American "Auntie" Visits Helping Hearts Creche

In September I travelled with Hilda, creche manager, to the fourth creche, Helping Hearts, in Porayar. Getting there entailed a long, hot, hair-raising road trip of about nine hours duration. Driving or, in my case, riding in a vehicle in India is an experience unto itself. First we travel two hours down the narrow, twisting and turning "ghat" (mountain) road from Kodai to the "plains". All Indian roads are loaded with a variety of obstacles including, but not limited to animals (freely wandering cows, goats, and dogs), rock and sand piles, speed bumps (all unmarked), remnants of recent accidents like motorcycles lying in the road ("It can't be removed until the police complete their investigation. They will come in three days."), ox carts and always people walking (no sidewalks) and bicycling. I have no desire whatsoever to drive here. For one thing it would take forever to get anywhere with all the braking and stopping I would be doing. The Indian drivers just keep on going, horns blaring, passing slower and often very large vehicles like trucks ("lorries") and buses on curves, and anticipating that an animal is going to move out of the way (so far they all have). They are incredibly alert and focused and I feel amazingly safe with them at the wheel (although I usually opt for the back seat!).
Anyway we arrived in Porayar to a warm welcome from the staff and children. Hilda left after a couple of days to return to Kodai and I stayed on for two weeks to do the community health assessment, spend time at the creche, learn more about the area and do a bit of sightseeing. One of my jobs was to photograph each creche child.