Sheridan

Following our travels in Peru, we headed farther south to Santiago, Chile. The main mission of this part of the trip was to see my good friend Jamie. She is on a Rotary scholarship to study abroad for a (calendar) year in Chile. And, since she so good naturedly came to visit us during our Peace Corps Vanuatu days, we just had to repay the visit. Jamie's hospitality exceeded ours from the moment we stepped off the plane. Those of you regular readers may remember how we left Jamie at the airport on her visit to see us. She, on the other hand, was right at the terminal as we exited customs with a smile and the now-how to navigate the bus system, metro, and short walk to get us to her apartment. She had also ... read more

Cambodia has been a surprisingly consistent top of our charts! After a sketchy first impression at the border crossing, once we checked in to our guest house and made a few friends there, life here these past five days has been a breeze. I love, love, love checking out the ruined temples at Angkor park. There are dozens - and I thought they would get old after awhile. But everyone is totally amazing, unique and well worth checking out of its' own accord. Bare with me on that one, as I have tons of pics of them! We start traveling back to Bangkok tomorrow to catch our flight to Taiwan - the last leg of our journey before home sweet home! As of yesterday, I can officially say that I'll be coming home an aunt and ... read more

Posting to you from a huge shopping mall in Bangkok - isn't technology great? The extra time we have in Thailand is being well spent. Seems like spending a longer time in one place is the way to do it; and we're definitely enjoying it! Eating in Thailand is even cheaper and, dare I say, even fresher than Hong Kong. We are really loving the easy access to all types of food and are pretty much snacking on whatever looks good at the moment all day long. Aside from eating, we have spent lots of time visiting temples, or "Wats," in Thailand. Buddhism is the major religion in the country and there are loads of gorgeous temples erected for the followers to worship in. It's neat to see how immaculate the temples are, lots of detail ... read more

A few news blurbs and then a final note on saying goodbye to Vanuatu. Kindy Workshop As mentioned in an earlier blog, I had the opportunity to present two workshops to a province wide (3 islands including Maewo, Pentecost, and Ambae) kindy teachers' workshop. The kindy teachers touch my heart every time as they are paid, usually very scantily, by their villages and have little to no formal training. The teachers from other islands used their own money to find transport to come to the conference. Two fellow volunteers, Jessica and Rachel who live on Ambae, joined us on Maewo to also present at the conference. There were over 80 participants, so they were split into 6 smaller groups. We each gave 2 workshops 6 times each, once for every group. It was the most exhausting ... read more

10 July 2010 Ukelele Justin has a new favorite island pastime: tinkering around on the ukulele. He has acquired two this past month; one he made with the help of some students at the school, the second one a friend made for him. They have slightly different sounds, so one gets played for “island style” music and the other gets picked up when he wants to play “the blues.” He’ll be serenading in the background of phone calls for the remainder of our service, and plans to bring the instruments home with us to a life in the US of A. World Cup Gambule got into the loop with the world wide spectacle of the World Cup. A satellite dish and special cable box had to be paid for and picked up in Vila so that ... read more