Lasting Moments with Family and Friends

Wow, I can't believe that I only have 10 more sleeps left in Canada, in my big comfy bed, and then I'm gone!!!!!!! I'll really miss my bed right next to my family and friends. This last week and a half, since I finished work has been very busy. Since I finished work on July 17th, I had a good visit with my grandmother along with my good friend Tanya, with whom I browsed the streets in St. Jacobs. I stayed a couple days in London, at my sister Katherine's place and spent the day with my good friend Amanda. We've been friends since grade two!

While in London, I spent some time doing more shopping and got some good sales. I finished that week by spending time with my other good friend Chantale. July 26th, was my commissioning service at my church and afterwards I had a bbq lunch at my parents home with my bible study group, some of my support group members, friends and family.

Most of my family and most of my support group.

Tanya and Me

My sisters Kimberly and Kristine

Chantale and Andrew

Later that night, I left with my sister and nephew to spend a few days with them at their home in Niagara Falls, where I took in Liam's ball game and took a walk down to the falls.

Liam's team played a good game, but unfortunately lost. His team is currently ranked in first place during their regular season games. Go Niagara Athletics's!!!

The Canadian Falls or know as The Horseshoe Falls

Kristine, Liam and me at the Falls

It has been a great time spending some lasting moments with my family and friends. Soon I'll be gone, I can't hardly wait for this adventure to take it's next step.

Signing off....

Less than Four Weeks

Well I was going to blog the four week count yesterday, but being that you have already read and looked at my previous blog entry about the storm, you can see why it didn't happen. That storm was pretty nasty!!

So, less than four weeks is now my current time frame. I can't believe it. Five weeks I'll be in South Africa with my fellow SALTer's. I suppose you might be wondering as to who my fellow SALTer's are. Well, like I said in previous posts I'm traveling with two Canadians to South Africa, they are Felicia and Andrew. I've slowly have gotten to know them a little bit from facebook and can't wait to meet them in person at orientation in Akron, PA. Felicia and Andrew are going to be in the city called Durban. Durban is a major port city, along the Indian Ocean coastline, in South Africa but also a holiday hot spot for tourist with their beautiful beaches. For some silly reason I can't seem to load pictures into this blog so you going to have to use the links to see pictures from off the web. Along with Felicia, Andrew, and myself are two other SALTer's traveling with us. Their SALT placement is in the country/kingdom called Lesotho, which is pretty much smack dab in the middle of SA. Their names are Simon and Anna. Simon, I actually already met the end of June at the Ontario SALTer's gathering in Kitchener, but Anna is from Chicago and I haven't met her yet. And I am in Pietermaritzburg, SA, which is the capital of the Kwazulu Natal Province, and will be in between the other's geographically.

I have gradually gotten my numerous forms filled out and set them off to their respective destinations. My work/travel visa application I mailed off to the South African Consulate General, in Toronto on the the 2nd of July and I'm am hoping to get back really soon. I can't wait to be able to hold it in my hands. I just have a few more important papers to look after yet. I'm getting there. I haven't begun to pack yet, but have started to already get some little things and have started building a list of clothing in the back of my head, I suppose I should start writing that on paper. lol

I am almost done reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. It has actually turned out to be a pretty good book, minus of course all the political jumble. But what would his book be about if it didn't have political part's to it! He was after all the first black South African President, you would have to expect some politics to the story! I'm just not really into political stuff. But it been good learning about his struggle to bring South Africa to an nonracial democratic government where all people of races and colours are treated as equal. Even if it meant to sacrifice time away from your family and the years spent in prison to fight for your cause. Nelson, was president from 1994-1999. I think I have read somewhere that if there was one thing Nelson felt he should have done differently was to pay more attention to the AID's/HIV epidemic in South Africa. I am amazed as to all the bloodshed that has happened in the process for South Africa to have gotten to that state of equal status. Anyways, It's been a good book.

Tomorrow I'm expecting my next update on my donations for this SALT placement. I know I'm getting really close to my goal, $4600, but just don't know where exactly!

Anyways, signing off to go finish Nelson's book.

July Storm

Well I would have posted this yesterday, but I just didn't get to it. Yesterday morning I woke up to a horrible massive thunderstorm around 8am. The winds were unbelievable, the rain just poured and the thunder and lighting were just as powerful. This has been the second huge storm in the last few months. My town got really hit, and we had tons of damage in some parts of town, especially my neighbourhood. In my backyard we have three large maple trees, the middle tree lost a huge branch which is actually hanging on by a inch is resting on an telephone wire. We are still unable to get help getting it down.

My good really good friends across the street got a lot more damage done. They had just managed to just get to the basement when all of a sudden they heard a big bang and then lots of rumbling on their roof. A large branch from their backyard maple tree hit the peek of their roof and rolled down the roof and swiped off the top of their chimney and knocked over the fence below, right in front of their back door.

There was also two other large tree branches that were knock down on just my street alone. One was just two houses down where the tip of the tree just graced the front windows. The second tree branch was on the end corner of my block where the branch got stock on a hydro wire which ended up causing the power on my block to be out for over 10 hrs.

The next streets around my street had large branches down too. But some parts of town just really didn't get hit like my area, and didn't get any power outages. A small community just about 10 mins from town, had roof tops lifted off. They are out of power until Thursday, due to the massive damage done to the community.