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Diary - Thursday, February 2, 2006
We are also very happy to report that Dr Nathalie Gagne from Quebec City has arrived safe and sound after quite a long journey from her departure city of Montreal. She and I will spend some orientation time in the clinic tomorrow and then I think she'll be seeing patients on her own by Monday. We are all grateful for her commitment and decision to come and offer her skills to the people of Zanzibar and we hope that her experience here will stay with her as fond memories for years to come. We will get Nathalie to send you some of her impressions of her experience here within the next couple of weeks or so. It does feel pretty good to be back and we are really looking forward to a very productive year.
On the building front, we hope to start the construction of the Juice Bar/Restaurant very soon. We have the engineers and builders lined up and once all the final arrangements are in place we will be getting into full swing. It's all pretty exciting and although it's going to be a huge amount of additional work for us, the eventual outcome will far outweigh any of the challenges we'll need to deal with along the way. As our good friend Kathleen Leachman likes to say, "It's all good". I love that attitude!! I had an interesting experience the other day on my way back from an afternoon run on the beach. I passed three young Masai and explained to them in Swahili that I was doing just a bit of exercise as I was now an old man. :-) Shortly after, I could hear the distinctive sound of runners behind me. Not to be outdone by these youngsters, I sped up, all the time praying they would drop back sooner rather than later. It was pretty hot!! Thankfully they didn't catch me so I was pretty proud of myself. Still am!!! Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you that they were each carrying a large dead cow and were wearing sandals made of old truck tires. Hey, that shouldn't make much of a difference... should it? :-)
Pat has already begun her classes in English and keyboarding again and we are fortunate to have our friend Max and his partner Laura helping out with this program. Many thanks to them for taking the time to contribute. So, we expect to begin a more regular update now that we are back and settled into our routines and we'll try to send more pictures now that our connections are improved. Hope you are all excellent and enjoying your moments to the max!! Lots of love from Jambiani, Alastair, Pat, Nathalie and the crew at the Jambiani Wellness Center.  |
This
is a picture that was taken by Connie Nimmon, one of our previous
volunteers and I feel it really captures a very essential element
of the spirit that has drawn us to this place. These children
express joy in a way that at times is difficult to describe let
alone understand when you consider the challenges that they must
face each day. Yet this is their life and they embrace it fully,
with dignity and strength and with a fabulous sense of humour
(most of the time :-) From a western point of view, they have
so little but in fact they have so much. It's very good food
for thought, especially when your child complains that he needs
more hard drive on his computer so he can play the latest video
games. :-) Yes we are back in Jambiani safe and sound after a
pretty hectic journey via Dubai and of course a wonderful visit
with our dear friends Jan and Hannelore Demmink. They have been
life savers in the literal desert and we cannot thank them enough
for their help and support during our visits there.
One of our main purposes of visiting Dubai this time was to
purchase a good second hand vehicle for the project. To say the
least, we had a lot of choice. Dubai, it seems is famous for
its used vehicle market and we entered an area outside of the
city that had from 150,000 to 200,000 used cars, trucks, buses
and vans for sale along with an assortment of heavy equipment.
It seemed a bit overwhelming to say the least, but we eventually
found a very decent Nissan 4WD which should be on the boat, destined
for Zanzibar within the next few days. We'll post some pictures
after it arrives. 
This is a picture of "Chai" or Hassan. He is our official interpreter/clinic
assistant. They call him "Chai" because when he was a very small
child, he loved tea and drank several cups a day. That might
explain why he is such a sweet guy today. :-) He has learned
a lot about natural health care over the past couple of years
and in particular, Chiropractic. He is truly a wonderful member
of the "Team" and a very good friend. 
On the communication side of things, our relay tower had gone
out of proper focus as we have had some very strong winds over
the last few days so that seems to be fixed now. It's
great to be back online and to be able to get in touch with some
folks who have been on hold for awhile.