Saturday Off!

Today was a day off for the team. I have not been feeling well for a couple of days, so I took advantage of the occasion to sleep. I did get up for a late breakfast, but then I went back to bed, and finally arose at 3PM. I feel better, but tonight will be the test on how things actually are; if I'm able to sleep tonight, it will convince me that the rest was indeed warranted. 

Last evening, we had a Friday-night-out adventure with the team. We caught the city bus to downtown Guwahati to the Pizza Hut! Take your usual Pizza Hut, remove the beef, add spices, add more spices, add jalapeños and you'll start to approximate an Indian Pizza Hut! We enjoyed it all the same. Then, on the way back the buses were packed, so we opted for India's venerable vehicle option—the Tuk Tuk! It was actually a very nice ride, although the nearness to other vehicles was a bit much. 

Wendy ventured off with a group to the Science Centre here in Guwahati today while I remained in bed; she found it quite interesting. Our plans have changed; we are looking forward to visiting Manipur. It was originally on the schedule, then was removed and now is back on. Angie's enthusiastic response to going there makes us all look forward to it. Other than that, I have been preparing myself for another guest pulpit tomorrow morning.

The markets have enjoyed a good month, up 1.5%, for the first green month since April. Sadly, Friday's sell-off kept me from making quota for the month, but even coming close was nice! Baseball continues with the World Series, and I'm cheering for the Royals. World Cup of Rugby has the final today; I'm cheering for the All-Blacks from New Zealand, so I was pleased to see them prevail over the Aussies. Hockey is starting to gather attention in the young season especially with the great start enjoyed by Montreal. Riders continue to play out the season with today's game against Calgary, but the first place Stamps laid a licking on them, sigh. We tried FaceTime with our children, but only connected with one of them. It was good to talk with Erica, although the connection was flakey. Later on we connected with Erin, and also managed to text with Travis.

And that's about it for this week. 

Oct 28-30

We are back in Guwahati, and I'm trying to catch up! Wednesday, we spent our last day in Shillong. It was a time of more visiting with Ray's contacts from days gone by, and we hope we provided them some encouragement. We certainly enjoyed meeting with them, having more tea, and some excellent meals! On Thursday morning we packed up, and embarked on the same twisty four-lane highway, but this time we were descending and the driver was running the 20 click hairpins at speed while we hoped the door latches would hold! We arrived safely all the same! It would have been a fun ride on a motorcycle! Once back, I worked to complete preparations for a teachers' workshop that was set for Friday. Friday morning, we breakfasted a bit earlier to be ready for an 8:00 departure. Then, we sat and waited for the driver to come. He showed up about 9:00, not the usual reliability we've come to expect from him. Running late, and discovering we had the wrong schedule for school meshed fairly well together; we spent some time observing in the classes, and then held the workshop only one hour later than initially planned. I was pleased with their participation and reactions, but I've been there, so I don't expect much to change after a single lesson. They did ask for more; that was encouraging. I am trying to organize another session for next week. Ray has also reorganized our itinerary, so we will spend fewer days in Chennai, and will get to Manipur after all. We're looking forward to the continuing adventure! 

October 25-27

The last three days have been a bit hit and miss on the internet side, but I'm trying to catch up! Sunday morning, I was the guest speaker at City View Church. The translator must have done a good job because I got a favourable review! In the evening, we packed up for our departure to Shillong in the morning. We were able to leave much of our teaching supplies and extra clothing at the hotel in Guwahati, so that lightened our load. We drove up to Shillong on Monday and enjoyed tea and later supper with friends of Ray in Shillong. The trip was a tortuous four-hour climb, but the air is clear and clean; the sky is blue, and the temperature is a moderate 25 degrees. We are relishing the comfortable circumstances. On Tuesday, we took a sight-seeing tour of the area even further south of Shillong. There were many waterfalls to view and zip-lines to consider. One of our crew took a ride on the zip-lines; the rest of us cheered! Wendy considered, but demurred. We got back to Shillong in time for supper out at a restaurant. It's been an enjoyable three days. We have one more day here, then we head back to the heat and smog of Guwahati. 

Saturday, um, School!

