So, Sunday morning...weeks after arriving back in Canada. Have been very busy with interviewing for jobs, visiting friends and family and now packing my apartment in preparation for another cross Canada move. Yep, another move across the country....back to Alberta. Fort McMurray to be exact. I start the new job on June 13th.

Will attempt to get a few more pictures posted from India. The last post contained photos from Chennai,India and todays post is photos from enroute to Pondicherry, India.

I love the colour of all the vehicles. The trucks always seem to be decorated.

Young boys taking a swim in one of the many rivers we passed along the way.

The other bus. We were in two buses along the way and everyone was trying to catch a breeze.

The boardwalk/promenade in Pondicherry.

Early morning walk in Pondicherry. I wasn't sure about crossing over this bridge but once I watched the rest of the team do it I figured it would hold me as well.

Stalls waiting to open later in the day. 

I sat out for a long portion of the walk and just people watched. I wasn't feeling very good that morning which became more evident when I threw up on the way back to the hotel. I think it was just too hot, no water to drink and exercising before I had my breakfast. I spent the first part of the morning at the build site just chilling and enjoying some shade. I felt better after break and was back in the action. 

The cats are having a great time with all the boxes I have in the living room right now...at least cats like boxes.

So...it's been a couple of weeks since the trip to India and I still haven't updated the blog. Well, I've been busy. I'm moving to Fort McMurray, Alberta in a couple of weeks and that has kept me pretty busy...I've been interviewing and now I'm in the packing stage. Yep, busy.

Instead of doing the original update I had intended I am going to select every 25th picture from the trip and tell you about it. OK? Great! Let's do it.

 Picture # 25 taken in Chennai. Typical side street view.

 And this is picture #26...cause I liked it so much. This lady sells fruit at a small market located under an over pass in Chennai.

 And this was from the market...when I started to try and pick out the 25th, 50th and 75th images. I saw all these great images that were not going to be selected and felt that they also needed to be shown...so there goes that idea. This is the 'powder'? that is used to make the dots on peoples foreheads. It is a religious statement and apparently different religions have different dots and different meanings.

 This little bowl is full of powders that are used to make the marks outside the homes on the ground. They make beautiful patterns and the more colourful, the more elaborate the design generally means there is a celebration of some sort going on inside the house.

 Happy smiles from one of the vendors at the market. His wife asked me to take his picture and he was all smiles as I did so.

 This gentleman didn't seem as happy to have his photo taken but I liked how quietly he sat there when everyone was talking and shouting and laughing.

Mmm, fresh produce. I could wander through the markets forever looking at the lovely piles, baskets and groupings of veggies, spices, etc.

Arrived back in Canada safe and sound. Pictures and updates over the next few days.

We are on R&R. Things went so well. I have so many pages of notes and thoughts in my head to share...but it will need to wait. We leave in a few minutes for supper and I don't want to be late. After an afternoon of sun, surf and sand my stomach is grumbling. I have a almost 7 hour lay over in Montreal on Monday and can't decide what to do..maybe I will run into Montreal if I am feeling up to it.

For now let me say. Build was successful and would I lead a team again--YES.

I just looked at my finger nails and they are still dirty. I took one of the longest showers of my life tonight and yet I'm still dirty. Today was another great day at the build site but what a dirty group we were.

The thunder showers we had over the weekend continued into the early hours of this am. By the time we were on the road and heading to the village it was just raining. There was a lot of rain over the weekend which of course meant a lot of mud at the build site. By 9am I was up to my ankles in mud, my shirt and pants were soaked through but I was feeling great. We were able to pour the foundation for a home today and boy does that feel good. They started the next layer of the foundation and it should be ready for us to fill with sand/dirt/rocks tomorrow.

Tuesday--tomorrow we will be doing 'unskilled' labor. We aren't sure how much more unskilled it can get. lol. The village is having an annual religious ceremony tomorrow and the home owners won't be working with us so we were told we'd do unskilled work. It should be a good day...and a little rain would be ok again too. Keeps us cool.

