I am Back!

Thursday morning there was one more Waterloo Hildred in Waterloo. Some church, neighbour people and my brother Rob helped me enjoy a welcome back supper on Thursday night. Sunday afternoon Dianne and I launched the sailboat. It was uneventful but very nice.

Sunday Drive

Lilies
Originally uploaded by waterlooHildreds.

Lokesh took Shaji and I out into the Haryana countryside on Monday (Sunday night in Waterloo). Shaji is looking for land to build a new orphanage with a boy's house and a girl's house. We looked at some places closer to Gurgaon, where these beautiful country homes were. The one had a swimming pool and this pond with Lillies. The other was on 6 acres with citrus trees and a pair of peacocks on the roof. The roof is about as high as a peacock can fly. Vinay pointed one out on top of a cell-phone tower once, which would be their absolute flight ceiling.

Mr. Richard's Day Off

Haldirams
Originally uploaded by waterlooHildreds.

I may not be Ferris Bueller, and the love of my life is in Waterloo, but I had an excellent day off on Monday anyways. Mondays were special days when Dianne was here. We would go back to sleep after the boys went to school, have a leisurely breakfast and do some shopping or go for a long walk or something. One time we went with Lokesh and Babli to his favourite restaurant. When Dianne left, I worked a few Mondays. The previous 2 Mondays to this I worked in the morning and went motorcycle test driving on one and motorcycle picking up on the other.
This Monday, I woke up a little on the late side. Lokesh phoned up and sugested that he would meet me at the apartment instead of at work, so I practiced guitar for a little while, making "No Not One" the 22nd song that I have learned since I started doing Junior High music at Logos. Then I had a little nap, and was embarassingly in my pajamas when Lokesh and Babli came to pick me up. We went out for lunch at Haldiram's. There was a bunch of kids a few tables over and I got one of them to take this picture.
We went, after lunch, to visit Claudia and Shaji. Claudia's first language is Portuguese, but she speaks very good Hindi. Even though I can't speak any myself, you could tell by the way that she enunciated and the expressiveness, (and Lokesh said after). It was very cool for her and Lokesh and Babli to be able to talk, about everything under the sun. The people in the group photograph are Babli, Lokesh, Shaji, Claudia, Emily, Rachel, Brian. The other Canadians met at Redeemer University in Ancaster. As usual the kids there were very welcoming. One of the young girls had a new dollie with a flower in her hair.

Happy Canada Day!

I went to the orphanage for supper. The food was superb as usual. I brought Soan Papdi (Patisa) with me to share which is an Indian Sweet made with clarified butter, flour, cardamom seeds, almonds and muskmelon, watermelon, pumpkin, cucumber seeds. It is my favourite Indian Sweet. I went out for a team lunch too but there was a support call so I had to come back to the office. The other evening I met some more Canadians from Quebec city when I was out walking off the white pumpkin curry that a friend made me. The security guard called out to me that there were other Canadians and then he introduced us. They were around Tim's age too. The other Canadians are still visiting Shaji and Claudia, so they celebrated too.