We are home!

Our time in India at Hebron School has come to an end! More of that later.
The week following the Leaver's Ceremony and Dinner was a very busy week with all the last minute details which had to be taken care of so that we could leave and not have to worry about leaving something important undone! 
Following the church service at St. Stephens, at which I played the piano - again, we had a Farewell service and luncheon for Rev. Nigel Hinton. Nigel and I were at Hebron without our wives in 2007 and it was great to renew our friendship and also introduce each other to our wives. Also on Sunday the students started leaving school. some had already finished their exams and there was really little point in them hanging around with much to do. Of course they had to pack away their belongings before leaving and any dirty clothes had to be put in the dhobi box! What a pile there was. Also the new Standard 12 boys started arriving with their trunks and cases. The dorm common room quickly became a storage depot. By Thursday everything was in order and following the Closing Assembly, school was over  and the mass exodus began. Gigi and I used the time to say ''Good bye'' to many of the students and also for a last walk around Ooty. On Friday night we dined at King's Cliff to celebrate Nigel's birthday and on Saturday, June 23 we started our journey which lasted, door-to-door,  about 31 hours.
We started our trip with an 8-hour taxi ride from Ooty to Bangalore, a distance of approximately 300 km. The first stage was to Mysore and we had to go down the Western Ghat with its 36 hair-pin bends. Both Gigi and I wore our motion sickness wrist bands and did not feel sick. The road has not improved during our 10 month stay. We had to ask our driver to take us to Pizza Corner for something to eat when we reached Mysore! (Our other drivers had stopped without being asked) We had obviously interrupted his plans as our driver had to ask for direction to Bangalore! This was not a good sign!!! The condition of the road greatly improved once we were out of the animal sanctuary.
When we arrived in Bangalore, the driver had to continually ask for directions to the airport. Finally we were on the right road. However, when we reached the airport he was all set to turn into the freight section of the airport and Bill had to direct him to the terminal. It would seem the driver had never been to Bangalore airport before! (Can you imagine hiring a taxi to take you to the airport and then having a driver who does not know where the airport is and has to continually ask for directions - at least he did ask!)
We arrived early enough to check in and to go through immigration. As we had employment visas we had to have a police check before leaving the country! All the paper-work was taken care of by the school travel office. We had to submit the requisite passport sized photos and fill out the forms in black ink. The school arranged for the police officer to come on site and to interview all who were leaving the country at the end of the school term. That was much appreciated as the travel officer was able to communicate on our behalf.
The Lufthansa agent checked us in for our flight and asked if we would mind sitting apart in the emergency exit row. As there would be more leg room for Bill, we agreed. We were grossly disappointed when we were both seated in the middle seat in the row behind the emergency exit without any greater leg room!!
The flight from Bangalore to Frankfurt was smooth and we both managed to nap for a while.We had 2 hours in Frankfurt to go through security and find our way to the gate before our flight to Montreal.
We landed 20 minutes early in Montreal. Thank you Air-Canada!! The Canadian border Services Agency is trying a new passport verification in Montreal (and Vancouver). Canadian citizens are now separated from everyone else when we reach the customs hall and are fast tracked through a system consisting of swiping your passport in a reader before going on to the customs officer. Unfortunately Gigi's Citizenship card, which she got new last year, did not have the requisite bar-code on it and that delayed us slightly. In any case we still made it down to the baggage claim area before our baggage arrived inside. We quickly collected our belongings - my suitcase weighed in at 22.9 kg for a 23 kg allowance. Gigi's suitcase was just a bit over 20 kg and so there were no problems. We were on our way down the corridor at 12:30 and by 1:15 after meeting Stephanie and walking to the parking lot we were in the house. A total of 31 hours had elapsed!

Stef had prepared a light lunch and we enjoyed the afternoon sharing stories before Eric arrived and we had a meal together around the table. Marc and Valery were there when we arrived and Marc helped install the ceiling fan in the bedroom so we could enjoy a good sleep. By the time we went to bed Sunday night in Montreal it was already Monday morning in India. We had been up for a total of 48 hours. No wonder we were tired!
Due to the June 24 holiday in Quebec, Stephanie had Monday off work and took us to Costco to spend over 27,000 rupees on our first grocery order. We went to visit my 97 year-old mother in the afternoon and then Skyped Nick, Sue and Darcy and Wesley in the evening.
We are adjusting to the 9 hour 30 minute time difference as well as the warmer climate. It was quite cool up in Ooty these last few weeks as the monsoon was coming.
Thanks for reading and for your comments.
The site will be update monthly from this point on.

