First Post from the Road!

It seems that there are long periods of where not much happens and then an intense, short period of things I want to blog about but am so busy, that I don’t have time. I hope that everyone is ok with me having “catch up” blog postings cause here comes one.

Sabbatical Sendoff
Because I am kind of masochistic, it wasn’t enough to just move our stuff in one day, oh noooooooo, I had to commit us to having a party the same day!  

Michel and I need to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to our friends that helped us move in the morning (Sue, Shane, Brett, Heather, Kris and Chris). They made short shrift of our belongings and helped us fit most of our worldly possessions into a 10’ x 15’ room!

Once we were done, we had about 1.5 hours to set the house up for all our guests but considering there was next to no furniture in the house, it was pretty easy to do and made it easy to fit everyone in the house as Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating that day.

It was great cooking for everyone (something I really enjoy and the reason I long for an open concept house) and everyone seemed to love the chicken so here is the recipe from Epicurious:

Grilled Chicken Breasts with Spiced Yoghurt
2 1/4 cups plain yogurt (18 oz; preferably whole-milk)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
6 skinless boneless chicken breast halves (2 1/4 to 2 1/2 lb total)
1 cup small fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons minced shallot

Whisk together 1 cup yogurt, 2 tablespoons oil, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, salt, and spices, then add chicken and turn until coated well. Marinate at room temperature 20 minutes.

While chicken is marinating, prepare grill for cooking. If using a charcoal grill, open vents on bottom of grill, then light charcoal. Charcoal fire is medium-hot when you can hold your hand 5 inches above rack for 3 to 4 seconds. If using a gas grill, preheat burners on high, covered, 10 minutes, then reduce heat to moderate.

While grill is heating, whisk together remaining 1 1/4 cups yogurt and 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice and salt to taste. 

Grill chicken (discard marinade), covered only if using gas grill, on lightly oiled grill rack, turning over occasionally, until just cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes total. Transfer chicken to a platter. 

Toss together mint, shallot, and remaining tablespoon oil in a small bowl. Drizzle chicken with yogurt sauce and top with mint salad. 

Kris has a friend named Howard who joined us. Howard travels quite a bit via boats, ships, etc. and we wanted to mine his experience for gems of information that may have related to our travels. He was very interesting to talk to, however, in retrospect; it was the wrong event to try and pick his brain about this form of travel because we were so busy hosting, cooking, etc. As he was on his way out of the party, Howard stopped in the kitchen and he, Mark and Michel has the opportunity to talk about their shared passion……….military history! Oh, if the boys had only known earlier that Howard was into military history, I am sure they would have found a quite corner and spent the night talking. I think it would have been better to have gone for a quiet drink or coffee with Howard but hind sight is always 20/20.

There were several moments while I was in the kitchen when I could hear everyone laughing and having a good time. I know everyone thinks we are going to have an amazing adventure and I totally agree but………. it was during those moments at the party that I realized what I would be missing during the year and there was an ache in my heart. I won’t have those moments for a year and although I am going to endeavour to keep in touch with everyone, I won’t be able to maintain the same kind of contact I had by living in Calgary. I will have regrets about missing all the day-to-day moments and events in everyone’s lives. Please, please, please keep in touch and tell me what is happening in your lives. I always tell Rob that the intimacy of good friends comes from sharing what everyone thinks of as the mundane moments in life. The big events have binding power but it is the small moments that are the real glue!

I am going to miss all of you and am looking forward to coming home.

Foster Parents

We had great news on the Monday before we left. Dawn from FRFA (Feline Rescue Foundation of Alberta) found a volunteer to take the girls. April seems really nice and is definitely cat friendly as she has 12 of her own cats (most of them rescued) and has agreed to foster the girls to give Dawn some time to find another house where there are not so many cats. From talking with April, she seems to be quite involved in the cat world as she is working with cat organizations around North America to better the plight of cats in general.