Yes, it's true we spent today in school, and the children, although technically still on holiday, were present in even larger numbers. Since we had a adopted presentations and activities more visual than verbal this time, we felt the outcomes were more satisfactory. I hope they were! Following the afternoon program, we were invited to tea, and enjoyed spending the time with these gracious and thankful people. The community of parents expressed their appreciation by inviting us to a sports and cultural day which is set for November 1st. We have agreed to accept this invitation. 

Later this evening (or this morning back in Canada), we made use of the wifi connection in the lobby to try FaceTime. It worked very well, and we were able to talk to Erin and Kristian. However, we failed to make a connection to Erica and Travis. We shall try again another time. We also try to follow our favourite sports teams, but they seem to be playing though the night! The Blue Jays ended their season today, losing out to Kansas City in six games in the American League Championships. The Riders had a great start against Edmonton, leading 20-3 at one point, but faltered to lose 35-24. We got an update from Eric/A. They enjoyed a relatively quiet week. This weekend Erica is enjoying a ladies' retreat with the church group in PA. She's sworn to secrecy about the actual activities. (What happens at ladies' retreat stays at ladies' retreat) however, she did divulge that there are no classes or homework and that the only scheduled activities are meals. These ladies know how to do a retreat! Eric was asked to help fill in last minute for the Pastor this Sunday. That is very cool! Haaken checked out the college and career group this week. He also attended a drop in art session. He still needs to find work and we hope an opportunity comes soon. Liam finished his first term, but until they figure out the online reporting thing, we will not know how well he did. 

And that's the end of an adventurous week! 

TGIF

In this case, it's not such a big deal for it to be Friday! After spending the day at our second school, we get to return there tomorrow! These students seem somewhat less mature academically, although they tried desperately to get by without a translator. I think we needed a translator. Many small ones seemed completely uncomprehending of our instructions. However, they did pick up cues (and instructions) from their friends, so maybe whatever small grasp they had of our English was supported and enhanced in this way. At least they exhibited the total respect we have come to expect through our experiences in Zambia and now in India. Picture the whole class standing when some strange man walks into the room, chiming a greeting of, "Good morning, sir," and remaining standing until I tell them they may sit down, at which point, they chorus, "Thank you, sir!" Yeah, I know, if your school experiences have been in Canada, you may find that hard to picture! 

Thursday School Work

We've enjoyed a second and final day at the first school. It has been a pleasure to work with these children and staff. After sessions today, we were invited to a nearby home for tea; it turned out to be a full meal deal! It certainly feels good to be appreciated, so, despite lips and tongues burning from the residual heat of the Indian cuisine, we are grateful for the recognition. Tomorrow and Saturday we plan to work in a second school in Guwahati before moving on to Shillong next week. 

Into the Schools

We have passed an excellent day in Guwahati. It was our first day in the schools, and we enjoyed meeting the children and the staff. The children behaved wonderfully. (Apparently respect is not earned, it is learned—but, you have to teach it!) There were some snafus so we have some notes for improvement in our handling of materials and scheduling. It was a daunting task trying to prepare lessons for an audience we had such little knowledge of, but they surpassed our expectations, and we found that all material was eagerly devoured. The headteacher has asked us to prepare additional lessons to improve the teaching bag of tricks for her teachers—that is also very encouraging to us.

Tuesday in Guwahati

It has been a long and tiring day. I was up at 5am to follow the Canadian election results. Later, Ray and I climbed a mountain, and enjoyed watching and listening as school leaders met together for the first time. They reported on the situation in their schools and noted their plans for the future and the challenges facing them. Ray challenged them to embrace a larger vision for their schools and their students. They began the discussion and planning to achieve something bigger. It was very interesting for me to be able to observe these activities.

