And of course, there are the animals...

Our friend Ganga told us about a shelter she took a puppy to so naturally we had to go. We rented a scooter and set off through the Snake Mountains until we came to The Tree of Life For Animals. The founder, Rachel, is a veterinary nurse from the UK who spent so much time volunteering at foreign rescues that she decided to start her own. From reading the newspaper one can easily gleen that India is primarily a chauvenistic society governing a corrupt bureaucracy. This said, Rachel should get a medal for what she's had to go through as a white western woman setting up a not-for-profit organization. Rachel's mother, Wendy, has also joined forces along with a group of really committed locals who have made a huge impact in the year that they've been open. Dogs, cats, cows, donkeys, monkeys, camels, parakeets, you name it, they fix it. Either people bring them in or meticulous records are kept of where the animals are found so they can be released at the same location. They even do a daily goat clinic from 4-6 which is a huge hit with the local villagers.

Some of these pictures are really gruesome, but this is the kind of thing they see every day - not quite your Upper East Side type of injuries, huh? They told us a story of a volunteer who was scheduled to stay for several months and got so repulsed she bolted home after one day! Since these are street dogs most of them have a hard time going into cages and putting a leash on them to walk requires some enticing, but across the board they are really sweet animals who, despite being in severe amounts of agony are still capable of love and affection.

One day Helen and I came across a donkey that had been rammed by some type of large vehicle. Rumor had it he had been sprawled in the middle of the street shaking for over 24 hrs. and nobody even flinched. I stayed with the donkey calming it while Helen called The Tree of Life Ambulance service. For this I got my picture in both Pushkar and Ajmer newspapers ( our names in Hindi are underlined). I'm pretty sure the headlines read something like "Idiotic Foreigner saves Worthless Donkey!"

I went out to The Tree of Life just before leaving Pushkar and "Peter and Helen's Donkey" (as he was aptly named) was doing fine.

The Tree of Life is an extraordinary organization staffed by people who seem to work miracles on a daily basis with minimal resources. Check out her website at: www.tolfa.org.uk.

PMB 18/11/06