However, dropping the cats off at April’s was not a happy experience! My poor babies had a rough day as they had to go to the vet to get shots and then to April’s. I didn’t get to say goodbye the way I wanted to because as soon as I set them down, they scooted under the bed to hide. I am clinging to Sandi’s words of wisdom…….have faith that April is taking good care of them and loving them and they are better off than if I had had to put them down. I just hope they forgive me when I go to pick them up in a year.

I want to give a plug for FRFA (http://www.frfa.ca/) to all my cat friends. I can attest that they seem to be more interested in saving cats that the Meow Foundation. The Meow Foundation would not help me because they were too worried about potential litigation if they found a foster parent for my girls and something went wrong. So, if any of you support these types of organizations, I would encourage you to support FRFA over Meow Foundation or the Calgary Humane Society. FRFA really cares about cats.

And So the Adventure Begins!

With the house finally empty and clean (a day late) and the girls securely ensconced with April, we were ready for our adventure to begin.

We had some not great news the day before we left…….my Aunt Betty was in the hospital and very ill. As a kid, she was my favourite aunt – how could she not be – she was the wild one and always seemed to be having fun or had great stories to tell. She has been fighting emphysema for many years and it is getting the upper hand. So we changed our plans a bit and drove to Regina so we could go visit her in the hospital. She seemed to be in good spirits but I noticed she was winded several times during our conversation and seemed tired by the time we left about 30 minutes later.

We also got a good visit in with Uncle Butch and Aunty Sharon. They stay with us once or twice a year when they head West to see Aunty Sharon’s parents and it is always nice to catch up. The older I get, the more I am valuing family and friends. But when I think of family, I am usually concentrating on my parents and siblings and this trip has gotten me to thinking about the wonders of extended family.

Carman, MB

After Regina, we headed straight to Mama and PapaLou’s. It is a wonderful feeling to pull up the driveway of home (even though I have never lived in this house). We spent our Sundayin typical Murray fashion – PapaLou put us to work! Steve and I cleaned our car – it has not been this clean since I bought it 11 years ago! I am sure the car is going “Aaahhhhhhhhh”. Poor Michel got the harder job of helping Papa dig up a tree stump and a trench to deal with keeping the water off the driveway.

I think we will have a quiet week working with Mom and Dad as next week is busy with events (no hints, you will just have to wait until I write about them!).

Haiti - Part Deux

We have recieved confirmation for a second placement in Haiti!  From September 6 thru October 6, we will be working with Eurpean Disaster Volunteers (EDV) who have programs running in Port au Prince.  We will be helping out with construction of schools and fixing up orphanages and potentially aiding in health and English education (http://www.edvolunteers.org/programmes-projects).

I told them I had some experience with marketing and copy editing and they seemed quite interested in that.  I hope they don't have me working in an office all day!  Crap, can you imagine if I ended up doing office work in Haiti!  If I get to work with locals, I wouldn't mind so much.  I can just see me leaving Haiti as pale as I am now because I became an office volunteer!

I thought about doing a fundraising thing at the party we are having this weekend but considering that many of the people that are coming are also helping us move the "big stuf" (from our house to the storage unit) earlier in the day, I didn't think it would be kind to then hit them up for money.  I was going to take some of the "stuff" we were purging and have a blind garage sale (everything would be wrapped so you would buy something that you had no idea what it was)!  Heather and Kris were skeptical of the idea but I thought it might be funny - but alas, it has gone the way of the dodo.

The rest of our life is kinda in limbo right now.  Packing, packing, packing.  It is making the girls none to happy.  Cats really don't like change so the fact that the house is slowing becoming empty is making them a little clingy.  But damn, they are cute!

Niko's - Email Options

Michel and I went out for dinner with Leigh and Benedikt tonight.  We went to a lovely little restaurant called Niko's (http://www.nikosbistro.ca/).  For anyone who has not been there, it is a great Italian restaurant in Kensington that can be as expensive or inexpensive as your budget calls for. John Gilchrist included it in his "Cheap Eats" guide and gave it a good review.  I have to thank Toby Taylor for turning us onto this place. 

