the Life is Good Kids Foundation....
This is a letter written by Steve Gross, the Executive Director of the LIG(Life is Good) Kid’s Foundation. The company that I work for here in California. What he experienced while in Haiti on a recent trip there...
I have photos as well...but they were sent in Microsoft Word so I can't figure out how to post them...they are pretty amazing if i can ever figure it out.
Have I mentioned how Proud I am to work for such an Amazing, Giving Company? Well..if I haven't, just for the record..I am Very Proud!
"Do what you like, Like what you do"
Hey Gang,
Below is a note we wanted to share with you from Steve Gross, the Executive Director of the LIG Kid’s Foundation, on his trip to Haiti last week. The main purpose of Steve’s trip was to form a bond with a Haitian relief partner and assess what our Foundation can do for Haiti’s traumatized children with money raised from our Haiti fundraising t-shirt. But as you’ll read, Steve was also able to conduct a training for youth workers and bring much-needed joy by playing with children who have lost everything.
As you read this keep in mind your support helped put a smile on the faces of these children.
We can’t thank you enough.
Thanks,
Brian
Brian Conroy
Director
GNS / SIS Programs
The Life is good Company
Dear Team,
I feel compelled to write. Although I can barely keep my eyes open, I'm afraid that if I don't write about today's experiences they will get lost. I know that I won't ever forget the "big picture" stuff, but I'm afraid I"ll lose the details. It's the little details that make life beautiful and, at times, heartbreaking.
I arrived at Amurt Haiti (the base camp for our operation) at 7:30am today and was asked to accompany the medical team to a small tent city in Port-au-Prince. The main medic and my buddy and colleague from Boston, Dr. Jose Hidalgo - along with an amazing team of Haitian nurses, translators and assistants - set up a make shift clinic to attend to the overwhelming medical needs of the hundreds of people who call this barren pile of broken glass, mud and rubble home. The reason that I was asked to accompany this team was that the day before had brought out lines of sick children who had to wait quietly for hours to be seen by the doctors. The team felt that a little "joy" might make the time go by easier for them. I brought along a parachute, two Life is good discs, a LIG paddle ball set, and a little red ball. I actually thought about leaving these toys behind as we obviously did not have enough to accommodate the masses of children.
I was not prepared to see how horribly these beautiful people were living. I'm not a good enough writer to adequately describe the squalor. While we set up shop, the children of the camp curiously peeked out of their "homes" to see what we were up to. We set up an examination table out of two old chairs and created a pharmacy and an intake room with some rope, a huge suitcase of medicines, and an old table. Slowly the line started to form. I noticed eight children sitting and waiting silently and decided to take out the parachute. Without words they walked over. I laid on my belly and invited them to join. They did. We looked at each other, smiled, waved and kept quietly singing "bonjour" to a universally familiar nursery rhyme tune. We drummed on the ground together, laughed and continued singing. Within minutes, twenty new children joined us. Within a few more minutes, twenty more. Before I knew it, well over seventy children, ages two to thirteen, had come to play.
Then we joined hands. We moved together as a group up a small hill of rubble (some of the children had no shoes so we had to walk really slowly) and began singing together, moving our arms together and making up little games that did not involve them having to run. One big hit was having the children sit in a circle and pass around the hat from my head until everyone touched it and it made its way back to me. Then, through our interpreter (a young Haitian boy from the village), I asked if they thought that my hat could beat me in a race? As they passed it around quickly, I ran around the circle trying to get back to my spot before the hat did. You should have heard the place erupt with laughter when I "accidentally fell" and the hat beat me home! By this time, parents, grandparents and others had gathered round to see what was happening. We played together for what seemed like hours (maybe I'm just getting old) taking make believe safaris in Africa, imagining stomping through the snow in Canada, building castles with little pieces of rubble, and just hanging out. David Elkind once said that the best toy a child could ever have is a loving, caring, attentive adult. Never have truer words been spoken.
After a while, some teens approached me. They wanted to know who I was, shake my hand, and thank me for "loving the children's". I told them that I would be leaving tomorrow and asked them if they would "love the children" while I was gone. I explained to them that all they had to do was look at them, smile at them, ask them how they were doing, and hug them when they needed a hug. I also left them with the few toys we brought. (The rest of the toys we brought were being used in a different center in Port-au-Prince) and asked them to play with the children a little bit too when they had the energy. They promised that they would.
As I was getting ready to leave for the day, I needed to get something out of our truck. It was parked about half a mile from the site on a steep hill. As I walked up the hill, a 10 year old boy quietly grabbed my hand. We walked together in silence for five minutes and then another boy, probably around 7, grabbed my other hand. We walked up the hill silently - occasionally looking at each other and smiling. Once we made it to the truck, we shared a small bag of water (yes bag) and sat together silently just holding hands. I noticed that one of the boys had no shoe laces. I found a rope in the back of the truck, cut it with Ismael's knife and the three of us unwound the strands until we had a thin enough piece of string to use as a shoe lace. Together, silently, we laced up the little boy’s shoes. After we finished, he looked at his "new shoes", smiled and kept repeating "merci, merci, merci". He was so happy - like I had given him the world. I've never seen such appreciation in all my life - never. This is one detail that I never want to forget.
