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Parenting the Parentless

Author:	David Strickland	Created:	4/4/2007 11:25 PM
Ok well parenting your own kids can be tricky enough but parenting someone elses can be a pain even if they are only on loan. Why would anyone in thier right mind want to parent 100 screaming orphans that you can't return. Much less why would you do it half way around the world. This is our Adventures or misadventures in starting and running an orphanage in India.

It's not the traffic thats the problem it's the accidents

By David Strickland on 10/17/2007 8:21 AM

I've been thinking about starting to keep track of how many accidents I've seen since I've been here. Then I got to thinking I'll update how many I was involved in. So far I think the count is up to 6. Only one of any significance and that was last friday. the right peg on my bike broke off accompanied with some skin from my knee and elbow.

Like every one else growing up in the 80's one of my favorite movies was Ferris Beulars day off. I felt like his science teacher this week as we tried to get ahold of the advocate. Beular, Beular, Beular. Seems answering machines are a luxury item so if they don't pick up all you can do is try again. Beular, Beular.

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Sometimes there are Good weaks and sometimes there are bad

By David Strickland on 10/15/2007 12:21 AM

All things concidered last week was a bad week. One of those weeks were everything just went wrong as if the world had just decided that it didn't like you that week. But we press on. We hope to hear back from the advocate this week. Perhaps we will finally be able to move forward with the orphanage. Needless to say it has been frustrating.

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Shipment Recieved

By David Strickland on 10/5/2007 1:39 AM

Hey all we finally got all our stuff. I took an 8 hour bus trip to Chennei, 2 hours in customs, 4 hours waiting to get my passport back followed by another 8 hour bus trip home but in the end we got it all through. Looks like most of it survived. We'll see. The guys we hired to Unload the truck were rolling boxes up the stairs earlier so there is no telling how much is broken we'll find out tonight when we open it all. Ok shameless plug because I promised I would http://www.atozlogistics.net/ was incredible. They took care of everything for us. Sheparding me through customs pushing through the paperwork even making sure I got to and from the bus station. I highly recommend them for shipping to India. For those keeping up on Manny. SHe's doing fine. Her husband deposited about $25 last week. He didn't however add anything to that this week. He agreed to deposit about $10 per week into savings as long as Manny stayed with us. We'll see how it goes next week....

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Life in a traveling circus

By David Strickland on 10/1/2007 1:08 AM

The last couple weeks have gone well. Mercy got her orphanage newsletter sent out. (If you didn’t receive a copy please drop us an email with your mailing address so we can get you added. ) We still haven’t gotten our stuff picked up from customs. Seems one delay after another however looks like weds. I’ll be able to go over and get it all cleared and it should arrive Thurs. or Friday. The pregnancy is proceeding well. Mercy is in her 7th month now. Our little bundle should arrive Dec. 5th. Just in time for our anniversary. We are still trying to get our paperwork processed so we can start accepting orphans. Looks like it will take more time. Our son Ashish was asking this morning if we could get some corn for supper tonight. I said we could but it wouldn’t at all be like what he had in Iowa. I told him here it is a lot drier and harder. He said he wouldn’t be interested then. Spent some time in area near our home some friends were asking for some pictures of what life is like for children here in India....

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Good news and bad news.

By David Strickland on 9/20/2007 11:32 PM

     First the Good news. I got a job. Ok maybe not that good. Work is a funny thing. While you do it you can't wait to stop. After you stop for a while and the bank account gets a little low you can't wait to start. Earlier I mentioned that things where a lot more expensive then we remember and a 10% slide in the dollar had really left us flat footed. We did manage to get by but it didn't take long before our funds started to dwindle. Originally we were thinking I'd be off for at least 3 to 6 months while we got everything straightened out but the new budget wouldn't allow for that. So Hi HO Hi HO ...

     Ok time for shameless plug. The company I work for is Osprosys. We are located in the heart of Bangalore. We provide a large variety of services. I'm personnaly envolved with the application / website development side of things. If you need any development work done feel free to contact me via Osprosys.com.

