Pune is one of the four World Association of Girl Guide and Girl Scout  (WAGGGS) Centres. Sarah in particular has been looking forward to staying for a few days with the Guides. Their Indian facility is called Sangam. The rooms were hot, but the pool was pleasant and the meals and company were excellent. It is the start of the hot season, so there were no programs going on that we could participate in. 

We celebrated Heather's 11th birthday on March 30th. The staff at Sangam very kindly organized a cake, present, a lei, a bouquet, and a jasmine garland for Heather's hair.  But for her birthday present, our budding philanthropist really wanted to sponsor a child in India. The staff at Sangam, and Tina (a regular Sangam visitor from England) were very helpful. Tina organized a visit for us to Deep Griha. Deep Griha, meaning 'Lighthouse',  was started in 1975 by Rev Onawale and his wife Dr Onawale. It provides medical treatment, nutrition, day care, nursery schools, and job training to residents of a number of slums in the Pune area. They also fairly recently started a program where foreigners could sponsor local children of orphaned or one parent families. 

One of the goals in our trip was to do some sort of volunteer work while we were traveling. We could not arrange this beforehand - families looking for 2 week to one month assignments are not placed by the conventional Western aid organizations. Deep Griha had no problems with our requirements, so we are busy organizing a return here for a few weeks at the end of April.

Knowing we'd be back later, we only had a very quick look around Pune including the Aga Khan Palace where Ghandi was imprisoned for a period, and where his wife died. We also visited a street market where some of the vendors were busy making colourful flower garlands.