It is hard to believe that we are on the downward side of the trip. By Friday we are finished and getting ready for our R&R. We work hard at the site and while it may seem like a lot of down time trust me...we are breaking our backs and working like dogs. The homeowners and Habitat are very pleased with the progress we have made...and continue to make.

I better go and get ready for supper. The team doesn't know it yet but we are heading out to a rather la te da kind of place for supper. We will certainly not be dressed for it...and hopefully they seat us downwind of the other patrons but it should be a good time.

The ability to comment was my error. When I set up the blog I didn't check allow anyone to comment. You should all be able to leave messages now--gmail account or not.

oops.

Random thoughts from India.

Today was a cultural day for the GV team. In the morning we drove to the Chidambaram Temple. (Google it!). It was amazing. Last trip we went to many temples in one day and they were all very impressive in their own way. This temple is HUGE. They told us the priests own about 40 acres of land and a lot of it is the 4 entrances and inner temple grounds. Very impressive. One part that we couldn't go into but could view through a gate was this 'hall' with 999 columns. Each one intricately carved. Amazing.

After the temple we went to Pichavaram which is an eco tourism site for a ride through the Mangrove forest. It was beautiful and it felt great to be out on the boat enjoying the salt water spray, gentle rocking of the waves and laughter of my team mates.

It was a 2 hour drive to the temple and then about a 2.5 hour ride back from Pichavaram so it made for a full 9 hour day. I napped for a bit on the way back. :)

Supper at the hotel again tonight. It was buffet night. I think I prefer the buffet as not only do we normally have an incredible selection to choose from; 1 or 2 chicken dishes, usually a fish and a lamb/goat or two, a couple of vegetarian dishes, a couple of chinese style dishes, 2 rice dishes, sauces, 2 soups, dal and a paneer of some kind....plus the salads and don't forget the dessert table. WOW. Ice cream, fresh fruit, a different custard every night, a ghee sweet of some kind, cake, etc. Yep, hard to go hungry here.

The restaurant posts the name of each dish and they have a red or green square on the top corner, non-veg or veg. They also put the spice level at the bottom spicy, medium, light or less. Too cute. Even the sugar packages have a green square on them marking them as vegetarian.

They have done a set menu for us a couple of times where they serve us. The food is always so good....but there is way to much. Last night for instance we had 4 appetizers, a soup, then a chicken dish with veggies and mashed potatoes followed by a dal, a paneer, a curry of some kind, naan and then dessert. Unfortunately by the time we got to dessert our table had gone from 12 to  6 and only 2 stayed for dessert. \We felt bad about potentially wasting the food, but it was almost 10pm and I didn't think I needed any sugar in my system at that point. Our waiter looked disappointed when we left.

Breakfast is buffet style and they always have the same menu but there is so much to choose from you can have something different almost every single day and there is a cook who will do eggs to order. I have been having boiled eggs and toast. I ate the idly for a few mornings and then stuffed dosa a few other mornings but I really just want a bagel with peanut butter and some of my stinky tea at the moment.

We had lunch out today and along with the dal, sweet n sour chicken, rice, roti there were french fries. It certainly was interesting. the little cup of  ice cream at the end was delishous and I think everyone devoured theirs.

Tomorrow is a quieter day. We are heading out to Auroville which is only about 10km outside of Pondicherry. It is a large, well known ashram. We will learn about life at the ashram and then walk the grounds before returning to Pondicherry. The team has the afternoon off to shop, sit by the pool or do whatever they like. I am going to head out on my own and have some me time. I told a few people at supper that I'm taking the afternoon off. I will likely head out for a glass of fresh lime soda--sweet and then some shopping. Sari anyone???

I should get off the computer and get some of my mess put away. My side of the room is a bit messy tonight. It looks as though my suitcase exploded.

To those of you who have sent emails--thanks. I may not always get to respond but I am certainly reading them.