Prince Albert, Saskatchewan

Once again, I'm sorry that I've waited so long to update my blog. The last 5 days have been a blur. We flew out of Managua at 12:50PM after a long morning of tearfull goodbyes and bus breakdown scares. It was the first flight for many of the Nicaraguans, and all handled it relatively well. We arrived in Toronto at about 8:30 only to be greeted by a large group of our families outside of the terminal, my Mom and cousins among them holding large "Welcome Home" signs. A pleasant sight to see having been away in a strange place for such a long period of time.

It was fantastic to be able to touch base with family, even though we didn't have much time to visit. By the time we were all checked into our hotel room and ready to go it was 11:00PM. We gave Josue a late night tour of Toronto, the primary destination being the CN Tower. He was, of course, blown away. I'm glad that I was able to give him a small glimpse of our largest city. Being driven around such a large city was definitely a first for him, as there's nothing comparable within Nicaragua.

The next morning (after our 3 hours of sleep) we were off to Saskatchewan. After another grueling plane ride to Saskatoon and a sleepy bus ride we were in Prince Albert. My kind of town! With a population of 30,000 people, Prince Albert presents a small town atmosphere not unlike the kind I grew up within. The cold was a shock, being -15C upon our arrival (From 30C to -15C overnight for our group). We went directly to meet our families, some of which were already waiting for us at our meeting place.

Our host family, Rob and Elaine Longlitz have done a great job at making Josue and I feel right at home. We live in a beautiful log house outside of the city limits which Rob built himself. They have a 19 year old son named Tyler who I have yet to meet (he's on vacation in Mexico), and another son named Cody who went through the Canada World Youth program himself (Ukraine/North Battleford. Funny thing is that North Battleford is only a 2hr drive from Prince Albert). Cody goes to the University of Calgary, and I won't be able to meet him until Christmas.

I was more than a little bit worried about Josue in his adjustment to both the cold and the Canadian way of life, but he appears to be doing very well. He seems to like the cold, the food, and is interacting well within the community.

Well, I think Josue is waiting for the computer, so I'll elaborate on the past couple of days in my next post. It will be far easier for me to update this blog as I now have internet access within my home.