So long, Nepal

We are gearing up for our 24+ hours of flights home but we thought we’d do one last blog to show some more pictures of our time here. We hope you have enjoyed reading robodawno as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it. Our next blog will come to you in mid-July from Quebec City! It’s time to travel a little closer to home.

Holi Moly

We have arrived in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. As soon as we arrived we ran into our nemesis that we made in Pokhara, so we switched guest houses. For more info you can ask us about it when we are home. This morning we got our Indian visas handed in after quite a frustrating process that frankly made us never want to return to India, ever. But enough of the bad stuff, and on to the positive.
Today is Holi, the national celebration of Spring! People flock to the streets to throw water and different coloured powder all over each other and shout “Happy Holi!”
DawnO was fortunate not to get bombed but I took it in the face a few times.
We also took a taxi to Swayambhunath which is a Bhuddhist temple that sits on top of a large hill that overlooks the entire city. This “monkey temple” has a lot of beautiful buildings that I’m sure have a lot of interesting and important history, but I like my blogs like I like my reading books… full of pictures.

Chitwan National Park – Elephant Bath Time

We had an eventful morning that made the top 5 experiences of our lives. Today we bathed with an elephant. I went first and DawnO went next. What a cool experience and cost us each $1.25. You can’t even buy a decent slushie for that back home. We were the first ones there to bathe her so we avoided the huge crowds that eventually form. Afterwards we even got to feed her some bananas. We may go again tomorrow! I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Ps- Her name is Myah

Poon Hill Trek

Hello all,
We have emerged from our trek and can once again blog!
We had a great time during our trek through the mountains. With our hired “expert”, Lok Raj, we got to see some pretty amazing things and I (RobO) got to give him my ridiculously large backpack to carry the whole way. Too bad we can’t hire him for the rest of our trip.
Highlights include: bamboo forests, seeing the mountain range as the sun rose, and spectacular views from each guest house. As for the food, it was pretty great. Dal baht is quite good after all, especially after a long day of climbing stone steps. I know what you’re thinking… Weren’t we supposed to be gone for 9 days? Well, unfortunately we had to cut the trek a bit short to sort out Indian visa issues which have now been resolved. We’re looking forward to the rest of our trip which will include the bathing of elephants and paragliding! For now enjoy the pics we were fortunate to capture.

P.S. Terry WTF if you’re reading this, I’m happy to report that marathon training is back on due to 5 days of alternating stairs and eccentric squats, with a 35 lb pack on! -DawnO

Highlights


Our last day in Vancouver and it’s the first day the sun isn’t shining. In fact, it’s been like spring for our whole time here (to the extent of tulips and daffodils in bloom). It’s been wonderful.

Our last day we did a lot of the ‘should do’ Olympic experiences, which involved a lot of line standing. We went to Sochi house, which is the introduction to where the Russian Olympics will be held in 2014.
Bananas for Switzerland
Our event last night was women’s hockey – team Russia versus team Switzerland. The Swiss won in a shootout, which was extra exciting because they were the underdogs. 3 out of our 4 events were watching team Switzerland, so our red and white fit in well. A definite highlight of the game was sitting beside a banana. Weird.

I think my favorite thing about the city were these amazing spotlights that made geometric patterns in the sky. It reminded me a bit of the Bellagio fountains in Vegas. Very cool. We took an evening walk down to Kits beach to check them out close up.

Next stop – London!

Home Sweet Home

Hello!

As promised… we have some video of our house to show you! It’s broken down into 4 sections, so you can feel free to peruse our typical Guyanese home. I think it was a good sign when we saw that there is a mango tree in our backyard. We still need to figure out how to get at the fruit – it’s too high!

The back of our placePart 1 – The Entrance

Part 2 – The Livingroom & Bedroom

Part 3 – The Kitchen

Part 4 – The Bathroom

We’ve both been working this week. I am going to be doing OT work for the Ministry of Health, but my placement goals and objectives have not yet been determined, so I have the chance to tour different programs and help to decide where I can make a difference. There are actually no OTs that work in Guyana so, as you can imagine, there are a lot of areas that are in need of some improvement.

RobO has been assessing his computer lab and trying to get equipment in place. I guess it’s pretty hard to start making a webpage when they don’t have internet for him yet! They say it will be hooked up ‘just now’, so hopefully he will be able to get started soon.

We’re starting to get the hang of shopping at the market and cooking Guyanese food. We have even initiated a budget, so I think we’re settling in. Today we watched part of a live cricket match at a cricket club close to our house. We’ve been spending lots of time reading, relaxing, and staying in the shade during the hot afternoons. There’s a movie rental shop just up the road from us, so we’ve rented a couple of flicks (some legal, some not so much).

Thanks for the comments, and keep us posted on how winter is going!
DawnO

The beginning

Well, it’s officially official. Yesterday I recieved this email from my program officer at VSO:

“Hi Robert,
Just wanted to let you know that I just heard from Guyana that you’ve been accepted to the placement!Congratulations!!! I’ll be sending your info to them tomorrow (I’m out of the office today).
Cheers!
Mark”

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Dawn and I are off to Guyana for at least 6 months. I will be volunteering with the Guyana Teacher’s Union (GTU) through VSO (www.vsocanada.org). After my placement we will be travelling around South America for a couple of months!

We only have 2 months until we leave so it’s time to get organized!

RobO