Our adventures in India so far!

Hi friends and family at Cole Therapy Center!
We want to share some of our tourist adventures from North India and continue sharing our stories from the orphanage while we are here in South India through the rest of the week.
We experienced the fog, extreme volume, and close proximity of traffic in New Delhi (the capital of India). The fog caused us to circle in the air above the airport for at least 30 minutes, then we were parked on the tarmac for an additional 2 hours--we were on that plane from Chicago for nearly 18 hours total! Then we arrived at our hotel at 4am and "napped" until 8a so that we could drive 4 hours to the Taj Mahal. As our driver said, cars have "no rules" in India! They drive in both directions on both sides of the street. Cars, people, animals (cows, monkeys, dogs, goats, pigs, etc.), and carts all drive on the same streets at ALL speeds. They use the horn to "communicate" with eachother--unlike Texas, they do not believe its rude to honk, so they were honking CONSTANTLY! We were awfully glad the car had seatbelts and our driver was quite attentive to our safety (WHEW!). On our way, the driver paid taxes to cross over to other states. While he was gone, we wanted a picture of monkeys on leashes walking with a man. We rolled down our window to get a better picture only to find that the "friendly" man wanted 500 ruppees (equivalent to approximately 10 US dollars!). We waited for our driver and he gave him 10 rupees (about 30 cents) and the monkey man was happy! During another stop, when our driver wanted to get some tea (he drank 6 cups of tea each day!), we tried to enter the restaurant with him--but it was a male-only establishment. These three women from America really surprised the men in there! OOPS! The Taj Mahal was absolutely breathtaking. Our driver and our tourguide told us some very interesting stories that wouldn't fit on this blog--google the Taj Mahal to read about its history or ask us when we return :) We also experienced some shopping and the market in New Delhi, where we learned that Americans are VERY spoiled with clean, air conditioned malls and Wal-Marts! There are two airports in Delhi (domestic and international) and we spent several hours waiting for our delayed flight to Chennai...
After spending a few days in the capital of India (New Delhi), we arrived in Tamil Nadu (a southern state in India). This is the state where Hope House International is located. Thomas and Ruby, the directors of the Hope House, are our hosts and they are so compasionnate and have such BIG hearts. In the state of Tamil Nadu, we flew into the capital (Chennai). Thomas and his employee drove us for 2 hours to Vellore/Ranipet, the 2 cities where the Hope House girls and boys orphanages are located. The next day we visited the Christian Medical College, equivalent by India standards to our Texas Medical Center. It was established by a woman from Germany about 150 years ago. We can go into further details about the history of CMC, but to sum up, it started with one bed under a tree and now it has 2500 in-patient beds! They treat approximately 6000 in and out patients per day. We have some awesome video phootage of the Physical/Occupational Therapy and other rehabilitation wings. Physical and Occupational Therapies are much bigger departments than Speech. The two speech therapists we met are very hard working women (they see approximately 30-40 patients per day for 30 minute individual sessions)! They asked us some awesome questions about apraxia, phonological discrimination, and augmentative and alternative communication. Even afer we return to the US, we are so looking forward to sharing more of the knowledge that ALL of the Cole Therapy Center therapists have to give our new Speech Therapist friends in India! After we met with the therapists, we visited the boys' home and the boys are so friendly! They all enjoyed introducing themselves, asking our names, and following with "you too" after we said "nice to meet you!" They love to play soccer, basketball, and cricket. They play chess, put together puzzles, and read books in their new library.
Today (Sunday) we began our testing at the orphanage. Vikki and Ruby witnessed an orphan who was considered "non-verbal" repeat simple words like mom and dad in Tamil! Shannon was as fast and efficient as ever--six kids tested in short morning and afternoon sessions. And Teresa learned that her name was very difficult for native Tamil speakers to imitate so the boys changed it to Maria! We still have a lot of work to do--much more testing, a meeting with an additional Speech Therapist (she works as an in-patient, acute care ST), a meeting with staff at a day care facility for locals who are mentally impaired, and training for the orphanage staff to implement a "home program" with a few of the orphans. In the meantime, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We will keep you updated! Vikki, Shannon, and Teresa