Today....videos. Apparently I should stick with photography and leave video to the professionals. Most of my videos are sideways...not sure why. So, tilt your head to the side, crank up the volume and enjoy a few videos.

Video taken from inside the bus.

Rebar.

 My Kyle and his friend dancing during the closing ceremony.

At the beach during R&R.

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.