Author: RobO

Hello everyone. I am sorry we have been neglecting you for a week now. I am finding it hard to motivate myself to write blogs lately. I’m sure that will change once we’re on the home stretch. Hang on a second… we are on the home stretch.

Dawn has 15 working days left, which means I have 18 (apparently I require 3 more days to get things done). So the question is, how’s the GTU website coming along? It’s coming, not completed as of yet, but coming. There are still barriers in my way but I will leave them with a working site. It just might not be on the internet. Hmmmm.

We have our tickets to Canada booked. So we are coming home. First, we’re going to see the sites of Tobago, Trinidad, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Chicago. We have a stop over in the windy city so we decided to stay a couple of days and visit with Nick and Meg, who will be done their placement as well.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I was supposed to write about Mashramani, but I forgot the pictures at home. Blogs look so bland without pictures… here’s a few random ones. Try pretending they’re of Dawn and I.

On the weekend DawnO and I cut eachother’s hair. As usual, mine was done to perfection. Hers? Though cutting your wife’s hair sounds like it should be avoided at all costs, I was looking forward to it. I may have cut off a little more than was originally requested, but, it looked good!

Last night I was busy telling our friends about what a fantastic job I did, while across the room Dawn was busy telling them about how she had a surprise for me.

Today at lunch I heard her come in the door and say, ‘ROBO! I’ve got a surprise for you!’ I was certainly surprised. I was absolutely speachless. I suddenly realized I was approaching a critical moment. The next thing out of my mouth needed to be the perfect thing to say.

‘Wow…’ That wasn’t it… ‘What happened?’ Shit… say something else… ‘It certainly IS different.’

It was her turn to say something, ‘Ya, I got it done for Mash (Mashramani – Guyana’s Independance Day – Feb 23rd) so I figured, braids for 3 days won’t kill me.’

This is where I saw the humour in the situation and started to laugh. Probably a little too hard. ‘I feel you’re laughing at me… I think you should say something nice.’

That’s exactly what I had been trying to come up with. After careful consideration, I decided to go with the truth.

‘I can’t take my eyes off of you.’

Hello everyone. As promised here is my birthday blog. Saturday started in a normal fashion. We did our shopping and spent the majority of the day in the kitchen. Dawn was busy making salads and my cake. I purchased a gigantic 1.5lb sirloin steak for only $340 which works out to about $1.75 CDN.

The party started at 4pm at Nick and Meg’s. Nick was in Miami so Meg took charge of the grill. People arrived, rum was poured and food was grilled. Unfortunately my steak wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever had (not due to cooking, due to cow). It seems Alberta beef has spoiled me. The rest of the food was fantastic, and the cake was no exception. Well done, DawnO.

At 9:30 people started to disperse. The ones that were in for the long haul accompanied me to “Nuclear”, the karaoke bar. When we got there we discovered that it wasn’t karaoke night, so we persuaded them to break out the hardware anyway. DawnO rallied the female troops together for a rendition of “Girls just wanna have fun”, and I tried my luck at a Beatles tune.

Afterwards we headed back to Meg’s for a late night Chinese food order. At 3am, I fell into a cab and headed home.

Here are some more pics.

Hi everyone!

This is just a quick note because I really don’t have much to say but I feel like I need to post something new. I had big plans to post a new video of me riding to work. The video was made, but upon further review, I agreed with Dawn that it was quite boring. Instead here’s an update on what we’re up to this weekend.

Tomorrow is my birthday! I’ll be officially in my late twenties. That’s right, I’ll be 29. So to celebrate we’re having a party and Nick and Meg’s. Nick made a BBQ out of bricks and things. We used it last weekend and it was quite brilliant! Unfortunately, Nick won’t be here as someone found him a ticket to the Superbowl. Afterwards we’re heading to the karaoke bar for some entertainment.

Anyway, I promise to post pictures of the big day. Hopefully I’ll have something more to blog about.

One of the best things about being here in Guyana is the friends that we’ve made. This blog is a story about our friends from Chicago, Nick and Meg.

Nick is a Chicago Bears season ticket holder and would go to every game with one of his brothers. When he left home for Guyana, his other brother took over his ticket and Nick had to follow his team by either talking a bartender into finding the game on the satellite, or by listening online at an internet café. Last Sunday the Bears made it one step closer to the Superbowl and this sent Meg into action.

Monday morning found Meg writing her old colleagues and friends, just to see if it was even possible to find Nick a ticket to the next game (which will determine if the Bears are in the Superbowl or not). Tuesday morning she got her answer. Her old boss had come through and a ticket had materialized. As Meg frantically booked Nick a flight home she received another email from her friend at the Chicago Sun-Times. Not only would Nick be going to the game, but the newspaper was interested in writing a little story about him in Friday’s paper.

With everything booked and ready to go she waited until Wednesday night to tell Nick that he wouldn’t be going to work on Friday or Monday. Instead he would be flying home to spend the weekend with his family and go to the big game with his 2 brothers. She was going to wait until Thursday night to tell him, but he had a phone interview to do for the Chicago Sun-Times so she thought he should be prepared.