Living and Learning in Guwahati

Our trip to India has begun. We flew from Regina on Saturday morning, made a brief stop in Calgary and then flew threw the time zones of night to Frankfort. Local time in Frankfort on our arrival was about 8am Sunday morning, but it was only Saturday midnight back in Regina. We delayed in Frankfort Airport for about five hours; then, we flew through several more time zones to Delhi. The Frankfort airport is not a pleasant place to spend any time. I found it shockingly poorly designed. There was only one place to get lunch, and it wasn't much, but, it was through security into a gate area we weren't using. We exited there only to go through security again into the gate area we were using for departure to India. According to staff, there were no other places to eat in that large airport complex, and especially none outside of security. We arrived in Delhi about 00:45, but getting our luggage, changing money and finding transport to the hotel took some hours, so we finally checked into our rooms about 3:20am. Breakfast at 7am, was closely followed by packing our bags, and returning to the airport as we completed the trip to our first working location at Guwahati. I think we are now in the real India. We were treated to spectacular views of the Himalayas as we flew across northern India today. We checked in to our new hotel—it is very nice, and caught a couple of hours of sleep this afternoon. I'm sure it will take some days before we reset to the India time zone, and even more before we adjust to India time! Wendy's phone remained on Regina time, so she was quite concerned to be a half hour later than what I tried to tell her was real time! When I checked it our and noted it said 7pm, when I knew it was 6:30am, I was at least able to figure out what was happening. While in India, we will be 11.5 hours ahead of Regina time. 

Passage to India!

Another week has passed and depending on when we cross the pertinent time zone, we are ending the week on our way from Calgary to Frankfort. We have enjoyed an extra week in Regina, but left this morning heading west to Calgary and then north over the Arctic toward Germany. The next leg, from Frankfort, takes us across the middle east with expected arrival in Delhi about midnight Sunday night (local time). That is 11.5 hours ahead of Regina (CST). I hope to post to this blog regularly while we're in India, but only distribute via email on the weekends, so, if you wish to check in on us, please access the blog address.  Standard operating procedures call for us to travel on Mondays, and then work at schools etc. throughout the week, but what little I've learned so far indicates that standard operating procedures do not apply to India anymore than they did to Zambia! The week has been busy, especially for Wendy who took advantage of the extra days to do even more preparations and shopping! The markets have been a bit better, but the TSX seems to have become unsettled early in anticipation of the election on Monday. Still I had a good week and managed a bit of recovery. India has only one time zone, and it's on the half-hour, like Newfoundland! They do not practice daylight savings adjustments either (like Saskatchewan), so initially the TSX will be opening at midnight, and after our time change it will move to 11pm. The Blue Jays staged a heart-stopping comeback from two games down to Texas, winning three straight to move on to the League championships against Kansas City. That started last night with a loss and dropped another one this afternoon (despite leading 3-0 to the bottom of the 7th) because our manager can figure out when to change the pitcher! C'mon Jays! The Riders are playing out the string on the regular season. They have traded off some players thus affording an extended tryout for some younger prospects. 

We are leaving our children, and their families behind, so I doubt that we'll have much to report on their activities over the next six weeks. We look forward to each contact with them while we're away, and also to reconnecting with them in December. We were glad to have Eric/A and the boys visit us in Regina last weekend. They have enjoyed a quiet week in PA. 

We're very thankful for the care Erin and Kristian provided while we stayed with them in Regina. This included a wonderful time of Thanksgiving with Eric/A, Haaken and Liam on Monday. Each morning, before heading off to school, Kristian ensured that we had a wake-up call and snuggles—so precious! Sadie took me for a walk each morning; it's been good! 

Trav, Joanna, Gemma and Andrew called last evening. Another grandma is up from southern Ontario and staying with them just now, so at least that side of the business is being attended to! 

And that's about enough for this week! 

Happy Thanksgiving

Another week has passed and we have travelled from the shore of Lake Superior to the shore of Lake Wascana in the middle of the prairie. We drove over on Wednesday, as we were preparing to leave on Monday for six weeks in India. Alas, plans have changed. I am told that often happens with plans one makes for India! We shall endeavour to remain flexible. The new plan is for us to remain in Regina for some additional time while some of our group waits for their visas, and then depart next Saturday. This also calls for us to return from India on December 2nd, so our time there remains the same, although schedules are being adjusted. We have enjoyed another week of beautiful weather, and I was able to get out golfing a couple of more times. Yesterday, I was golfing with Kristian here in Regina—that was extra special! The markets have recovered a bit, and I've been able to make some buys and achieve some gains. I made quota this week for a change! We cleaned up a few more jobs around the home place before we left. Our changed schedule means we will have more adjustments to make this week to items we had scheduled for our return. We are not assured of our internet connections in India, so be patient waiting for updates while we're over there. India is currently nine and a half hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. They do not adjust for daylight saving time, so there will be an another hour added when we fall back to standard time. Wendy has continued to push forward with plans and development of lesson material for the India trip. On Thursday, she was back to the doctor for manipulation of her arthritic fingers—ouch! The Jays are in the divisional playoffs against Texas. I was lamenting that I would miss watching them in the playoffs, but it appears they may be solving that issue for me—they're down 2-0 in the best of five playoff! It could be over as early as tomorrow evening. C'mon Blue Jays, let's play ball! The Riders lost last evening to Hamilton which assures them of missing the playoffs. Now they can get on with the task of rebuilding the team! 