Leavers weekend

This is quite possibly the last posting from Hebron School this semester. In a few days we will have to go to the BSNL office and return the phone which was our Internet connection for the modem. We will still have access to our e-mail and face book by going over to the ITC building and logging in on one of the school computers. Last Monday Gigi and I went to the Rose Garden. This is an amazing site with lots of rose plants on 4 different levels on a hillside. The roses are certainly past their prime. Nevertheless, there were still sufficient blooms. We enjoyed spending over 2 hours just wandering around and enjoying the sights. We went to Willy's for lunch and discovered we were in the time to watch a photo shoot. It certainly gave us some entertainment as we had lunch. In the evening the Monday night Bible Study group

 went to Kings Cliff for dinner. We had a group of 14 with lots of laughs around the table. We are in full end-of-term mode. Exams for middle-school are over and reports have been written and printed and signed!

Textbooks are being collected and the last teaching lessons taught. The long promised movies will take place for the last 2 class periods this coming Tuesday and Wednesday. Last Thursday night was the Staff Party. It was held in the GSM Hall. It was not so much of a party. It was really the farewell speeches to those who are leaving at the end of term. We had to say "Thanks" to our dorm support, Blake and Amanda. Then yesterday, Saturday, June 16, was the Leavers Ceremony in the Sports Hall. The Leavers were introduced and made their way to the platform. Following the 2 hour ceremony during which awards were presented we made our way to the Holiday Inn Gem Park for the Leavers Buffet Dinner. For both events most of the students were in either Indian dress or western-style clothing. There were some surprises in the awards ceremony. There were more surprised in the entertainment section of the dinner! The students have started leaving today. We will gradually loss our dorm boys over the next few days. Following church at St. Stephen's this morning there was a Farewell for Rev. Nigel Hinton and his wife, Ros. These are our friends with whom we went to Thailand for the April break. Nigel was the academic VP and Ros was the HOD, Geography. Nigel also taught in the Geography department. Nigel was also one of the very active Wednesday night Bible Study Group Leaders as well as preaching at least once a month at St. Stephens. We have discovered there is about the normal amount of staff change over again this year. One of the challenges faced by the school is to have the new staff all in place before the actual start of the summer break which starts next week.

Leavers Dinner

After our whirl-wind trip to Hyderabad, it was back to normal school life. Except there is no such thing as normal school life. There is always something happening. The next happening event was the beginning of the end. That's right,we had to start the French Oral exams and then the French Listening exams all before Exam Week! Tension mounted as we went through the week with the students complaining about the amount of work they had to do and wondering how they were supposed to prepare for exams when the teachers kept piling on the work!!!!! Somehow they and we survived! (no photos) On Saturday, May 26 the Leavers Dinner was held at the Stirling Hotel in Ooty. What a wonderful view of a spectacular sunset we had that night. The students were dressed in their finest. the boys looked so smart in their suits

and ties and the girls looked so adult in their fancy dresses. It was a great night and we all had an enjoyable time. The evening concluded with the Standard 12's paying tribute to the Standard 13'2 and then the Standard 13's paying tribute to the 12's. All was in good fun and laughs were enjoyed by both sets of Leavers. The students thanked the staff who are leaving and some amusing stories were told!

Somehow I ended up as the designated pianist at St. Stephen's Church on Sunday, May 27. Thankfully the tunes book was available during the week and I was able to photocopy the music and enlarge it for easy reading. I was also able to get to a piano a couple of times before the Sunday. Following church Gigi and I took Tom and Valsa to King's Cliff for a birthday luncheon for Valsa. Little did I know or realize that was just an excuse. When we got there, I discovered Gigi had arranged for a group of our friends to join us to celebrate my 70th birthday. We had a wonderful meal together in very pleasant surroundings. The week of may 28 was Exam Week. All classes were cancelled and subject examinations were set for each Standard and subje

ct. Some students had as many as 15 exams over a 5 day period. There were two exams in the morning and one exam in the afternoon. Obviously teachers had to invigilate and mark as all marks were due by Monday June 4! My last French exam finished at 3:50 P.M. on Friday afternoon. I spent some of the weekend correcting and worked all day on Monday, my "day off"!

There is always a Dorm activity on the weekend and last weekend was no exception. On Saturday morning we walked up the hill for our breakfast. I am not sure exactly where we went but I do know we had a good view of the school and of Ooty. From where we were the Holiday Inn Gem Park was just across the valley. On Sunday afternoon we celebrated another birthday for one of the Standard 12 girls. T\We. the 12's,boys and girls were bussed down to Coonoor to the home of the student and had a wonderful afternoon. The view from the house was spectacular and the food was absolutely delicious. Thanks so much for inviting us to your party Carina!

It seems almost impossible to believe two (2) weeks from tonight most of the students will have left and gone home for the summer. The standard 13's will have said their final "Good bye's"and will be on their ways top new fields of study or work. We will have started to pack our suitcases for the homeward journey.