Last night Nick found out that another volunteer, Blake, had used his airline points to upgrade his American flights to first class. Could it get any better?

This morning at 2:00 am, Nick, who probably wasn’t sleeping anyway, got up and headed to the Georgetown airport. I can picture him right now in his recliner, sipping his champagne, enjoying the feel of his airline slippers and wondering just how the hell he’s going to repay his wife. It’s at this time the flight attendant will slip him a copy of this morning’s Chicago Sun-Times to look at. Staring back at him on the front page will be the headline, “Wife of the Year,” and a picture they took in their backyard only yesterday.

To read the news article, click here

To watch the NBC5 news broadcast, click here

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about the Canadian High Commission Party. Well, it was really great. We were one of the first to arrive to the gates which had 2 guards. The house itself was very large and very fancy. They had people in bow ties serving drinks and appetizers, but the fanciest thing of all was the fact that the bathroom sink had working hot water. It was magical.

We met a lot of great people including our “internet stalker,” Catherine. A while ago Catherine had commented on our blog and has been a faithful reader throughout our time here. It made for some very awkward conversation because she knew all about us and we knew very little about her. We laughed about it because it really is a silly thing. To read what she thought of our weird encounter, click here and find her January 12th blog titled, “the reception”.

Over the weekend Dawn, myself, and the rest of the VSO volunteers went to Corriverton for a birthday celebration. Our friend Cheryl is doing her placement there so we all decided to go for a weekend getaway.

The highlight for me was definitely the beach where we spent most of our Saturday. I played cricket for the first time ever and it was a lot of fun until I rolled my ankle and had to wrap my foot in ice. I did score points on the play, thank you very much. It wasn’t until later I realized, we weren’t keeping score anyway. The good news is, this newly acquired disability afforded me time to take pictures!

Tonight we will be at our first official Canadian function. We have been invited to the Canadian High Commissioner’s house to rub elbows with fellow Canucks. Apparently some Canadian politicians are in Guyana so they’re throwing a bit of a party. The dress is “Elegantly Casual” so I am at a loss of what to wear. I’ll probably just bust out my Jesus Tee and borrow a sun dress from Dawn and everything will come together.

We will be in the mood for a good celebration because today also marks our halfway point in our VSO placements. We still have a few months of traveling to look forward to before we head home though. We’re starting by going to Trinidad/Tobago for a week or so before heading to Venezuela to meet both sets of our parents. Afterwards we’re going to Peru and Ecuador (including the Galapagos Islands). It’s as if there’s already a plan or something. Hmmmm. The first 3 months has been a blur and I have a feeling these next 3 are going to go by just as quickly.

In other news, Dawn surprised me the other night with her super date for me. She got people from home to send supplies, and from what I understand it was quite and elaborate process that started in November. In the end I was treated to an episode of Hockey Night in Canada featuring my Vancouver Canucks. They beat the worthless and weak Minnesota Wild 2-1. She also managed to create a Skor Blizzard for me to feast on while we watched the game under our mosquito net. I was enjoying the low-fi Medicine Hat commercials almost as much as the game. Best date ever.

I don’t have any pictures of my own to post so I scammed one from fellow volunteers who did a 5 day hike over Christmas. Dawn and I are planning on doing it ourselves in May. I wasn’t into it until I saw their pictures. I feel I need to go and take my own. Here’s Mt. Roraima.

You can check out more of their pics at megandnick.spaces.live.com their blog is www.megandnick.com, Dawn makes a cameo in their cricket video. I will be adding more of our VSO friends’ blogs on the right hand column under links.

Merry Christmas!

2006 has been an extremely busy, life changing year for us. The first quarter was dedicated to getting everything ready for our wedding in April. It was exactly what we had imagined. The events were planned to perfection. Imagine that 😉 A big thank you to those of you who were able to share in our special day. We spent our honeymoon in Canmore with day trips to the Banff Springs Spa and a cave tour. I may have had the best steak of my life at that hotel.

Our summer was busy, as usual, with weddings, weekend trips home and to the mountains. A highlight of the summer for me was hiking the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island with my little brother, Cam. What an amazing bonding time! Rob and I spent the following week between Victoria and Vancouver, enjoying our holiday with friends and family.

I was flying to my various VSO sessions which allowed me to see Ottawa and Montreal for the first time. At last I got word that we were heading to Guyana! Dawn was on the West Coast Trail at this point so I couldn’t tell her until I picked her up in Victoria. We spent the next couple of months frantically trying to get everything in order for our trip, quit our jobs and moved our stuff to Medicine Hat. Soon it was Canadian Thanksgiving and we were on the plane, headed south.

And that’s where all of you faithful bloggers started the journey with us. We have experienced an incredible amount of things so far, and haven’t even reached our half way point yet! We’re so lucky to have had such a remarkable year, and such an amazing first year of marriage. It’s been really nice to be able to support and learn from one another as we explore another culture. It’s also been great to have support and encouragement from all of you.

From Guyana, we would like to send out a warm (well hot and humid) Christmas greeting! Best wishes and stay in touch in 2007!

Here’s are a couple Christmas videos.
Christmas Video Hi | Lo
Blooper Hi | Lo