Mosaic!

First weekend of June we went to Regina to attend the Multicultural Mosaic Festival, it was a lot of fun. There were pavilions from 17 different countries scattered about the city. You had to catch a bus from one to the other, though a few were within walking distance of each other. As a result, we only made it to 9: Korea, where I tried a cinammon pop for the first time, it was really good! And their traditional costumes were so pretty. At the Irish pavilion there was a band, and we tried the potato cakes with a mustardy dip, and an 'Irish Rose' drink - it was interesting. At the Ukrainian pavilion they were selling all kinds of toys including matrushka dolls, which brought me a tinge of nostalgia because I remember having those as a child. They also had some nice embriodered T-shirts, and giant decorated pencils the size and shape of chair legs. Can't imagine taking one of those into an exam room! At the Italian one, there was pizza, pasta, sausage and wine, and the desserts were to die for, but all I could do was look coz they were pretty expensive. Not to mention not needed by my waistline! There was traditional dancing at most of the pavilions but the most interesting ones I thought were at the Indian pavilion where they had a combination of traditional and modern dance. There were 4 henna tattoo stations which were immensely popular - I gave into temptation and joined 2 other girls in our group to get one on my wrist, coz I've never done that before. The Greek pavilion had great food and was inexpensive, so I had dolmades, souvlaki, spanakopita and tried a new dessert called loukoumades, topped off with ouzo. We went to the Latin American plaza where there was some nice dancing, though to our disappointment only on the stage. At all the pavilions there wasn't really any audience participation in the dancing which I thought was too bad. Not even the little kids! The Carribean pavilion was jam packed when we got there, with a crazy lineup at the door so we decided to go to see the Ethiopian one instead which was close by. Mmmm, delicious injera, beef, veggies and a wonderful lentil stew were my dinner. They also had their traditional honey wine called tej which was really nice. Reminded me of my dad's homemade wine. I didn't get to try the coffee, I was busy eating and watching the traditional dancers which I was later told were from the Borenna tribe. Those girls could really move, and they were so beautiful!

Last but not least, we went back to the Carribean pavilion and this time managed to get in. There was a steel band, an amazing limbo performance by two Jamaican girls, dance performances from various islands, and the grand finale was a guy called Prince Niah from Jamaica who was a fire eating/breathing contortionist. Wow, that was one impressive show! My one disappointment is that I forgot my camera in the hotel room so I don't have any pictures of the events. I took some pics at the end with my phone, but they weren't very good.

This week we are having a tree sale, so while my compatriots are out continuing with the tree planting (in 28 degree hot weather) I am staying on the farm to sell trees in my capacity as Admin / Finance manager. Next week our first school group arrives, so that should be interesting!

From the Korean pavilion (picture not mine)



From the Greek Pavilion (picture not mine)

 

Unfortunately my tan means the henna is not too visible!

Carribean Pavilion - Prince Niah



Last week of May

So I have been here for a month. It has been eventful so far, and I am sure there is much more in store. One highlight is on my day off I got to paint my room purple! Score! Well, two of the walls at least. I've always wanted to do that. Then due to rainy conditions we had a week's break from tree planting, what a relief! So we went back and did some work in the cabin, putting up wood panels on the walls. I learned to use a table saw and an air nailgun. I helped set up the tomato seedlings in their floating nursery outside so they can adapt to the environment before they are planted. I also learned how to use the ride-on lawnmower - that was fun! Our group was taken on a tour around Weyburn to look at some of the sites where HELP has planted trees over the years. I saw black-headed seagulls around the landfill, which was interesting. We also saw a robin's nest in one of the trees. We are starting our personal garden patches, and I have planted a bunch of seeds in containers in advance. I hope my sukuma wiki grows!

We were also able to start work on our research projects, of which I have a few, all involving hybrid poplar trees. Setting them up is somewhat tedious but that's ok - it's part of the job. The soil has a fairly high clay content, which makes it a little hard to work with. But it certainly seems to have an abundance of earthworms! I was kept company by a chicken who was eating them as fast as they showed up while I was digging up soil for my experiment. Meanwhile I was being eaten by mosquitoes and biting flies in the heat!



Purple wall, purple blanket, purple lesso, purple tissue box...you get the picture! :)

 

Sawing the wainscoting to size



Nailing the panels to the wall with an airgun under Kaity's watchful eye



Yeehaw! lol :)



 

The team on tour!

