What a sorry comparison!

I just could not help making a comparison between, on the one hand, two medical technicians who quietly served others and gave their lives in Afghanistan in the course of that service.

“It is because of their dedicated and skilful work, often under fire, that many Canadian, coalition, and Afghan soldiers and civilians are alive today.” - Brig.-Gen. Vance.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

On the other hand you get the bunch of attention grabbing fake martyrs getting locked up defending their declared human right to disobey clear police orders to back away, and to destroy other people's property if that is what it takes to get their message across. The real shame is that the media gave so much more attention to the latter than the former.

Stephen and Heather in Morocco (Part 3)

Subject: ello from morocco

Hi all,

We made it out of the desert after having the most incredible time sleepng under the stars surrounded by sand dunes. we are now in Todra Gorge which both heather and i agree is the most beautiful place we have ever been. it is a lush green valley surrounded by dizzyingly high red rock cliffs. A river running through the valley waters an almost tropical rainforest that grows in the valley that winds through an otherwise barren desert. On the sides of the valley are old, abandoned, mud kasbahs that look like they have melted into the cliffs. tonight will be our fourth night here and tomorrow we are heading out to Dades gorge before making our way to the city of Marrakesh.

Glqd to hear Claires babyshower was great, tell her to stay inside Mirs belly until we get home.

Cheers

Steve

Stephen and Heather in Morocco (Continued)

This arrived in my in-box today. The North African sun has done something to his ability to spell.

subject: ello from morocco

salam alekum,

a week in and we have seen Meknes (an imperial city), a small town called Moulay Idriss where there are old roman ruins, mountains full of olive trees (which we spent a day hiking up) and the mossoleum of the prophet Muhammeds great grandson (non muslims cant visit). We spent a fez days in another small mountain town where we went hiking with some belgiun tourists. I am writing this from another small town in the desert near the mountains where we have met a nice man who is taking us on a camel trek into the desert for 2 days leaving tomorrow morning.

besalama

Steve

Congratulations, Judith, on your graduation.

Today was Judith's graduation (B.Sc. Kinesiology) from Queen's University. The proud parents took the three-hour drive yesterday evening and spent the night at a B&B that we would highly recommend to anybody, An Enchanted Garden on Collins Creek. We found the place on a Google search for B&B's in Kingston. It was reasonably priced and cheaper than the Holidy Inn :-) Unfortunately we did not have the time to do the place justice.

This morning we drove over to where Judith's boyfriend stays, Mark Dank(theTank)ovich, and with him walked over to Grant Hall.

I'm sorry about the pictures being so blurry and grainy. I was too far away to use a flash, and I've obviously got a lot to learn about taking videos when there are tall people in front of me.

The graduands were led in by pipers.

Judith is at bottom left, just to the left of the guy in blue.

Here is my jumpy video of Judith being "hooded". Unfortunately I started a fraction of a second after her name was announced.

Outside, after it was all over. Ingrid, Mark D and Judith.

Terry, Judith and Ingrid

Judith and Mark

Stephen and Heather in Morocco
The other bit of news is that Stephen and Heather left for Morocco on Wednesday. Here is a copy of the email that we received from them. I only saw it today when we got back from Kingston. It seems like they have a French keyboard.

Hi

Heather and I arrived in Casablanca today after a mostly uneventful qnd only slightly delayed flight. we spent our first day getting lost in the madina several times, checked out the Hassan II mosque which is huge, ate our first of probably many tagine dinners and made friends zith the chef who taught us everything ze needed to know qbout the mosque (it holds 100 000 people), and spent half an hour typing this email because keyboards here arent normal...so email updates zill be kept short and will have many Qs where As should be, and and Zs where Ws should be etc...

Cheers for now

Steve

PS i realiwed I dont have email addresses for everyone so please add those zho are ,issing