Blog interruption

Hello Blog fans!

We interrupt the regularly scheduled (okay so perhaps a new defintion of "regularly scheduled" is in order) to bring greetings from the Westin hotel on Grand Cayman. It's a little cloudy today but nevertheless a good time was had by all after a catamaran trip to a sandbar to mingle with stingrays. Who knew such creatures would love having their bellies rubbed  by humans? Some of our species actually kissed them. I did not partake of the stingray smooch just as I did not indulge in the giraffe buss at Giraffe Manor.

We 've had a great time here mostly because this was a small conference. Last night we were given a pre-loaded card to swipe for wine tastings at a local establishment. Everyone loved it and in fact all of the activities have been fun and well received.

The sea water is about 83 as is the air and the sand is clean and beautiful to look at and walk on. The island itself is more reminiscent of Hawaii, Bermuda or perhaps the Bahamas. They have good roads and no visible poverty. If you like the various Caribbean island cultures this is not the place for you. I suspect you are all looking forward to winter escapes as we understand it's full throttle winter at home. Boo hoo - we'll be there tomorrow!

A Day in Karen, October 18, 2014

We were picked up by a Me to We driver this morning and taken to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, home of the elephant orphanage. It is currently run by David's widow, Dame Daphne Sheldrick and her daughter Angela and husband. Anyone who knows me will be aware that I do some reading and research before travel destinations. So naturally I had read Daphne's book on her life and the orphanage which made me really pleased to see the facility in person. I was disappointed to not actually see Daphne, although she couldn't have signed my book anyway as I read it on my Kindle!

Seeing the young elephants was an amazing experience. They ranged from two months to three years. We learned some interesting facts. A keeper actually sleeps in the stall on a raised bunk with the infants. The keepers constantly rotate so the elephants don't become attached to one human. You can't help but pity these poor babies who lose their mothers often due to human greed for ivory and the poaching that provides it. After three years juveniles are moved to Tsavo where they are reintroduced to the wild, a process that takes five to ten years!

We had lunch at Utamaduni where there is a hotel and craft centre. It was a nice place with barter-free shopping. Love that! We also had a brief (perfect!) tour of a bead making workshop called Kazuri. This place provides employment and health benefits for single mothers. You might find some of their work at places such as Ten Thousand Villages.

Skip has not experienced the chaos that is downtown Nairobi as our time has been totally in this affluent suburb of Karen.

A young boy of perhaps eight years came into the hotel with his mother last night. His name is Finn!

Note to self: I must remember to take some photos on my iPad today so I can post them.

Travel and Arrival

Left Toronto October 15 and arrived Nairobi October 17, 2014.

Thankfully the air travel was largely uneventful and we managed a few hours sleep on each flight. We had 8 hours to kill in London and so went into the city to revisit an area of Covent Garden, specifically Sophie's Steakhouse, where we'd been with James in 2012. I had a bit of a meltdown as soon as we got off the plane at Heathrow. We had a couple more together at Sophie's as we shared memories. I'm looking forward to the time when reminiscing will be less sorrowful and more about the happy times we shared as a family.

We are staying at House of Waine, a small, quaint boutique hotel in the Karen area of Nairobi. (Karen is named for Karen Blixen of Out of Africa fame.) The staff here bend over backwards for your comfort. We had the full English when we arrived and then went back to our room where, despite plans to the contrary, we fell asleep for a few hours. We saw monkeys from our terrace! They keep them off the property with fences as they (the monkeys) behave like, well, monkeys, stealing food from guests and other naughty things.

I mustn't forget to note that Skip had his first African road experience as we bumped and wound through large red muddy potholes, and all this only a half hour from the international airport!

We enjoyed a couple of Sierra Platinums from a local micro brewery by the fire in the charming lounge. There are lots of local and general African books to look at there. Heaven! We've seen a few showers today and the thunder we are hearing at the moment adds to the atmosphere created by the scent of the fire. We are going to enjoy our dinner I think - the first solid meal in a couple of days.

BTW London was not as warm as the weather we left in Canada and despite the forecast it rained while we were there. It's all part of its charm!

A funny thing

Grief is a funny thing. All human beings will experience it. We know that our parents will probably die before us and as we age we will lose more family members and friends. This knowledge and even acceptance of these facts does not make grief any easier to bear. Losing a child, even an adult one, just adds another facet to the process. A year and a half later I can be driving down the road on a beautiful September afternoon and the reality strikes like a punch in the gut and the unending supply of tears begin again.

James and his first love.....books!

That's probably not exactly true. His first love was probably action figures. Once he started reading though he pretty much never stopped. We used to tell him it was rude to read when he had a friend in the car on the way to hockey practice. I guess there's worse things for a kid to do!

For Christmas in 1997 I gave James The Hobbit. He didn't have much interest in reading it until the next summer, however, by summer's end he had not only read it and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy but he'd read them more than once. And he was still only 8 years old! He read those books over and over again as the years went by.

Another great memory is when we watched him anticipate delivery of a sequel of one of the Harry Potter books. We were skeptical that Chapters would actually deliver it on the day it was released. The van pulled up and there was one excited boy in our house. By the next day he'd read it twice!

A journey of possibilites

How do you deal with the death of a child, even an adult one? How does one cope with a parent's worst nightmare? We are blessed to have the opportunity and means to go to Africa to participate in a school building mission. We will do this in memory of our son. Do you think it will lessen the sadness we feel at his loss? Not a chance! What is might do however is help us disperse the excess love we have in our hearts now that our boy is not on this earth to receive it. And so we will go.......hearts heavy with grief......and minds open to possibilities.

I'm a blogger!

So I suppose I am officially a blogger! Let's begin at the beginning. Skip and I were so thrilled to learn we had a baby boy on November 5, 1989. He was named James for Penny's granddad James Gray and Richard for his dad. We had so many hopes and dreams for our precious boy. He was a great baby, sleeping through the night by Christmas and reaching all the milestones in a timely fashion. We thought he was pretty smart and so were not surprised at the results of the tests he took for giftedness in grade 2. He didn't start reading at a particularly early age but I suspect he was capable of reading on his own a lot sooner than we knew. I think he just enjoyed being read to by his mom and dad so much! Anyone who knew James can attest to his love of reading!