     Ok the bad news. Our shipment arrived earlier then we expected. Ok at first that didn't...

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Manny an Update

By David Strickland on 9/14/2007 3:06 AM

Well seems that like any story you get third person it's not as bad as the reality. First couple things more about Manny she is 22 she entered the home of the women I refered to at 17 4 years after her abortion. Birth control does exist in India but the poor seldom pay for it. We met with Manny and her husband. We found that they were starving a couple months ago but since then things are improving and Manny is actually putting on weight(not that you could tell). Her Husband did seem as lazy and uncaring as was first reported. We asked them how we could help. The husband replied that he needed somewhere Manny could stay until he could get enough money saved up to pay the deposit on a rental. About 10,000 ($250).

It was a long discussion but we came to the following resolution. Manny was allowed to stay with us provided her husband put on deposit with us 400rs per week($10). At the end of 4 months if he had faithfully deposited 400rs per week we would then kick in the remainder and give him the $250 he needed. This puts us through to the first week of Jan. This will give us time to see the baby is born and off on the right foot. It will give the husband a chance to learn some responsibility and give Manny time to rest and grow strong before the delivery.

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Manny - Who to Help. Who not to.

By David Strickland on 9/11/2007 5:23 AM

We met Manny at church. She was very tall and thin. Her face looked familiar but it wasn’t until after church I realized why. Manny was an orphan. She got pregnant at 13 and lost the child. After that a lady from a local church took her in and helped her as best she could. Unfortunately much of the mental damage had already been done. 4 years ago I met Manny briefly during my first visit she seemed like any other happy teenager. However shortly after that Manny eloped with a young man. The young man can’t seem to keep a job and Manny has been pregnant several times with each ending in a miscarriage because of malnutrition. Manny is on the verge of starvation and has been in the hospital several times for dehydration and malnutrition.

On Sunday when I saw her I smiled and greeted her trying to make sure I did everything properly. In fact I was so worried to make sure I was following all the social etiquettes that if I hadn’t noticed Mercy slipping her some money I may not have even...

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It's the Plumber I've Come to fix the sink

By David Strickland on 9/11/2007 4:45 AM

I can remember growing up there was a cartoon about a parrot. The plumber knocks on the door the parrot says “who is it”. The plumber says “It’s the plumber I’ve come to fix the sink”. When the door doesn’t open he knocks again the parrot say “Who is it?” and so on. The process repeats about 5 times at which point the plumber gets so frustrated he has a heart attack and dies at which point the owners come home. As they walk up on the fallen man the Women says to the man “Who Is It?” at which point the parrot replies “It’s the plumber I’ve come to fix the sink.”

After this weekend if anyone has a parrot I’m in the market. Saturday Night as I was working on my computer I heard a snap and crash followed by a gush of water. The tap had broken off the sink and water was running everywhere. The Plumbing is all cemented inside the wall and there was no off valve. We had to shut off water to the whole building. We called our landlord and got the number for a plumber. We called the plumber...

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Job search begins

By David Strickland on 9/6/2007 5:19 AM

Never seem to pass an uneventful day here. I actually am beginning to look forward to being bored some time in the future. This week we are still trying to get all the pieces put together. We applied for internet access at the house. We were told it would take over a month. We hoped I might be able to get that expedited so we went to talk to the manager. It was 11:00 p.m. when we got up to his office. Of course he wasn’t there and no one seemed to know when he would be back. We waited for an hour at which point the lights on the floor we were on where turned off for lunch. Ok subtle hint here so we left and went to get something to eat we came back and he still wasn’t in his office and surprise, surprise no one knew when / if he would be back. Ok I want that job.

However instead looks like I’ll be working in the IT industry. Posted my resume last night and I’m already getting calls. So it looks like it shouldn’t take long. Of course I have no Idea what the expectations are here in...