Pictures of the Sky! Yay!

I know, the title of this post sounds like I'm on something. I'm not. I swear.

It's truly amazing to think that I only have about one month left here. In many ways I want to go home, to see everyone, to experiece all of the 'familiar' things of home, and yet I cannot stop thinking that all of those things I've been thinking about as being from 'home' are going to seem really strange once I'm back. I'm at home here - although I can hardly believe I'm saying it. I find it so hard to imagine that in another month all of these people I've been interacting with on a daily basis, who have really become almost like family to me - the pioneers, my students, the local Baha'is - will all but cease to be a part of my life! People have told me that going home is harder than going to a new place, and I think I am starting to understand why.

We just had a memorial service here for Ahmad Shams, Faramarz and Kia's father who passed away a couple of weeks ago. It was amazing how many people showed up, almost all of whom had never met the man, but came to support their friends. It was really beautiful.

My USB Hard drive has decided its had enough. It's really unfortunate because I had about 50Gb of information on it, and some of it was stuff I got here - although fortunately not very much. My biggest loss is all of my full quality pictures - everything I've taken since I arrived in April. I've been putting copies of almost everything up here on my blog, but most of those have been reduced in size by 50% because of the internet speed here. I'm really hoping that once I get home I, or Western Digital (it's still under warranty) will be able to recover the pictures.

In light of this, all the pictures I'm posting now are full quality...
I apologize for any layout problems, blogs don't handle multiple pictures very well. Complain to blogger, not me ;)

Ugh, Arg.

I have a cold :( Its really quite bothersome - why couldn't it have waited a month and a half? Right now I'm on drugs so I don't feel it so much, but yesterday and most of today it was terrible.

I finally have two of the new computers at the classroom, and they really are wonderful. They have Windows 2000, working USB ports, CD drives, and even a speaker; built - in! I've set one of them up for the students to use (so I'm now up to 4 computers with Powerpoint), and the other one I am using to keep track of student's marks, and to work on the various books I'm sort-of-creating. They don't want to setup a full classroom (7) of these new computers (which I do) so for now I'll just be taking a couple at a time to install the software, and then send them back. Even just having the one for me to work on has made a huge difference, I'll be able to do way more work than before!

This morning we had a beautiful presentation about the life of Mona, a Baha'i Martyr from 1982. Today would have been her 41st birthday. Myself and a few others were in tears by the end. The video "Mona with the Children" can be seen here - it was part of the presentation.

Other than that there really isn't very much news from here. I'm feeling quite at home and at ease with living, and I have lots to do, which is really good. As the time of my return draws nearer and nearer I find my thoughts straying more and more to home - sort of like when I first arrived. Fortunately I have lots to do, to keep my mind off it, and I can now make lots of work if I run out! I am looking forward to comming home - and now Grandpa wants me to come to Winnipeg to visit them and Uncle Stephen wants me to go to Ottawa to visit them...! But before anything else - home.

More news in a week or two.