The new year begins

Raj Kumar

Cremation, India style on the Yamuna bank

A namaste from Kaka

Sunday night chicken biriyani

Rajastani nomad walking his sheep on the main road

hey!

Its been awhile since we last blogged, but not too much has been going on here. It is the middle of winter here at the moment...for some reason I thought India was always warm! Its so cold though, which is OK but as there is no heating there isn't any place to get warm again. You can only imagine what it is like living on the street at this time of year (like the 150000 people that do in Delhi).

All the patients are hiding in their beds under their blankets all day so the ashram feels more quiet than usual! The days here are very foggy and apparently we will not see the sunlight much at all for the whole of January. Bring on February!

One thing I'm loving at the moment is going running with Jake or my other friend Ruth on the back roads here. We definetly get some funny looks as 1) we are the only white people in this area. 2) We are running-apparently not a big market for exercise among the poorer Indians! We have got to know the local Rajistani nomads who live in the surrounding fields who greet us every afternoon we head out for a jog. They even stopped us the other day to ask us to help them pull a massive loads of hay off a tractor for their animals. So funny to be pulling on a rope attached to their hay load with turban wearing moustache curled nomads. One of those "what the heck?" moments for me for sure. Was loving it though.

We have just received a new grant to get two more patients prosthetics which is so cool! Our other grant through a south Delhi hospital had run out so we would have to pay for them ourselves...money that wasn't there really. So yeah a huge blessing to get a grant through another hospital!

More patients are turning up every week. Seems crazy that in a city of 20 million we are the only type of facility that helps these destitute patients in the way we do in regards to medical care and rehabilitation.

Things are chugging along. Feels quiet at the moment but maybe we are just getting used to the craziness that is India.