Photo Adventures with Curiosity and Learning


Ellen and I have known Betty Shelton since we first came to India in 1993. Betty was originally the head mistress at a large school in Mumbai. After retirement, she moved to Chennai and started a number of village projects in south Tamil Nadu. She built schools and churches and started agricultural projects (teak, coconut as well as traditional rice). There were no maps of the region (north of Gingee) so one day, I took my GPS and road up and down all the roads on a motorcycle, marking each project. Below is the map.

This is the Google Map with my GPS tracks of the trip from Chennai to Gingee and then to Valathi. Zoom into the cloudy region to the north. This region now has high resolution photos and you can see the school building as well as Betty's residence.

Planting Rice

India

Spices and Vegetables

Mr. Noah and making tea

Fresh Duck and fresh spices

Ladies carrying stuff and ladies carrying rice straw

Marching the ducks to breakfast

Taking rice hay to process

Now the rice planting - mostly with the ladies:

Now a little about food: cooking parotha on a fire, preparing curry on a fire, and eating with Jesudoss - an Indian meal served on a banana leaf - very ecological - after you're done, the banana leaf is fed to the cows!

And here is the Gingee fort - a long history that I'm not familiar with - apparently a favorite place for herding and feeding goats (above photo next to the ducks)

Gingee fort

Gingee Lake

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

C. Frank Starmer

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