Fan Mail

I want to thank you for the Amistad news. I really enjoyed it.

Better than waiting all year for the Notas.

Love

Iris Joy Donaldson

With Rajan's family at the Museum of Science

It may come as no surprise to you by the time she left the Museum of Science at closing time yesterday, Daisy knew nearly every employee at the museum. I'm almost exaggerating. Their experience yesterday was probably the peak experience that the museum designers had hoped for in their dreams. My problem was moving them on from exhibit to exhibit, and no, of course we didn't see them all, but we saw most including the rainforest, planatarium, aquariums and lab and teaching center. The woman in the silver coat (auburn hair) you will see in some photos is Donna Peters, who came from Florida to meet Rajan. Donna has been a sponsor of Buddha's Smile School since 2005. She was in love with Rajan before she ever met her and after yesterday they are sisters. Donna bought a large sack full of science DVDs for BSS in the gift shop including the BBC's marvelous many-hour series Planet Earth. After presenting them to Rajan, who was overwhelmed, Donna and I were told that the school doesn't have a DVD player or screen. So guess what Donna has now offered to provide? Thank you, Donna!!!

Each of them saw the museum through a different lens. Rajan as a teacher, Daisy as an enviromentalist-in-the-making, Rosy as Alice-in-Wonderland, and Sukdev as a man on another wonderful planet. Daisy was just fascinating to observe. She made sure that after the museum guide had finished their presentation, or anytime she saw anyone at a desk who looked like they might have the secrets of this magical kingdom, Daisy would introduce herself and tell where she was from and why she was there in San Francisco. It went something like this, "Hello. My name is Daisy Saini, and I am from Varanasi, India. I am visiting San Francisco because my mother (who would be standing beside her) is being given a beautiful honor by the Dalai Lama for her school for poor children. I am going to be an enviromentalist. I very much appreciated the wonderful information which you just presented to us. I would like to know________? Or would you happen to know how I could learn more about ________? Or would you be able to share any of those brochures with me? By the time she left she had their e-mail addresses and everyone was going to be in contact. Daisy our networker. I stood back in awe. I told Rajan and Sukdev "Your daughter is going to be the president of India someday." He said "shhhh, don't say that in front of Daisy" as he smiled.

The Academy of Science is something we in the Bay Area can be very proud of. It truly lifted this family from India off into another realm of dreams for the children in India. Daisy, intent to the point of ignoring the African lion and gazelles we were standing near, had a light burning in her eyes asking me, "This city is so clean, the air is to pure, the streets have no garbage. You have something called recycling. How does this work? You have bins where people put their bottles and glass. Where does it then go? How do you get people to put them in the bins? We want to do this for India. How can I do this for India?"

What would you have said?

I hope that next week Daisy can have at least a few minutes with some of the enviromental movers and shakers who are coming to the fundraiser. I confess I did tell Daisy that Stanford has a fabulous Enviromental Science course of study. I told her that she will be able to see the campus next week :)

Karen

in the tower of the De Young before going to the Academy of Science. You can see its Living Roof in the background.

Little Rosy and Big Giraffe

Daisy holding a butterfly in the Rain Forest

I'd like to be under the sea with an octopuss' garden in the shade.

Penguins in San Francisco? Karen Kotoske, Rajan Kaur, Donna Peters and Daisy Saini (Rajan's daughter)

Rosy

Dalai Lama Honors 49 heroes of compassion; honorees from 13 countries in San Francisco for event

San Francisco, CA, April 26, 2009 – His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be the honored guest at a luncheon at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in San Francisco, California, on Sunday, April 26, 2009. His Holiness will acknowledge and thank the 49 highly compassionate individuals who are the honorees of the Unsung Heroes of Compassion 2009 event.

The honorees—25 women and 24 men—range in age from 12 to 77, hail from 13 countries, and come from a variety of ethnicities, cultures, religions and backgrounds. Gathered from the far corners of the earth, each demonstrates the timeless and universal human goodness celebrated by every wise culture.

“These individuals have been selected as representatives of the tens of thousands of people worldwide who quietly serve the disenfranchised and work to improve our communities through their personal efforts,” says event chair Dick Grace, founder of Grace Family Vineyards and board chair of Wisdom in Action, the organization hosting the unique celebration. “We don’t see them or hear about them in the daily news, but they exemplify a humanism and heroism to which we must each aspire.”