Anyways, we had a wonderful time with Benedikt and Leigh. They are wonderful dinner companions!

I am still a little tipsy from the great wine and think I will go and try to knit now! Ack!

I am afraid that I don't have much to update on in regards to the sabbatical as all I have been doing is packing and moving stuff to the storage unit. 

I have added a feature to the blog that lets you submit your e-mail address so you can be advised when there is a new posting.  I figure that this might be easier for my avid followers (all 5 of you!) rather than you having to check all the time for new postings.

"The Plan" as it Stands

We have finally rented out the house so tomorrow we start packing!  After taking a look at just the stuff in the basement, all I can say is ....."Wow, were did all this crap come from?"  When I moved in, I didn't have enough to furnish the house.  Now, I am dying to purge, purge, purge!

I am so STOKED to see my families!  Beware Murrays, Bains, Apollons and Epps, here we come!

THE PLAN
At this time, given the information I have, the following is our plan...........but don't hold us to it as things can be quite fluid.

We are going to leave Calgary around June 23 and make our way to Winnipeg and visit family and friends for 2 weeks.

We will then take about a week to go from Winnipeg to Maine where Michel will be taking three one-week boat building courses from The Apprentice Shop (http://www.apprenticeshop.org/) from July 18 thru August 5.

While he is doing that, I will be doing a help exchange with Susun (http://www.helpx.net/host.asp?hostid=5369).  Susan has many positive reviews and I am really looking forward to my first helpx posting.

After that, I believe we will be heading up to Montreal and Ste. Therese to see the Apollon clan and my cousin, Jac.  I can't wait to see everyone again!  I will be counting on my relations to help me polish my French so I am ready for Haiti.

In the meantime, we will try to get additional volunteer postings in Haiti as one-month is not enough.  We are hoping to be in Haiti from mid(ish) September to either just before or after Xmas.  If we can't get other volunteer positions, then we will adapt!

Ooooooooooooooooo............I am getting so excited, I am starting to vibrate!!!!!!!

A Night of Savage Love (G Rated)

Oh, now all you people get your minds out of the gutter!  I am a respectible married woman!

Calgary is having it's Fairy Tales Film Festival (http://www.fairytalesfilmfest.com/) right now and they brought in Dan Savage, a US syndicated sex advice columnist, to give a talk.

As an aside, I need to say that I absolutely LOVE the FTFF's tagline this year "Labels are for soup cans"!  I think it is a brilliant piece of marketing!

Anyways, back to the point of this blog..........I love reading  Dan Savage's "Savage Love" columns in Calgary's Fast Forward weekly (http://www.ffwdweekly.com/life-style/savage-love/) and agree whole-heartedly with his politics (because you can't have sex without there being politics involved!). 

He even throws in some religion as well - he is a Christian of the best sort!

Some of you may have heard of him last fall as he and his partner started a program called "It Gets Better" after a rash of teenagers committed suicide because of being bullied because either they were gay or were percieved to be gay.  I think the work of this project is stellar!  He is not only hoping to help LBGT teenagers to know that it gets better but all teenagers that have been bullied.

I am feeling very "activisty" today and so would like to encourage everyone to take the pledge on the It Gets Better website (http://www.itgetsbetter.org/page/s/pledge/) and to speak up against hate and intolerance, all types of it, whenever you encounter it.

Thank you for listening to my rant today!

Africa Update

Sorry it has been so long since my last blog.  When I got home, there was much to do and to boot, I broke our computer so badly that we had to replace it.  Now, we don’t have Microsoft Office (on my list of things to go buy) and our HP printer will not talk to our new HP laptop.  So, we were hobbling along but now we are merely limping slightly.

I just want to cover some things that happened in Africa that I didn’t get a chance to talk about since my last blog.

