Sorry No Pictures Steve!

Hi everyone! Sorry for the long delay between posts. We have been slowed by a lack of internet in our new apartment - we should get it any day now! Speaking of our apartment - we officially moved in on Sunday night! We bought a fridge and bed, so we are set. We were also given a kitchen table to use for the year by Kerry a Rotarian. Our bed and kitchen table actually match - same rod iron design! Isn't that great?? Have you ever heard of someone matching their bed to their kitchen table? We couldn't believe it. Getting the apartment set up has been difficult because we usually have to coordinate our schedules with the seller and whomever we can get to move it for us. At this point, Peter Lewis another Rotarian has been helping us move everything. We are so grateful for his help! We will soon be collecting a lounge (or couch). Cristin also tells me I will be at the mall waiting for the doors to open tomorrow morning for a TV on sale for $129. We are also looking for cheap bicycles to explore the Sutherland Shire - Peter is drawing us a map of all the great look out points! Apparently Cristin has a future in telemarketing. When she called on some of the rotarians for help, 3 or 4 thought she was a telemarkter. It took her about 5 minutes on the phone a few times to convince them she wasn't selling anything! But unfortunately she was unable to convince Sid, he just hung up on her!!! It is now a running joke with the club and Sid was fined by the sergeant for his behavior!

As far as uni goes, everything is starting to kick into gear. Group projects are taking shape each of my classes. In my Entrepreneurship class, I am working on a project to help develop a honey project for a group of Aboriginal blokes in Canteen Creek (Central Australia definitely in the bush). We had a videoconference with them a couple of weeks ago. They had to travel about 300 km to do this (180 on a gravel road!). They broke down only once on the trip. The conference was very eye opening. Apparently, the entire community is on welfare. The only business in town is a grocery store partly managed by the government. The welfare payments are going to be decreasing in the future so we are trying to help them set up a business. The difficult part will be that they have no idea how much honey is there or what to even do with it. They just know that there are bees in the area and they can collect the honey in a billy can. The conference had many communication barriers as all of the students asking questions were international. Plus, the guys were very shy and would hardly even speak. I think this will be a great learning experience to share with everyone, especially the Rotary clubs when I am invited to speak.

Last weekend, we went down to Wollongong for the Rotary District conference. At the conference, we heard from a great line of speakers (I can't remember their names b/c I'm at uni!). We heard a lady who talked about her Aboriginal business. She talked about her husband’s misfortunes as he was taken from his family by the government to essentially turn him into an English person. This was the idea at the time for saving the aboriginal community - take them out of their culture and bring them up with the Caucasian kids. However, her husband was later able to find his birth mother and rediscover his culture. Their art business is known worldwide - they created the design of the paintings on Qantas aeroplanes. Other presenters talked on the subject of the Muslim community in Australia. One speaker gave a background on their beliefs in great detail. Another was Muslim woman who grew up in Australia. She told of her hardships trying to assimilate with the other kids and why she decided to don the veil at age 21.

We were also able to meet the other Ambassadorial scholars in Australia, including an OU grad from Lawton. From a couple of their stories, we learned again that we were very fortunate to have our great hosts (Phil and Glenis) and a great host club. It was very evident that our host club is very involved at the district level.

This is all I have for now because class starts soon!