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| No Hair? No fuss, no muss! |
I won’t dwell much on the subject of my adventures in cancer as many others have been written or spoken extensively on the subject. Let’s just say, for me, it’s
been both a challenge and a joy. Although there are bad days and worries about the
future, there are far more good ones.
When I’m feeling good, I’m living life to the fullest. Yes, there have been “losses”, if you will,
in my life by having to surrender to this.
But there have been far more silver linings, I count them every day and
take delight in their gifts. I’m now on
round two of four cycles of chemotherapy. James is taking outstanding care of
me physically and emotionally. He has no
other pet name for me other than “gorgeous”, which he started to call me the
first time we met and has not stopped to this day--bald eagle and all! I feel loved, pampered and protected. I couldn't ask for anything more. :)
I continue to work at my job from
afar via Internet. My boss, Pamela, at CONAPAC has
been a shining light and picked up where I left off. This is our busiest time of year with annual
Adopt-A-School deliveries coming up in April.
Both experienced and new volunteers alike have agreed to step up to do everything
they can to execute this very important program. I have no doubt that, once again, 4,000
students, teachers and community leaders will be provided with school supplies
and related classroom materials.
Flooding is a concern—again!—this year so we may need to make delivery
adjustments, but with last year’s flood experience under our belts, I'm confident things will
work themselves out and a great time will be had by all!
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| Newly Certified Water Operators |
I’m working on a new pilot
project for this year in the area of clean water. Last year we hosted an intern from the
University of Colorado who really helped beef up our operator training program. Many operators were certified with more to follow later in the year. Our expectation is improved water quality and consistent access to clean water by community members. For this year’s pilot project over the course
of six months, will we place 100 Sawyer clean water bucket systems in three of our
partner communities. These individual
bucket systems could allow us to provide clean drinking water to our more remote and
smaller villages. We are eager to see the results. Although I won’t be there for most of the
year to oversee the pilot project, my staff, the CU-Boulder students and the
Detroit Zoo Volunteers will do a great job implementing and monitoring the project. If we decide this is a winning approach and we want to place more Sawyer bucket systems (we have about to 2,000 eligible families), watch out as I’ll be
looking for donor dollars! Check out the Sawyer link: http://www.sawyer.com/sawyersaves/
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| Yes, I still wear many hats! |
A final observation about living in
Australia. Although they speak English
it’s often quite a challenge for me, not just the accent but the use of different
words for common items. I find I’m
becoming tri-lingual by speaking American English, Australia English and
Spanish. We all know they say boot instead of trunk and bonnet instead of hood
for a car. And no matter how old you are or what sex, if it’s a sweater,
jacket, sweatshirt or coat, it’s a jumper. But some other little turns of
phrase are subtle. Instead of math it’s
maths; instead of “sports” it’s “sport”; and instead of cereal it’s cereals. They don’t say what’s your given name but
what’s your Christian name? They don’t say business hours but trading
hours. Come around for tea usually means
dinner, so go hungry. They don’t say lakeshore or the river’s edge but they
call it the foreshore. For electrical
plugs they’re not grounded but earthed. Kids don’t color they color in and old
bitties are old ducks--and I’m not a chick but rather a bird. The final odd thing that
I never knew but maybe you all do is that the letter Z is not pronounced zee
it’s pronounced zed (like Ned). I guess
it’s the same in the UK and Canada, too.
Well, just another way to expand my mind and ward off Alzheimer’s. Now I just have to remember which country I’m in when I open my mouth!