Laetoli Beds

Not far from the Endulen field school is the Laetoli Beds (not for sleeping).  Just imagine, fossilized footprints that are 3.5 million years old! 

We went to look at them on one of our weekends.  It was actually quite disappointing as they are covered by several different layers of material to protect them as they are out in the open.  However, they have taken a cast of the footprints and I got a picture of the cast (but I did not sign it!).

For those interested in finding out more about this, you can check out Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laetoli) or for those that might something a little more scholarly, you can check out this article by Russ Tuttle from the Journal of Archaeological Science (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305440390900284).  Benedikt is friends with Russ and I think Russ may have been his supervisor at one time.

Haiti

While I was in Endulen, we got the good news that we have been accepted for a one-month volunteer position in Haiti with All Hands Volunteers on Project Leogane (http://hands.org/projects/project-leogane/).  We were originally looking for a 3 month stint in Haiti so I will get busy later this week and try to find some other organizations that might like to use our skills either before or after the All Hands posting. 

All Hands wants us from October 13 thru November 12.  After experiencing Tanzania via working with locals, I am very excited about working in Haiti!  I know Michel was a little disappointed not to get a 3 month posting but I am sure that All Hands gets many requests and they need to meet their needs in the way that works best for them.

So, I will prepare everyone now…………we will be hitting up all family, friends, acquaintances and even some strangers to help support All Hands and any other NGOs we volunteer with!

Godwin’s Farm/Ag Research

I find it interesting how sometimes the most unexpected things morph into the best experiences.  While we were in Endulen with the UofC field school, many of the students helped us with our research.  Then, one afternoon, I got to help the Veterinary Medicine students with some of their research.

This entailed us going to Godwin’s farm. Godwin is the lead translator for the field school, he is Maasai but does not dress in a traditional fashion (not when he was with us at least).  He lives on what I would call a semi-traditional Boma (a mix of traditional buildings and western buildings) and has 2 wives that I know of and a fairly large number of goats, sheep and cows.

One of the research projects revolved around ticks, their prevalence and the spread of disease from the ticks to cows.  Part of their data collection required them to count the number of ticks on designated cows.  They then treated them and would have to go back 2-3 times (after I left) to see how the treatment was working.  I absolutely loved it!!!!!!  Mind you, I didn’t have to touch the animals – I was a note taker – but I don’t know that I would have minded.  Erin (curly hair) got pooped on and Erin (straight hair) got covered in the really toxic tick treatment stuff and the idea of being pooped on did not totally gross me out. I had such a good time, that even now, it makes me a little sad that I did not get to help with the follow up data collection.

I do have to say that working for the University has made me realize all the areas of interest that I would like to explore and in a mildly regretful way, all the options that were open to me when I was young that I didn’t take.  However, I am about to undertake a year’s sabbatical and that may not have happened if I hadn’t followed the path that I am on.

Yoga in TZ

OK, I have to start but apologizing to Mange and Frank. “Gentlemen, I am so sorry but I just couldn’t resist.  If this truly upsets you, let me know and I will take it down.”

Cary (hope I am spelling it right), one of the grad students at the field school, is also a certified yoga instructor.  One night, she gave a class and I took my camera along.  Several of “da boyz” were participatory and very open to the class.  Below is a picture of Mange and Frank in baby pose where you put your feet up in the air, grab your big toes and rock from side to side!  I hope Schola gets to see this picture!

Frank (Vet Med faculty member) even talked Coretto (hope I am spelling that right too), one of our Maasai security guards to give it a try.  I was actually quite impressed with the openness of the men to give yoga a go.  Way to go boyz!

Adam’s Fire Fascination

Adam, one of the Vet Med students, practices Poi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poi_(performance_art)) and was teaching anyone was interested!  Then on one of our last nights, he gave a performance with fire!  It was amazing! Unfortunately, my camera’s battery was running low so there is only a few moments to watch on this video.