Sadly, us the vagrant Team Capulana had to yet again say goodbye to fantastic friends made. Everyone in St Joe’s went to so much effort to keep us busy and entertained and we’d like to give them a big Thanks!!
So we were dropped off in Kansas City for our one and only well deserved “day off”. The team made the most of this. Candice going off to get “lost” in the city, Euridice wondering for miles in the rain in the hot pursuit of the perfect fountain and John and Yssel keeping poor DG Elizabeth busy for lunch. I was lucky enough to spend the day with host mom Cassy. Everyone went separate ways again the evening, expect for grandma E looking after Yssel. This is probably not the correct forum to mention the antics that went on, so I’ll leave it at the whole team had fun!
Thursday a very eager group of Blue Springs Rotarians fetched us. And what a day!!! We got to watch a baseball match at the newly renovated Kauffman Stadium. Toronto Blue Jays vs Kansas City Royals. It was almost too much fun. The game is a bit slow but all the side shows make it brilliant. Just the BIG screen cost $50million. Yes!!! This was a most definite highlight in our program. The weather has not been great but somehow the heavens cleared for the whole match.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
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 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!!!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
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...
Friday, April 17, 2009
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 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.
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