Monday March 11
Today we started the seminars.  They were attended by local women working with NGOs in the area.   I was uplifted and enormously heartened to hear the women speak one by one, in our introductory hour, of what they were doing with disabled children and how they had become involved. 
One lady's story brought me to tears.   She had been a geography and biology teacher but had always wished she'd been a doctor.  As she was reaching retirement age she fell and broke her spine and was hospitalised for a long time.  While she was laid up she promised God she would help disabled children when she could get up and walk again.   When she was up and walking again, she went back to her village and asked the government agency for the names of every disabled child there - 45.    So in her retirement she has gone house to house to help the parents learn to cope with, and improve the lives of their children.   Gradually she had other parents and friends start to help her but they only had the homes they visited to work in.   A year or so ago she learned about Samaritans Purse who do the Christmas boxes for distribution to third world children.   She wrote to them in England and they have donated enough money to build a small rehabilitation centre in her village and it opens at the end of this month.   We will go and visit her village.

Catriona and Deanne presented the theory and techniques of communicating with children who can't speak using an international picture system, in which the kids learn to point to pictures as a bridge to helping them to formulate the words.    They also stressed the basic principles of how important it is for parents to interact continuously with their children.  
My physio presentation on positioning and exercise of disabled children will be on
tomorrow.

Towards the end of the day, I realised I'd been sitting all day beside a wall full of Samaritan's Purse boxes.   They have only just arrived - too late for last Christmas but will be distributed soon and have a special event day for it.

Plus I nursed this beautiful sleeping baby

Home and off for a walk around more of Karakol past the Victory Park, complete with big silver busts of various heroes and an enormous monument of a busty lady holding a sword above her head.   Interestingly, this celebrated Russia's victory over Germany in the second world war and the lady is a symbol of "Victory".