What a great day!!

Firstly, on behalf of the Tourist team mates, who absolutely love to take photos, I wish to add the following pictures from the Conference, which took place over the past weekend.




GSE team with future RI president Mr. Ray Kliningsmith.



More about today- Most of the people around here have told us "If you don't like the weather, just hold on for a while because it will certainly change soon". That is indeed what we experienced today, Missouri weather, in its full glory. It was a bit cool today (and hopefully that is not an understatement). Back to the reason why this day was so great- If you have have never visited great Museums and been surrounded by the hospitality of the people of Missouri, then "You ain't seen nothing yet". We visited four museums, namely; the St Joseph Nature Centre (and also saw the beautiful park of St Joseph), the Pony Express Museum, the Jesse James Museum and the Psychiatric Museum. We learnt alot about St Joseph and I am sure that we probaly hold a record for the amount of knowledge that we gained in one day. We also visited the Missouri Western State University, what a great experience it was to see this institution. Yssel, Anelize and Euridice even had the opportunity of holding a snake at the University, I supported them from a distance and had 911 on speed-dial in case one of them fainted from excitement. We ended the day off with dinner at the home of Carlos and Carol Moya, who wonderfully hosted the GSE team, host families, rotarians and friends. The food was great and so was the company.

Conference

From there we went to St. Joseph for the annual District Conference. We booked into the Holiday Inn on Friday (24th of April) and there was no time for a nap:)
We started having lunch with a fairly large group of Rotarians and also the GSE-team from this district going to South-Africa to our district.

We were introduced to the conference by DG Elizabeth Usovics and again......we felt like VIP's.
In the evening we had a light dinner at the Kemper Art Museum and went back to the hotel for
Martini's. We also got to meet and get to know the International President for 2009/2010, Mr. Ray Kliningsmith. What a wonderful person. He has a soft spot for South-Africa and Southern Africa as he goes there often after he studied at UCT in the 60's. I am sure that we'll see him in our part of the world soon.

Saturday we gave our presentation to the conference after we had breakfast. We got really good feedback afterwards, and even hear some saying it was the best they ever had from a GSE team!!! How's that! We did make a lot of changes since our first presentation...and I am proud of our end product. Although we start to sound boring to ourselves, is seems that the audience always enjoy it.

The district here participate in a program called "Shoes for Orphan Souls". Clubs collect shoes and socks to be send all over the world to children in need. This was really touching for us and we could see that a lot of passion, time and energy is going into this. This district collected over 12000 pairs of shoes!

The evening was a formal dinner with a great speech by Ray Kliningsmith.
Some of us also went to a real Country Bar/Club after the formalities.....we needed to see some young people too! haha!! (This was the real thing...cowboy hats, boots, jeans and slow dancing on the tunes of a fantastic band!)

Well...so here we are. Live and kicking in St. Joseph...home of the Pony Express! Today is Sunday and we all went to our new host families for the next four days.
I just had a fantastic Sunday lunch with my hosts, Ken and Sandy. And you know whats next.....yeah, the Sunday afternoon nap!!!
I'll have a talk with my Chinese Tourist team mates to not let this happen again...to forget about our followers and not updating our blog regularly!! (I call them that because when a picture is taken it has to be on all three their cameras.....we can't just download each other's pictures..haha!!)

We are still here...just very busy!!!

This is my turn to update our blog today. As you can see, we have missed a couple of days and I, Private Yssel, will save the future of our blog! (I had a haircut in a real barber shop in Kirksville....looks like I am joining the marines or something)

So what happened since we left Kansas City? I shall give you a short version of the past week since we last made an entry.

From Kansas City we moved to the north eastern part of the district. This is more "country" area with smaller towns (about the size of Middelburg/Polokwane). Towns we visited includes Moberly, Marceline (the home of Walt Disney), Macon and Kirksville..... I shouldn't forget Clifton Hill (not at all the Clifton we know back in SA). We saw and learned al lot. Museums, schools, universities..you name it....we saw it.

This is farming country and we saw some "big-ass" tractors and implements. I even got to ride in one...thanks Dan! It is the planting season for corn around here.....and everywhere we went farmers were working their fields. Amazing to see how farmers here do everything and run huge operations with only one or to helpers on the farm.....we can learn allot here.

Again, we met great people! In fear of missing someone, I do not want to name anybody... Everyone that were involved with our team, went out of their way to make us feel special and important. To say we appreciate what they did for us would be a major understatement!!! You know who you are and again: Thank you very much!

I have to mention one thing. I saw Bisons during my stay with hosts Dan & Jan Shepard. Dan breeds them and has around 200 on his farm. I saw these animals only on western movies as a kid and never thought I would ever see a live bison in my life. What an experience!

Myself and Bison!!!

Night @ KC Missouri

The pics will talk for us...

