Manoharan, and some of his family

DSCN1100, originally uploaded by Lisa Tripp.

What a stroke of good fortune. This had to be another god-gifted day.

When I first looked out from the Chesire Home, to where the village had been, everything looked different. There were paved roads and some 2 story houses, and no mud huts.

I had a visual memory of how I used to walk to the house of Manoharan. His mother would often invite me over for coffee or a simple meal, and his sister was very interested in showing me various aspects of her daily life. There was an older brother Raman, who died suddenly from some intestinal problem during the time I was there. Manoharan came to find me when he got the news that his brother had died, and I went to his home to see his mother. We all cried together at this sad news. Raman had been a very studious young man and had dreams of finding some good work.

So, I began walking into the village area, and again found very few people who spoke much English. I looked for older women, and asked about "families who lived here in 1967." That was all I had to go on, as again with time, I had forgotten the names of the family members.

No one seemed to know of any families that had been here in 1967. Small groups of men would cluster around and try to think of who might have been here back then. They all agreed that noone was left from that time.

I was close to giving up on this project, and started walking out to the main road. When I got to an open area, and looked over to the Chesire Home, I felt like I was in about the area of my friends house. There were still a group of men at the other end of street so I decided to go back and offer to take their photos and send them a copy...just to document the effort I was making.

Suddenly a young woman came up to the group and said "Ae you Sara,....Sara Smith?" I said yes, and she looked to her uncle and said, "Yes, this is Sara Smith." I had found Manoharan.

We both got tears in our eyes, and he quickly took my backpack and took me to his house. I had walked past it 2 times during the time I was looking for him. Just about where I had thought it would be.

We spent a wonderful few hours with his neice translating for us. His mother died in 2003, and I told him about mommy. I had my booklet of photos (that Cynthia put together for me the day before I left) and so I was able to fill him in on my family.

Manoharan works over at the hospital in Vellore, which is a major medical center in South India. His shift started in the early morning so he happened to be home in the middle of the day.

This family was a wonderful part of my experience in this project. I feel very pleased to have made contact again after all this time. The village was abuzz with the story of this woman coming back to visit after 40 years....and I was thrilled that all worked out so well.