Friday, January 28, 2011

Term # 6 Begins




Our trip here had it's "ups & downs", in more ways than one!
We were 2 1/2 hours late getting out of Toronto for four different reasons (waiting for our plan to arrive, mechanical, a passenger pulled off because of a customs issue, and finally a computer malfunction). In the process we were all pulled off at one point, and it was cold that morning with us travelling light, and we had to walk a distance on the tarmac to the plane?. So even though I had allowed two hours for our connection in Chicago we missed our flight and had to re-schedule. But our luck changed in Los Angeles as our flight from Chicago to L.A. was 30 minutes early and we caught our Maui flight by the "skin of our teeth". In fact I think we were only on the ground in L.A. for all of ten minutes. The option would have been staying overnight so the rush was worth it! Naturally our baggage didn't quite make it, but it did arrive the next day and that wasn't too inconvenient since we had our carry-on with us. When you look back, travel mess ups are never so bad as it seems at the time, but again I can't for the life of me understand these people who say they "love air travel"!
Things here in Maui are wonderful. We currently have two classes of ladies and there are 62 in total. They come from 36 different countries, are in their third week of training, and will finish next week on Friday. We will welcome 50 men participants the same weekend, which will make it very busy.
We have quite a few volunteers we have worked with previously, plus about a third new ones. So it is always interesting meeting new volunteers as well as reacquainting with old. We have a younger couple from Germany, three from USA and the balance Canadian. This will change as time goes on.
The picture of the pool is taken from our balcony (lanai) and we are on the sixth floor. The picture of the two of us is taken in the lobby, one of my favourite activities, reading the local papers and watching the world go by!