Week 3 details

Well, that was a belated week 3 post - and what a week it was! Three long days in a row of hot, backbreaking work - getting up at 4:30 am, getting going with packing lunch and trees and equipment for the day by 5 am, and working til 7 - 7:30 pm. For us novices, it was pretty intense. At the end of it we had planted about 11,000 trees. We used a tree planter machine that was pulled along by a tractor, with 2 people sitting and alternating putting the trees at 1 m intervals in the furrow created by the blade just in front of us. Then 2 wheels behind us covered up the trees with soil. The next process was to lay black plastic mulch cover using another tractor drawn machine and that was a challenge - the plastic came off a roller, and one person had to lay down behind the roller and watch where the plants were and punch a hole in the plastic with a safety knife so the person coming behind could pull the plant out of the plastic. Needless to say, for this operation to be successful the hole puncher had to be accurate! But the bending over to pull was the hard part, especially when you had to do it for kilometers at a time. So each team member tried their hand at each operation, and it was certainly a learning process. Another important process was making sure the trees were kept in a viable state in the hot sun, by keeping them hydrated with wet peat moss in the shade. Since there were mostly no trees to provide shade, this meant the shade of the truck, and we had to move them around during the day to follow the sun.

I was glad to take the rest of the week off, to recover and work on some other stuff!


Tree planter machine!




Chelsea and me, tree planters extraordinaire!




I was cutting, Harry was pulling - the row seems endless...




Some home improvement - unsealing the bathroom window
now that the cold weather's gone!



Week 3

Well, it seems the hot weather is here to stay (up to 30 degrees in this week's forecast), meaning...it's tree-planting time! We had a little taste of that last week, along with a couple of other projects that kept us very busy, like completing the river irrigation system, building a fence and painting the cabin. This week we have 16000 trees to plant. Yesterday we went to Regina to pick up a new team member, Kevin. While we were there we visited a little Somali store and picked up some spices, ugali flour and ndengu. They also had spiced coffee.  After a visit to Costco, we came back to Weyburn.

Water and plumbing have been a bit of a challenge this past week, with us running out of water one day and having the basement flood a few days. I hope we are finally able to get that under control soon. Our water has to be trucked in from the municipal supply in Weyburn, and is stored in 3 big storage tanks in the basement. With now 5 interns using it, it stands to reason that a fairly regular replenishment run needs to be established, coz water is important.




Hooking up the main connection pipes for the irrigation system.



Drilling holes for the fence posts

Tamping the posts in!



I'm handy with a hammer and nails!



Painting the cabin. Now with this experience under my belt,
I think I will paint my room purple.



Today dawned bright and clear, and the promised higher temperatures actually showed up. It's supposed to go up to 25 degrees later this week, I can hardly wait. Tired after a long day in the sun. We spent the whole day milling styrofoam as part of our zero waste and recycling endeavour. It was hard work but we could see what we had accomplished by the end of the day, which was good. Apparently we set a record for milling the most bags in one day!



13 giant bags filled - a good day's work!



Hauling a bag of styrofoam to the mill.

Week 2 begins!

Whew, we had a big windstorm last night, and was it ever cold! I had to put a third blanket over myself so I could sleep! All this means is that the tree planting is put off once again, and it's 35000 trees we need to plant, not 9000, according to Rodney. Sounds a little intimidating! but we will get through it. Today I got to put on my office admin hat and start my financial / bookkeeping portfolio. Took a while to sort through all this year's receipts, but I finally got it done. Tomorrow I start the computer entries. Research projects have been allocated, and I need to get busy with my experiment design. It is exciting! I also need to do my online Construction Safety Training course.

I got the cutest little pink card reader device for $2 at the dollar store, and it works wonderfully! Uploading my photos will be a breeze from now on. I won't have to borrow one any more. I got my mail from home, kindly scanned and sent to me by Tracy. That was really sweet of her. Some not good news, but will cope. I will have to get creative, and remember the joy of the Lord is my strength.

First Weekend

Our first weekend since we arrived was like any other weekend - started off with intense cleaning! The bungalow we are staying in was a little the worse for wear in terms of the state the former tenant left it in, so we had quite a bit of work to do. But we got it done, and after an amazing perogy lunch made by Kaity and Harry, we took a ride into Weyburn to look around, do some shopping (one of the stops was at the liquor store; 'nuff said), and went to the library where I got a temp membership and borrowed a bunch of books (some things don't change!) Finally we picked up some popcorn for our movie night. We actually had a projector so we could watch the movies big screen on the wall! It was fun, we watched Madea goes to Jail and Beauty Shop.