Saturday in KC

Our first saturday we went to Nelson-Atkins Museum and after that we spent time with our host families.

We the girls went shopping all afternoon... Yssel & John, of course they did not go shopping, but to a Bar to watch a Basebol game and recieve lessons...

Another day in KC Missouri

I had to put that tittle because I am always being corrected since on the other side of the River is KC Kansas ehehe

This morning we had the first presentation to a Rotary Club - Kansas City Plaza - it is a breakfast club.... which means that the meeting started before 8:00 am!!!!! This club has nearly 70 members, with young and not so young members. We did impress them with our truly african presentation, and each of us with a particular style. I enjoyed this meeting, it was a new experience about how things can be done in a different ways with the same objective.


After that lovely experience, we went to our vocational day... and for what I can say we all enjoyed... we all learned and exchange experiences. I will be more detailed about my experience, because my mentor- Shannon- and I work for the same company... yessss and what are the odds????? I was able to check that we may be in different continents but it runs nearly the same way, but of course that I learned something, that perhaps may be implemented in Moz. I visited two different sites, I heard a conference call with people from other cities from the US(Shannon introduced me to her co-workers which was really nice).

After that amazing morning we went to have a lunch at the Braai house.... where when we return Candice will make a small performance on "Hi can I help you" - they scream to attend you....

The afternoon was totaly dedicated to Museum visits... the first was the World War I Museum, AMAZING UAU WOW MARAVILHOSO... it's a audio, visual and physical museum, if I can say that, butI have never ever seen a museum like that; it tells the story like you are there, and you can not think that is a museum with only things form USA, its is from all over the world, and our tour guides were just increadeble, catived us

The next museum was Jazz Museum, were we can listen to jazz musicians and see how an orchestra runs... they also have a bar with live music, and Candice just went crazy and told everybody that it was her birthday.... heheheheh free champaign for her....

Again the team enjoyed a wonderful day... days that arent to be forgotten. And shows what a family Rotary is.

Day 1 in Kansas City

The day started off by the introduction of Tourism in Kansas City and to add to the overall experience, we had this session in an office overlooking a beautiful part of the city, from which various tourist attractions were pointed out to us. We learnt alot from this introduction and were also given an opportunity to talk about our own countires and the beauty thereof, which attracts tourists from all over the world.

For lunch, we had great food and the best of company. After lunch, we went to the City Hall, at which we attended a City Council Legislative Session to receive a Proclamation, presented by the mayor of Kansas City. Once again we were braced with a wonderful warm welcome from the people of Kansas City. Therefater, we went to the City Observation Deck, which is also situated in the City hall, where we got to view Kansas City and surrounding areas from a 'bird's-eye' view; it was amazing.

We later obtained greater insight into the news paper of Kansas City, The Star, upon a guided tour of the newly erected building of the newspaper. We were presented with the history of the news paper, the production process and many more.

WOW!, being the only word with which to describe the following; "The Sprint Centre". It is an oval shaped arena, which hosts major concerts for some of the world's best artists and other world class events. We were all stunned at the beauty of this centre.

Off with our hosts families to further establish Kansas City as our new home.

Off to Kansas City

Yesterday, on 15 April 2009, we were off to Kansas City. With much anticipation for our departure to Kansas City, we had an early start to the day. Sad as it was, we left our new friends that we made in New York and the the place that became our home, even though it was only for a few days. After a long wait at JFK International, as a result of the delay of our flight, we departed to Kansas City at 5:30pm. Travelling toKansas City, we faced yet another time difference and fell yet another hour behind our fellow Southern Africans, the total of which is a seven hour difference. The flight was good and we also met a number of interesting people on board.

We arrived in Kansas City, to be very well received by the Rotarians, who were very eager to make our stay as comfortable as possible and to provide us with the best that Kansas City has to offer. From thereon, Kansas City become our new home. The welcome dinner was wonderful, a great way to familiarise ourselves with what lays ahead .
Tired as ever, we were on our way to bed, eagerly awaiting the day that lays ahead.

Few Days in New York.

After a long 18 hour flight Team Capulana arrived in New York City. We got through customs and to our hostel without any problems.

We've had a great time in New York. We've been to Times Square, the top of the Empire State Building, a boat cruise around Manhatten and the Statue of Liberty and various bus routes around the city visiting the famous landmarks. Coming from a nice warm Southern Hemisphere summer the cold spring has really made an impact on us. Layering of clothes has become the norm!

We leave tommorrow for Kansas City to start with our "Official" GSE!

Team Capulana has left SA

The GSE Team representing District 9250 left for District 6040 (Kansas, Missouri) on 11 April 2009. There was great excitement as they left from OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. John and Yssel are going to have their hands full with these girls. The beginning of one of the great experiences of a lifetime. Enjoy!!!!!!