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                                                                                           This is our group plus the locl Rotarians at Bengalore Airport at 4am

We made it!! After 21 hours of travel we arrived in Bangalore, rested, relaxed and ready to go! Almost, anyway. The three missing boxes of supplies that were waylaid en route held up ALL our boxes but our persevering quartermaster, Nathan Cobert, stayed behind and found his way through the chambers of commerce of both Bangalore and Dehli, overcame the technical difficulties of communications and got our supplies to the AIMS Hospital in Nagamangala in time for surgery. The rest of us went on to Nagamangala, and though we arrived at the airport at 1:30 am, we didn't leave until 6 am (Customs!!), and therefore enjoyed the lovely rural scenery for the 2 hour drive to the hospital. We hit the ground running, getting settled in, tour of the hospital, getting acquainted with our hosts, making surgery schedules, enlisting local doctors, nurses, interns, anesthesiologists, and ending our first day with the beautiful ceremony our hosts created in our honor! We were honored by the local  political dignitary, the Rotary President, District Governor, a representative of the Sri Sri Sri xxxx Swami, the hospital administration, supervisor of surgery and a few other big shots. We all received the honorary shawl and plumaria lei, enjoyed many fascinating speeches, a lovely Indian song sung by a couple of beautiful girls, and a lot of 'namastes' were exchanged. And who came to this event? Our patients and their families!! We met many of them, as some of us meandered through the crowd and shook many hands.

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(The official ceremony where we all were  welcomed as friends forever from the Sri Sri Sri, the local people, and the patients who traveled from long distances to have the opportunity of surgery)

Hey, I forgot the important stuff…the food and the weather! BOTH are GREAT! Surprisingly, we've enjoyed cool temps and low humidity! Its much like California coastal weather, without the fog. Warm in the day, cool at night. Just a few skeeters and no other bugs! Our accommodations are a step up from “barely adequate” as first described! At that point, after only catching naps on airplanes we were happy to fall into our bunks (3 per room) and pass out

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