My heart aches for these children. They have been forgotten. But my spirit is lifted by them too. I did not know that it was possible to feel such intense joy and sorrow at the same time until today. It's one thing to see the glass as "half full" when it's indeed half full. It's another to see it as half full when it only has one drop inside. This is what the children of Haiti are all about. They are surviving, with unimaginable grace, love and joy, with only one drop in their cup. I can't imagine what they could grow to be if we filled their glass just a little bit more.
Anyway, we then went to a much larger tent city where I was asked to run a training for Haitian youth workers there. Again - once the parachute came out and we started playing, the whole camp gathered. Hungry, tired, sick and thirsty - nobody could resist the desire to play. I had to see it to believe it. I wish you were all here to see it with me.
We'll be back!
Love to you all...
Steve
I have photos as well...but they were sent in Microsoft Word so I can't figure out how to post them...they are pretty amazing if i can ever figure it out.
Have I mentioned how Proud I am to work for such an Amazing, Giving Company? Well..if I haven't, just for the record..I am Very Proud!
"Do what you like, Like what you do"
Hey Gang,
Below is a note we wanted to share with you from Steve Gross, the Executive Director of the LIG Kid’s Foundation, on his trip to Haiti last week. The main purpose of Steve’s trip was to form a bond with a Haitian relief partner and assess what our Foundation can do for Haiti’s traumatized children with money raised from our Haiti fundraising t-shirt. But as you’ll read, Steve was also able to conduct a training for youth workers and bring much-needed joy by playing with children who have lost everything.
As you read this keep in mind your support helped put a smile on the faces of these children.
We can’t thank you enough.
Thanks,
Brian
Brian Conroy
Director
GNS / SIS Programs
The Life is good Company
Dear Team,
I feel compelled to write. Although I can barely keep my eyes open, I'm afraid that if I don't write about today's experiences they will get lost. I know that I won't ever forget the "big picture" stuff, but I'm afraid I"ll lose the details. It's the little details that make life beautiful and, at times, heartbreaking.
I arrived at Amurt Haiti (the base camp for our operation) at 7:30am today and was asked to accompany the medical team to a small tent city in Port-au-Prince. The main medic and my buddy and colleague from Boston, Dr. Jose Hidalgo - along with an amazing team of Haitian nurses, translators and assistants - set up a make shift clinic to attend to the overwhelming medical needs of the hundreds of people who call this barren pile of broken glass, mud and rubble home. The reason that I was asked to accompany this team was that the day before had brought out lines of sick children who had to wait quietly for hours to be seen by the doctors. The team felt that a little "joy" might make the time go by easier for them. I brought along a parachute, two Life is good discs, a LIG paddle ball set, and a little red ball. I actually thought about leaving these toys behind as we obviously did not have enough to accommodate the masses of children.
I was not prepared to see how horribly these beautiful people were living. I'm not a good enough writer to adequately describe the squalor. While we set up shop, the children of the camp curiously peeked out of their "homes" to see what we were up to. We set up an examination table out of two old chairs and created a pharmacy and an intake room with some rope, a huge suitcase of medicines, and an old table. Slowly the line started to form. I noticed eight children sitting and waiting silently and decided to take out the parachute. Without words they walked over. I laid on my belly and invited them to join. They did. We looked at each other, smiled, waved and kept quietly singing "bonjour" to a universally familiar nursery rhyme tune. We drummed on the ground together, laughed and continued singing. Within minutes, twenty new children joined us. Within a few more minutes, twenty more. Before I knew it, well over seventy children, ages two to thirteen, had come to play.
Then we joined hands. We moved together as a group up a small hill of rubble (some of the children had no shoes so we had to walk really slowly) and began singing together, moving our arms together and making up little games that did not involve them having to run. One big hit was having the children sit in a circle and pass around the hat from my head until everyone touched it and it made its way back to me. Then, through our interpreter (a young Haitian boy from the village), I asked if they thought that my hat could beat me in a race? As they passed it around quickly, I ran around the circle trying to get back to my spot before the hat did. You should have heard the place erupt with laughter when I "accidentally fell" and the hat beat me home! By this time, parents, grandparents and others had gathered round to see what was happening. We played together for what seemed like hours (maybe I'm just getting old) taking make believe safaris in Africa, imagining stomping through the snow in Canada, building castles with little pieces of rubble, and just hanging out. David Elkind once said that the best toy a child could ever have is a loving, caring, attentive adult. Never have truer words been spoken.
After a while, some teens approached me. They wanted to know who I was, shake my hand, and thank me for "loving the children's". I told them that I would be leaving tomorrow and asked them if they would "love the children" while I was gone. I explained to them that all they had to do was look at them, smile at them, ask them how they were doing, and hug them when they needed a hug. I also left them with the few toys we brought. (The rest of the toys we brought were being used in a different center in Port-au-Prince) and asked them to play with the children a little bit too when they had the energy. They promised that they would.