Sunday I went to a new church in Weyburn, it is being planted by an East Indian pastor and his wife. They were very nice, and I think I will keep going there. They have two boys and cute little girl the same age as Pearl, and just as precocious. I think if they were to meet they would be great friends. I also met a prolife activist and his daughter, and Rodney's parents, with whom we had a good discussion of various topics. Back at the farm, I think I will just veg out for the rest of the day - gotta get started on reading that stack of library books! It is still raining, but we are hoping that it will dry up soon so we can get to the serious tree planting. Apparently we have 9000 trees to plant on 3 farms, so lots of work to look forward to!

TGIF!

Today's weather was  miserable - cold and rainy, and we had to work outdoors in all that in the tree nursery. We also started on doing some plumbing for the irrigation system. I was wearing bright yellow rain gear - unfortunately it was a little too tight therefore didnt last long!

The team in yellow!

Wrenching the pipe

I stopped to take the pictures of a couple of horses in the field next door, and funny enough one of them started posing for the camera! the other absolutely couldn't be bothered and kept eating its grass. Rodney took us into Weyburn and treated us to a fish and chip dinner at a local pub this evening. We played a few games of pool, and after dusting off the rust for the first couple of games I beat Harry the pool phenom! I am looking forward to the weekend and getting an opportunity to explore the town of Weyburn further.

Hmmm, should I, shouldn't I?

Okay, let's do this!

This is my best side

What, pay attention to the strange person with the camera? Not me!

 There are lots of birds in the area too - today I saw black capped chickadee, sparrows and starlings, a pair of Canada geese and a pileated woodpecker.

Day 4

Back to tomato transplants,  and this time different experiments involving various potting mixes. It will be interesting to see how they grow. I also got to plant some cassava cuttings - it has been so long since I did that last! Over 15 years. I hope they can grow in this climate. That would be so cool!

We set up the cutest little portable greenhouse for the tomato experiments. I want one or two like it to take home with me! Some adjustments were required, and it seems I am still quite handy with a saw. Something else I haven't done for ages. This practicum is getting more and more interesting!

I want one of these for my garden, they are so cute!

Sawing away, with Roxy looking on



Finishing touches on a job well done!



Day 3

Today we went SHOPPING! There is a real canadian warehouse store in Weyburn, so it was nice to see familiar brands. Afterwards we went back to the farm and were joined by 2 new volunteers who helped us finish transplanting the rest of the tomato seedlings to the floating nursery. By early afternoon we were done, and it was my turn to make dinner - I made rice and beans. So glad I carried some vinzari and Royco with me! The meal was a success and I turned in early, I was tired.

Day 2

Today dawned bright and clear, and we had our orientation this morning followed by transplanting tomato seedlings to the floating nurseries. What a novel concept, yet so simple. After lunch, Rodney, Kaity and I drove the pickup truck and trailer to Indian Head to pick up tree seedlings from the govt nursery. Apparently the govt will be shutting it down next year, which is too bad coz they've been providing free tree seedlings to farmers all over Western Canada for the last 100 years. One of the things I found amazing was passing fields with significant salt deposits on top of the soil. Rodney said that was the result of last year's heavy flooding, which brought the salt up to the surface. Apparently this area was once the bottom of an inland sea. There was lightning and heavy rainfall, the tropical kind, during our journey. The dirt roads became quite muddy and treacherous in some places.

On the way back from Indian Head, we stopped at a tiny town called Odessa for gas. I saw an interesting sign, and at the end of the road was a magnificent church which seemed too large for the small community. See pics below....


Mixing soil for the tomato seedlings transplant



Transplanting tomato seedlings



Oh little town of Odessa...




Who named this road?

 Nice church, though.

The land is so flat, as far as the eye can see; it is very different. I am used to seeing mountains! but the prairies have their own brand of beauty. The clouds have different and interesting formations. The dirt roads remind me of Kenya. There is abundant and diverse bird life. Truly, this is the land of living skies.

Day 1

Today I left the island to come to the prairie for the first time ever. The morning was rainy, and it was hard to leave my family at the curb of Victoria airport, especially Pearl. All the kids will be taller when I get back at the end of the summer.

Edmonton was dry-looking from the air, but I am told that's normal for the end of winter. Met up with my fellow coop student and we caught the same connecting flight to Regina. It was a warm and sunny afternoon on our arrival, and we were given a warm welcome by our CEO Rodney. He is full of great ideas and we are very excited about what we will be doing this summer. We can't wait to get started.

Tried to call the fam on Skype but for some reason not going through. There is no phone in the bungalow where we will be residing for the next few months. This evening I enjoyed introducing my fellow interns to ginger tea and started giving them a Swahili lesson! Tomorrow will be the first day of work, and it sounds like there is lots to do!