Sub: returning unique node in am xml

  hi everybody ...
 this is my problem ....
 in a xml i have the following 
  <root>
     <customers>
	  <orderid/>
          <orderdate/> 
     </customers>
    <customers>
         <orderid/>
         <orderdate/> 
    </customers>
    <orders>
          <orderId/>
          <orderdate/>
    </orders>
</root>

i want to get only the unique child nodes of root .. ie .. i want only
customer,orders and 
not customers , customers, orders . 
 how do i do that ?

the next part of my question  is an extension of the previous question  ..
given a nodes can i in anyway determine  which occurence is it .. that is 

when i am accessing the first customer node ... i should know that i am
processing the first
customer node ..
if i am accessing the second customer node is there anyway of knowing that i
am accessing
the second customers node.

thanks in advance for the help 

Mukund 

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