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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Kerala and beyond

Following our time at Families for Children, we unwound with a relaxing day on a Kerala houseboat.  This was like exploring a tropical paradise, and was an instant classic in the India highlight reel.  We then spent 2 days packing in the tourist sites of the Kerala coast and the old city of Fort Kochi.  On July 31, after 41 days of travelling together, we split up and continued our India adventures separately!  We had an unforgettable time together, and have many stories.  We will reconvene in London in September to begin to choose next year's team.

See you, FFC!

The IHI team has completed our time at FFC!  

We were welcomed by the staff at FFC and were impressed by the hospitality that they provided for us.  We had an amazing time with the children and adults here.  We busied ourselves with a number of activities.    

Randy spent most of his time with the extra special care group (people of various ages with little or no speech, and highly impaired in functioning, typically due to cerebral palsey or polio), and providing wheelchair training and practice to a group of special care patients who were attending a vocational program.  

Courtney, Jenn and Sonika joined the nurses and doctor on rounds, and spent a great deal of time with the pre-school and school-aged children, and the "big babies".  They spent time with kids with disabilities and some without, entertaining them with song, dance, bubbles, crafts, and tattoos.    

FFC has been growing and evolving their services in recent years, and Mukil, the sole physio on staff there, deserves many kudos for improving the services for children there, in terms of posture, seating and handling.  The team at FFC were very open to the input of volunteers, and have adopted many recommendations from healthcare volunteers from abroad in recent years.  Their welcoming attitude made it a pleasure to share our knowledge there, and learn from them.  

We all leave with unshakeable memories of the patients and staff at FFC.