Ravi and I have tickets to India. The adoptive heritage group will be full of Indian adoptee children, and white mothers. However, this isn't your ordinary tour of India. We will be doing some amazing things. Ravi is most excited about visiting the elephant camp (near Madhurai) and going to his orphanage in Kerala, India.
The elephant camp will allow us to feed, bathe, pet and ride the elephants. This is going to be fun for alot of teen and pre-teen kids! Just imagine all of that elephant poop! : )
The orphanage is a very large three story building that consists of a chapel and birthmother housing on the first floor, the actual orphanage on the second floor, including the sleeping spaces for the newborn babies, toddlers, a room for children with infectious conditions, a space the doctor uses when visiting, to get the weight and height of each child, to give vaccines, or examine the child and a play room. The third floor is an open-air space for washing, hanging diapers and clothing, and just for the ayahs to get a breath of fresh air, altho it is quite musty up there. The third floor also has two rooms that individuals can use when they are there to take their child for the first time. They may stay in the room with their baby, or maybe alone, then visit the baby in the orphanage.
I am most excited to be staying for three days at a family run "home-stay" near-by the orphanage. There the owners of this beautiful place allow up to 5 individuals to stay per day.
To learn more about the place, google Kalaketty Estate.
At Kalaketty Estate, Ravi will have free run of the place, will be able to hop into a jeep for a tour of the compound, run in the woods (like he did at the orphanage when we went back to get Priya) and of course learn all about rubber trees and the collection of rubber. The driver will also drive us back and forth between the orphanage and the estate, as much as we would like.
We will probably eat breakfast, tour and just rest at Kalaketty, then go over to the ophanage at 10 am to visit and play with all the babies and toddlers. While Ravi is there, he wants to ask the orphanage director about his birthmother, to find out if she has come back any other time besides when she had Priya. He wants to know how he can contact her. He will ask lots of questions about where he was born and perhaps even want to visit that hospital, and visit with the attending physician. We have already met her, on two or three occassions, but he is going to be 10 years old on this visit, so naturally he will have many questions about his birth.
Ravi has another birth sibling, and I hope that the orphanage director will tell him when we are there. Frankly, I want to be the one who comforts him, not give him news like that, especially since we may never met the child.
My main purpose at Kalaketty Estate is going to be to relax and get massage every day.
I don't give a damn about the rubber plantation! LOL
Anyway, besides the elephant camp and the orphanage, we are going to be loaded with tours and trips, moving practically every day, but having true cultural experiences instead of seeing the Taj Mahal (I would love to see, but not in one day!) in one afternoon, traveling for hours and hours just to get there, then leaving again.
As we get closer to traveling, I will share the details.
Jyotsna
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