Andre and Lily Garzia Take a Tour of San Marga

Andre Alves Garzia is here on Kauai since December 16 and staying for a month working closely with Brahmanathaswami on various IT projects, including our in house Caption Writer now called TAKAL which is the tool we use to create these TAKA posts automatically and efficiently.

Andre has been working off and on for Himalayan Academy Publications since 2004, and this is his fourth trip to Kauai. Years ago Andre completed 7 years in University majoring in film and media production. But his talents always leaned toward toward software development and he preferred coding to the idea of becoming a movie director. It was a perfect match for the Ganapati Kulam needs where media and digital technology converge every day. Over the years Andre has been advancing in his career and last year he was chosen by the Mozilla Foundation to be the lead in a project funded by the Ford Foundation to spread web literacy in and around the Rio de Janeiro area. The grant expired and the program shifted to other locations on the globe. Andre continues to volunteer for Mozilla in Brasil to help web literacy in the community but is now almost full time working for Himalayan Academy Publication while launching his own company. He plans to focus on offering training and consulting programs for the next young generation of web programmers who will build the internet of the future.

His wife, Elisangela Mendonça de Andrade Garzia aka "Lily" is a journalist. She is currently a producer, writer and assistant to the internationally renowned Canadian journalist, Stephani Nolen, who is heading up the South American bureau of The Globe and Mail, published from Toronto and now stationed in Rio. The Globe and Mail is one of the few publications that still prints 5-6 days a week and gets delivered to your home. With Lily's help, Stephanie brings a lot of interesting stories from South American into Canadian homes.

Andre and Lily live in the city of Niteroi, which is across the bay from Rio

This is Lily\

s first time on Kauai. She was able to get away from her journalist duties to join her husband for 9 days. Swami gives them both a tour.'

When Andre went home from past visits he told Lily all about his time here and when she came she wanted to see the cows... So our first stop is to the pasture.

This was Lily\

s very first ever encounter with a real live cow. Little Teta was very focused on eating\/grazing, but friendly enough to let Lily pet her briefly before returning to the most important job of the day: eating grass.'

From the eyes of Lily\

s camera: This papaya was bigger than a football, \"I have never seen such a huge papaya!\"'

A spin by the carpentry shop. It has been raining a lot and the roads are all mud, so we went via electric Ranger.

We have our media studio and computers in one side of our life and our farm on the other!

Next we drove to the rudraksha Grove to see how pilgrims of the future will arrive at San Marga. Here is Ganesha amidst the trees.

Passing by Anna Purna garden. Another wow moment to see such huge oranges.

These trees are over 40 years old.

The root system at the tree base rises above ground to form unusual buttresses that look like their are from another world.

Driving to the beginning of San Marga we enter the bamboo corridor

Passing to Second World section, you climb a small hill to visit Lord Murugan\

s Vel'

Bromeliads showing off.

Arriving at the Swayambhu lingam .

We shared with Andre and Lily the story of Gurudeva\

s visions'

These are all explained with beautiful artwork at the kiosks nestled behind.

Then down to the Rainbow Eucalyptus grove by the river.

Then up old side road to find Iraivan, on the west side.

The story of Dakshinamurthy is ever fascinating. As our Tamil scriptures say, \"He who breathed out the Vedas!\"

We explained how the Rishis received the revelation as inner sound\/mantras, the original sruti, passed down for countless generations.

going back to the Aadheenam now... the ponds are full

Stopping at the overlook to see the Wailua River below.

Koi fish in the Aadheenam pool.

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