As I was getting ready to leave for the day, I needed to get something out of our truck. It was parked about half a mile from the site on a steep hill. As I walked up the hill, a 10 year old boy quietly grabbed my hand. We walked together in silence for five minutes and then another boy, probably around 7, grabbed my other hand. We walked up the hill silently - occasionally looking at each other and smiling. Once we made it to the truck, we shared a small bag of water (yes bag) and sat together silently just holding hands. I noticed that one of the boys had no shoe laces. I found a rope in the back of the truck, cut it with Ismael's knife and the three of us unwound the strands until we had a thin enough piece of string to use as a shoe lace. Together, silently, we laced up the little boy’s shoes. After we finished, he looked at his "new shoes", smiled and kept repeating "merci, merci, merci". He was so happy - like I had given him the world. I've never seen such appreciation in all my life - never. This is one detail that I never want to forget.
My heart aches for these children. They have been forgotten. But my spirit is lifted by them too. I did not know that it was possible to feel such intense joy and sorrow at the same time until today. It's one thing to see the glass as "half full" when it's indeed half full. It's another to see it as half full when it only has one drop inside. This is what the children of Haiti are all about. They are surviving, with unimaginable grace, love and joy, with only one drop in their cup. I can't imagine what they could grow to be if we filled their glass just a little bit more.
Anyway, we then went to a much larger tent city where I was asked to run a training for Haitian youth workers there. Again - once the parachute came out and we started playing, the whole camp gathered. Hungry, tired, sick and thirsty - nobody could resist the desire to play. I had to see it to believe it. I wish you were all here to see it with me.
We'll be back!
Love to you all...
Steve
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
$2500.00 check sent to the children of Operation Shanti
Today was the day!!!
I sent the check off to Operation Shanti~~~
I would like to take a moment to tell all of you who were a part of this Amazing endeavor this year for the children how deeply grateful I am to you all. Because, truth be told, it would Never have been possible without each and every one of you!
"Practice for the children Pendants" are now literally All over the world around some Very Special individuals necks..including one dog ;~D named Doris~~
and because of You all, the most precious children in India will be $2500.00 richer. Getting the necessary things they need just to make it each and every day.
I will be back..most of you know this..and I do hope you will all want to be a part of my next charity...
I am not sure what it will be yet..but I am planning on climbing onto a plane in 2012and heading back to Mysore, India to see the children with a little something for them!
I love you all.
I bow to you all.
I Thank You deeply from my core being.
Om Shanti~~~~
p.s. and Do "click" on the check to make it bigger so that you can read the remitters! ;0)
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Our friend Padmini
Whenever Ray and I go to Fort Cochin we always stop in and see our dear friend Padmini who works at Idiom Booksellers...
she is a petite little woman who always was there at the register when we would walk in and her face would literally "Light Up" when she saw us walk up the steps into the shop! Ours of course would as well...because we Knew that she would be there no matter what day it was. It was something that we counted on..
Before we left Fort Cochin last year, we stopped in to tell Padmini good-bye. We gave her a big tight hug and told her we would miss her and we would see her next time we arrived....
it was then that she told us about the "trouble" that she was having with her brother in law who owned the bookstore. I won't go into details, but she had been there 9 years and he was beginning to give her some problems and she feared for her job in the future there.
It made Ray and I very sad hearing this news...
she is such a Good Person. We had known her for 5 years..and we had become quite good friends.
I gave her my email address and told her to please keep us informed on what was happening. We wanted to know and we wanted to stay in touch with her..
Yesterday I got an email from her...
Hai My dear Ray & Tracy
Happy New Year , How are you? Just i created my email id yesterday so i think to inform you that
this the 1st letter sending to you. when you are coming in india this year?
I lost my job, not myself, but our boss sent me. there's nothing my fault , before christmas i told to the
manager to re arrange the postcards . but he never arranged and our boss seen the simply the postcard stand
is empty. i told that there is no more postcards to fill the stand, never he hearing and send back
I worked there nine and half years , and they not giving the experience certificate and the ten years service also .
I am trying the new job and i will inform you about later.
Thanking you
Your sincere freind
Padmini -Idiom Booksellers
I feel so bad for her, but know that she will have no problem in getting another position as she is so well known in the town and I do know that all of the hundreds of people who pass through the little town and know her and her sweet spirit..will truly miss seeing her there at Idiom Booksellers. But, we will see her when we go back where ever she might be because she is a true friend whom we love and adore~~
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Life is good (R) Raises Funds for Haitian Children with Special Fundraising T-Shirts Sold Nationally
Life is good (R) Raises Funds for Haitian Children with Special Fundraising T-Shirts Sold Nationally
Posted using ShareThis
SO Proud to be representing this Amazing Company that I TRULY Believe in and LOVE so much! I am honored to be managing one of their stores here in California. "Optimism Has NO Borders!"
Posted using ShareThis
SO Proud to be representing this Amazing Company that I TRULY Believe in and LOVE so much! I am honored to be managing one of their stores here in California. "Optimism Has NO Borders!"
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