Among the honorees to be acknowledged are:

• Mohammed Abdul Wohab: Wohab transformed two rupees and a desire to aid those in need into Southern Health Improvement Samity, one of India’s most accomplished and effective nonprofits serving the poor through medical, social welfare, educational and economic initiatives.
• Olga Sanchez: Founder of Albergue Jesus el Buen Pastor Shelter, Olga overcame her own poverty and life-threatening illness to found a temporary home providing safety and desperately needed medical care to injured and ill migrants.
• Dr. Geoffrey Tabin: As a mountaineer, Geoffrey became the fourth person in the world to climb the highest points of all seven continents. As an ophthalmologist, he has reached equally impressive medical heights, co-founding the Himalayan Cataract Project and empowering more than 75 doctors in 16 countries to perform 200,000 sight-restoring cataract surgeries throughout Asia.
• Ibtisam Mahammed: An Arab-Muslim citizen of the State of Israel, Ibtisam has challenged religious, racial and sexual stereotypes to create interfaith dialogues that result in lasting friendships between Jewish, Muslim and Christian women dedicated to ending the violence in the Middle East.

The 14^th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the exiled leader of the Tibetan people and a Buddhist teacher. The 1989 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Dalai Lama is an outspoken proponent of nonviolence and compassion, and is loved and revered internationally. Wisdom in Action (WIA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing awareness of the importance of compassion in action. WIA is hosting Unsung Heroes of Compassion 2009, the third event of its kind since 2001, to raise awareness that it is each individual’s obligation to help the disenfranchised among us and to acknowledge that each act of compassion makes an important difference to the world.

Co-hosting the event with Dick Grace will be internationally renowned author Isabel Allende, actor Peter Coyote, 2001 Unsung Heroes of Compassion honoree Dr. Grace Dammann, and teacher and author Jack Kornfield.

Rajan Kaur & family tour San Francisco

Rajan and family, with Karen Cheng, at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Rajan and Daisy at Ocean Beach. We ran into a primary school class on a field trip and Rajan couldn't stay away. All were invited to Buddha Smile School.

Rajan and family, with Karen Cheng, atop Turtle Hill in San Francisco.

Rajan Kaur arrives in San Francisco

April 22 at 7:16PM — Rajan Kaur and her husband, Sukdev Saini, and daughters Daisy, 12, and Rosy 7, arrived in San Francisco for the beautiful event on Sunday when Rajan will be given the award as Unsung Hero of Compassion by the Dalai Lama at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in San Francisco. The family's radient faces told us they survived and even enjoyed their first plane flight and their first trip to the US. None of the family has ever traveled outside of India. Their excitement and happiness at being here is complete. I asked Rajan, a teacher in her very soul, what she felt about her first plane ride. "I was a little dizzy as we lifted off from Varanasi. Then Rosy had many questions for me about what we were seeing out the windows, about the clouds and so forth, so I turned the flight into a science lesson for her." 

Peter Lemieux, Rajan's host until Saturday, met us at the airport and took Rajan and her family home with him to San Francisco. Rachel Davies, from Ohio, and a long time  Buddha's Smile volunteer and friend of the Saini family, flew in at the same time so was there also to welcome Rajan and her family.  Thursday, April 23,  Peter and his wife Karen took Rajan and family on a tour of San Francisco, the Marin Headlands and the Golden Gate bridge. And in the evening, Margaret Cullen in Berkeley hosted Rajan and family and the Lemieuxs for a dinner at her home. 

Evalena Heinrich makes blankets for the needy

Amistad volunteer, Evalena Heinrich, is an Oklahoma seamstress who donates her time to sew blankets for needy children in other countries. She's a dear friend of Amistad International

Evalena is in need of fleece fabric for the blankets which she turns into cozy warm blankets. 

Volunteer Denice Duffy will be taking Evalena's blankets to Georgia (formerly Russia) in November.  Here's a newspaper story about this wonderful ministry. 

If you are able to donate fleece fabric, please contact Evalena at  (580)883-2839, heinrich@pldi.net or Evalena Heinrich, Rt. 1, Box 204, Ringwood, OK 73768