Liam had a lengthy week of classes—NOT! Counting two PD Days, he started the Thanksgiving long weekend after class on Wednesday! Liam and Erica stayed overnight in Saskatoon with Chris and Shelley. Liam got a chance to connect with their youngest son, Trevor. Then, on Friday he jammed with the youth pastor in PA—not a bad way to start a five day holiday! Haaken has met some people with Autism Services. He's hoping they will provide some support as he works to obtain employment. Eric had Monday off as a mental health day—an official mental health day, not one of those days when you call in sick because you can find the energy to drag yourself out of bed! What a concept!

Erin and Kristian have had a good week. Then, we arrived on Wednesday night, so they've turn over to being hosts! We're enjoying that! She has also saved a few jobs around the place, so, I'm trying to take care of those while we're here. Kristian took me golfing on Friday as he had a day off school. That was another good time. Erin is lamenting the performance of the Jays along with me, but where there's life, there's hope, so we are hoping for a better result tomorrow! We're expecting the Baileys to arrive tomorrow, and to enjoy Thanksgiving with them on Monday. 

Trav and Joanna returned on Monday evening from their sojourn in southern Ontario. They feel like they've made a lot of contacts and things are going well for Bucket Decals, so they expect PuckShots will gradually build a customer base there as well. Gemma and Andrew went with me to the airport to welcome them home on Monday evening. Now, they're back in charge of the estate! Keep eating those tomatoes! 

And that's about it for this week. 

News Update

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior, in my hometown. The weather has been comfortable, but we finally got a frost on Thursday night that took out my tomato plants. Now, we have three flats of tomatoes trying to ripen indoors! I haven't been covering them as we are planning to head out next week anyway, so this has allowed me to clean up the garden area. I'm watering down the cedars this weekend. Wendy has me back on some renovations in the house. I installed the new faucet and toilet in the downstairs bathroom—another great upgrade. She has continued lesson development for the India trip, and those are pretty close to ready. I'm expecting there will be a need for many revisions once we see what our students are like! On Friday, we got word that her order of some teaching stuff for India was in at the border store, so we drove down, enjoyed supper at the casino, and picked up the parcel. The markets continued their downward trend through the end of the month. The TSX is now down 9% so far this year. For the second month in a row, I failed to make quota, and am now behind quota for the year as well. The selling has reduced my buy-in to under 5%, so I'm hoping to make some buys in the next week rather than hold so much in cash while we're away. The Riders put up a good game last Sunday, and we beat Montreal quite comfortably. This evening they played in BC; it was not a good effort; it was not close. Time for the airlift; let's find some prospects for next year! The Blue Jays clinched the division championship this week, and now move on to the playoffs. Let's go Blue Jays! Let's play ball! 

Eric had a fun week at work; he travelled to Watrous and later to Big River before settling back at the office. Eric and Erica enjoyed a 3 km hike on Sunday. They didn't enjoy the 104-step stairway at the end of the hike, but they survived! Haaken continues to look for work. This weekend, they are visiting the McLeods and Baileys in Saskatoon and enjoying a visit with Sheena and Aura who flew out from BC for a visit. 

Erin and Kristian have had a good week. Erin has relished the successful season for the Blue Jays. Kristian is enjoying his birthday present. The school reports confirm that he is progressing well at school. He seems to be settling into a nice routine for home as well. It is a comfort. 

Joanna is working with Lorraine to open up the market in southern Ontario, but it's slow developing. Travis has flown down there as well. We don't hear of business developments, but attendance at the Ti-Cat football game, and the Maple Leaf hockey game were enjoyed! Gemma and Andrew remain here with us! 

That's about it for this week.