Tanali - Part 1

What seems like a very long time ago, Lindon and Sam mentioned that they might be doing a trip to India, and we said that we'd meet up if it worked out. Which it did - and which is why I was in Chennai.

I got up early and headed out to the airport to meet them and I must say - it was really good to see some familiar faces.

The reason they were in India was to visit an orphanage - and that was pretty much all I knew about what was happening over the next week or so. But it would turn out to be a fun and challenging experience.

We were collected from the airport by Sudheer who runs an organisation called Eare Ministries. It's a Christan organisation that focuses on helping people who aren't in a position to help themselves.

It turns out - it's way more than just an orphanage - Eare is a major organisation with an incredible staff - and as the week went on, the scale of what Sudheer and his team are doing in India continued to grow.

Steve, Lindon, and Sam on the bus from the airport - you can just see Sudheer on the right of the picture:



And me and Ruth...



After resting up for a while, we caught the train to Tanali where Sudheer lives and where he kindly put us up in his home.

Steve and Ruth - catching up on sleep after their long flight:



It turns out that the day before we'd arrived at Sudheer's house there'd been major flooding in the area, with hundreds dead and thousands displaced. The scenes from the TV were shocking as the full extent of the disaster became known.

For Sudheer and his team - this is an opportunity for them to move into action - and they were busy arranging for aid to be delivered to the affected villages. So the next day we set off to visit the villages and take supplies.

This is a pic of the road on the way to the disaster relief area:



And this is where the flooding starts:



The green patch in the background of this picture is a banana plantation - the water is almost covering the tops of the banana trees:



Lorries carrying relief aid and the boats that will take it to the villages:



We'd been told in the morning that we might not be able to go out to the villages because one of the boats carrying aid had sunk the day before. When we arrived at the relief drop off point it turns out that not only had the boat sunk - but all of the people on board had been killed. So we weren't allowed to go on the boats...but not to worry - because Sudheer had arranged to take us to a few of the refugee camps set up to house the people who had been displaced.

Typical houses in this part of India:



This refugee camp is in a school and is currently housing five hundred people:



As we had to wait for Sudheer to negotiate with a few officials on where exactly we were allowed to go, I wandered off for a look around the area...and ended up chatting with these guys who were unloading flour from a lorry:



They were really friendly and spoke pretty good English...

From there we headed to another camp - the people were more desperate here because no aid had been delivered. Everyone had been segregated into separate rooms to try and keep things a bit calmer - so we split into pairs and started handing out the supplies.

People are incredibly desperate here. And sadly, it wasn't long before a fight broke out, and Ruth and I had to make our way as quickly as we could out of the room and walk around the side of the building to meet the others. No surprise really - as these people didn't know when their next meal was going to arrive.

View of the crowd after Ruth and I had made our escape:



Nurse...this man needs immediate medical attention: