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pics so far: 

victor and rashim help hetal, goalie for india's first special olympics women's floor hockey team, suit up. 

smita waits for game time on the bleachers. 

little tiny afghan players versus big giant austrians. this is the story we worked on today, i'm super attached now. they are the sweetest kids in the world and i have to visit afghanistan now. they are the youngest delegation at the special olympics, as the youngest player is only 8. because of this, there are no other teams their age and they have to play adults. they play with so much spirit though. love them, and their coach abdul. 

coach abdul with the kids in the locker room (apparantly i wasn't supposed to be here and i got rudely ousted shortly after this. but not before i cried a little while taking these pictures). 

abdul with suliman. six months ago, suliman couldn't feed himself or go to the bathroom unassisted. now he is one of the most passionate players on the team, and had to be called out of the game today because he was so aggressive (playing incredible offense even though he was on defense). cried when i heard this story too. 

check out the site at live.specialolympics.org. lots of videos and pictures. i think i might still have the homepage picture up. 

love to all. 

special olympics live

do you need a passport to get to idaho? i don't think so, but it is so very far. 

last time i posted, it was from frigid washington d.c. now it's from surprisingly warm idaho. 

we're covering the special olympics winter world games, which start today and run through feb 13. we'll go back home on the 15. 

our group is broken into a few big teams, and then smaller teams within those. i'm on the documentary team, asia pacific. this includes countries like india, bangladesh, thailand, vietnam and the philippines, but also australia, new zealand, pakistan, and afghanistan (?). how afghanistan fits into asia pacific beats me.  also given the fact that there is just an ASIA team, but they are only covering china and we are covering everything else. 

we'll be finding interesting stories about athletes, families, coaches, rivalries, etc. one story is about a champion figure skater from new zealand who has a rivalry with an american figure skater and is also an eagle scout. not sure what else yet. 

we are contracted by media outlets around the world who didn't send news teams here. so not only are we producing for the special olympics organization, but also mainstream news outlets like al jazeera or cnn. 

i'm also helping to shoot the opening ceremonies, which is lots of dignitaries and celebrities (maria schriver, arnold schwarzenegger, kenny g, hootie & the blowfish, sarah palin, kristi yamaguchi, etc). i listed to kenny g over and over and over yesterday as he practiced his new piece written specially for the ceremonies at the dress rehearsal. his hair has never changed in the decades my dad has listened to him. ha. 

it's really beautiful here! hope to ski too!