I arrived last night in my hotel at 1:00 am, woke up early and spent the day at the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Center.  Dr. Arvind Chaturvedi and his staff were unbelievably helpful and gracious.  They spent the entire day showing me the around the hospital, introducing me to the staff, honoring me with a lovely lunch and most importantly providing two incredible women cancer survivors for me to photograph and interview.  The Center is a wonderful facility that not only provides absolutely top quality physicians and state of the art technology, but compassionate and dignified care for all of it's patients.  I am heading back there on Wednesday to meet with some more of Dr. Chaturvedi's colleagues, they have a few more women for me to meet with as well.

Tomorrow morning I am off to meet with Harmala Gupta of CanSupport.  She is also a cancer survivor and founded and runs one of the foremost cancer support organizations in India.  Then in the afternoon I will be working with another survivor that Harmala has put me in contact with.  She is coming to my hotel for an interview and photos.





It was 108 degrees today and a very hot non-airconditioned 45 minute cab ride back from RGCI....but Delhi is amazing!  My hotel is a quiet little enclave of 8 acres in the middle of town, but once you get out on the street it is sensory overload and I am loving it!  I just have a permanent smile on my face, the sights and sounds are exactly what you think they will be.  I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!  Here are a couple of shots from the cab ride!

on to India

Saturday I leave for New Delhi, India....then on to Kathmandu and home through Bahrain....the Indian embassy made me get a journalist visa with only a single entry permitted, so I have to route home from Nepal through Qatar and Bahrain.  I will spend about a day and a half in Bahrain waiting for my connection, it should be pretty cool, it's adding a bit of extra travel time, but I will try to make the best of it!  I am really psyched for India, I am super busy with meetings/shoots lined up everyday.  I will update the blog from there with pics and info....it's going to be amazing!!!!  I also got a very clean bill of health yesterday from Dr. Dottino,  4 years cancer free!  What a way to celebrate!   

heading to Delhi and Kathmandu

My first trip is not to Africa now, that is on hold for a bit, but I am heading off to Delhi and Kathmandu on the 24th! I decided that I just really need to get the ball rolling, so I emailed Alina Pawlowska at the UICC and asked her for some contacts in India and Nepal. 

I have been in contact with both the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute http://rgci.org/ and the Dharamshila Cancer Hospital http://www.dhrc.in/ in Delhi and have meetings set up with them for the day after I arrive.   I have also been talking to the program officer for the Nepal Cancer Relief Society http://www.ncrs.org.np/ in Kathmandu, Ms. Shakti Gurung.  She is trying to find women who would be interested and able to work on the project, but communication there is a bit difficult and takes time.  I am hoping that it pulls together in the next couple of weeks or I may change my plan and stay longer in India and lessen my time in Nepal.

Work here has been crazy busy for me, which is great, but I feel like a crazy person between shooting, retouching, doing production on new jobs, getting visas, extra pages put into my passport, coordinating all the necessary travel arrangements, trying to set up meetings with doctors and interviews and photo sessions!  I hope I can keep up this pace!  But it is all so exciting that I am enjoying every second of it!  Thank God for BA and business class at least I will finally get some rest  on the plane!

This trip is really going to set the tone for what this project will ultimately become, and I am so nervous and excited about it.  But I have a great feeling in my gut, that this is all good and right, and that everything will work out.  It is all so big and thrilling and wonderful, it's so hard to describe, but for me it feels like I am 21 and just starting out on my career. I have that same excitement and enthusiasm, but also all the knowledge, wisdom, and skill that I have acquired over the last 25 years.  It is an amazing road that my life is taking right now, and every day I am so thankful for it!

a little more Switzerland

a few photos from the trip, this is supposed to be a photography blog after all....

