Photos of SASAC events and people and of Kurseong

For the first two weeks, we were part of a group of 19 Canadians who have supported for many years a Jesuit Priest (Father Abraham) and his projects near Kurseong which is about 35 km south of Darjeeling in West Bengal. I got started as a Father A. supporter back in the mid-1980s but his work in India began almost 20 years earlier. Over the years a large school was built, then a home for orphans and children who cannot be supported by their own families, and there was cinder block making, home building, reforestation, biogas production, square metre vegetable gardening, chicken and egg farming, compost manufacture and mushroom growing to name only some of the projects that are part of what came to be called SASAC. Father A. is 86 now and mostly retired and his projects are winding down without his dynamic leadership to drive them and without the support of his local Jesuit Province.

So we got to see his work in its twilight period. The kids of SASAC, (now numbering 46 of whom only 8 are truly orphans) are wonderful and being around them was a treat. For almost two weeks we were based at Cochrane Place Hotel in Kurseong and had a daily round of visits, tours, presentations and activities. Cochrane Place was a great place for us because their theme is "Tea Country" and they feature a special tea bar with two tea brewmeisters. They are just up the hill from the famous Makaibari Tea Gardens.

The SASAC part of our journey is covered in two slide shows (necessary in order to break down the total number of slides). I've left a number of less than sensational slides (technical problems) in the show because they help to show what we did, and what was done for us.

There's also a show of Kurseong town itself (and its environs) since we had ample time to explore it, and finally a show of Cochrane Place where we stayed for almost two weeks.
Some of the slideshows are available as both a 'slide by slide' presentation and in the form of a movie that simply runs through all of the photos in that grouping.
  • Slide show part 1: Contains 92 images which have been compressed to open fairly quickly. There is no automatic show; use the arrows at the top to move forward or backward.
  • Slide show part 2: Contains another 77 images as above.
  • Kurseong town slide show: 63 photos that are not really SASAC related but showing photos taken around the town of Kurseong where we stayed for almost two weeks.

Self-running slideshows presented as movies

Play SASAC Movie Part 1: The same images as from the slide show, set up as an autorunning slideshow (22 MB). Should autostart after a few seconds of downloading time.
Play SASAC Movie Part 2: As above (18 MB)
Play Kurseong Town movie: As above (14 MB)