                        Lake Geneva

               Cathedral

                                 Gruyeres

Maxime, Sophie and Me

                                                              

MaximeMathys

                                            Philippe and the boys

                                             Gruyeres

Switzerland

I just returned from my first trip to Switzerland to meet with the UICC in Geneva.  I was really excited to meet with Dr. Julie Torode, the Deputy CEO and Advocacy and Programmes Director.  I knew that she could help me establish contacts in all the countries that I want to go to, but honestly the meeting went better than I could have hoped for.  Julie was so generous with her time, informing me about the structure of the UICC and it's vision and mission to connect, mobilize and support cancer organizations and individuals with knowledge and skills to be effective.   They are the leading international non-governmental organization dedicated exclusively to the global control of cancer.  She was incredibly helpful in trying to brainstorm ways for us to work together.  I will be very glad to support them in any way that I can, and I am sure that with her help my project can fulfill the vision I have for it.

Julie then introduced me to Alina Pawlowska, the head of UICC's membership department.  Alina has connections everywhere and is helping me to connect with various NGO's.  She also had great suggestions of what countries might be the best for me to go to,  places where she has great contacts, like Armenia and Nepal.  I am going to try to add those to my list, and nix some places where she thought I might have a tough time with contacts.  She immediately gave me some contacts in Ghana (I had been very unsuccessfully trying to get in touch with people there).  I emailed them from the airport in Geneva on my way home, and by the time I got to London, I already has responses!  She is going to send me more lists of contacts over the next month or so.  I am really looking forward to working with her!

I then was introduces to Danny Greenstone who is a marketing consultant for the UICC.  Danny is working on projects to promote the UICC.  He relayed to me some great ideas he has for future projects.   His positive, gregarious attitude is absolutely infectious!  I hope that I can be of help to him on my travels.

What was not lost on me was that this "face-to-face" meeting was exactly what the British Airways grant was all about.  I would never have been able to establish the same relationships with the UICC through emails and phone conversations.    I am so thrilled that this first trip has set a super positive tone for my project.  I am moving forward with such enthusiasm and excitement, I can't wait until the next leg begins!!  The only negative is that I am going to have a very hard time not traveling in business class on BA after this grant is over.  After just one trip, I feel pretty spoiled, it really makes the travel a million times easier, in fact I am really looking forward to my next flight!

the first trip is booked!

Of course within an hour of my last post I received and email from Dr. Julie Torode at the International Union Against Cancer in Geneva.  I leave for Geneva on March 9th and meet with her on the 11th, I am also trying to schedule in a meeting with my contact Clare Courtney at the World Health Organization while I am there.  Dr. Torode has contacts with member organizations in all the countries that I want to go to, so she is a vital link for me and I feel so lucky that she is able to take the time to meet with me.  I am also super lucky that my good friends Philippe and Sophie Chevrier live in Lausanne and are letting me stay with them. It is only a 30 minute train ride to Geneva, and Geneva is a very expensive city, so they are saving me a bundle, and I get to see them and their adorable boys!

I also heard that Dr. Dottino was meeting with the ambassador to Liberia and trying to finalize plans to travel there at the end of March, so it looks like that is on too!  yay!!!!  I am so excited.....

waiting....

It feels like everything is just hanging in the air right now and my hands are a bit tied.    Work (advertising) has been super busy, which is great, because the industry is pretty lean right now, so I feel lucky to have work, but it really limits the time I have to work on this project... I haven't been able to establish a connection at the International Union Against Cancer http://www.uicc.org/index.php yet...the World Health Org referred me to them for help in finding NGO's and contacts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Syria, Jordan and Ghana.  I have sent 5 emails off to them with no response, I just found a new contact there today, so hopefully I will hear back from her soon because I want to head to Geneva in the next few weeks.   I have sent off a ton of emails to various hospitals and groups in Syria, Jordan, Vietnam and Turkey with no responses.  I am still waiting to hear about if and when we are going to Liberia. The political climate in Guinea is very unstable and really effects Liberia, so there are some significant safety concerns with travel to that region.   I know that everything is going to work out, and it will probably all happen at the same time (doesn't it always) and then I will be running around like a crazy person.  It's just a little frustrating right now!  I so want to be in the middle of it all, I just need some forward momentum!

I applied for a Pepsi Refresh Grant....so on March 1st I will be asking everyone to vote for me every day for the month of March!  It was a super confusing site, so hopefully I filled out the application correctly....I guess we will see next week. The money from that should help with the travel costs and taxes that I have to pay on the BA grant.  With any luck in the next couple of weeks the planning will be in full swing and I will have some definite plans to report!