Are you thinking by degrees? Degrees as in cold weather? Yes, that too, but, what I’m really talking about is … well … ME! Iqaluit was missing me! Bear with me, there’s a story behind this … when one likes to write there is A-L-W-A-Y-S a story.
Back in February I read a middle-of-the-night Facebook message from my young friend Daniel. I’d been following Daniel’s Facebook stories and photos with great interest, he was in Iqaluit. Daniel basically said in his message that my name had come to mind as someone who might like to come to Iqaluit to live ‘temporarily’ in Baha’i House. Amazingly I went back to bed and went right to sleep.
It was about mid-afternoon the next day when I said to my husband, Michael … “Oh, by the way” ... I went on to explain my wee small hours wake up call. Then it sunk in … Iqaluit? … IQALUIT??? That’s in Nunavut, isn’t it? It's south of the Arctic Circle for heaven's sake. I/we replied to Daniel with great interest. He gave us the who-to-contact info which we did right away and before long we had our one-way tickets to what we consider to be the opportunity of a life time.
“Wait until you get there to book your return flight so you can watch for seat sales”, was Daniel’s advice. Our departure tickets were dated April 12th which, I had discovered, were $300 each cheaper than departing one week later on the 19th. Then the packing and planning became like a full time job. Luckily we are both retired.
Coincidentally we had booked a cruise around Cuba only a few days before learning of this wonderful opportunity. It seemed prudent to have as much packed and planned as possible before going aboard. We would have only two weeks after our return from the cruise to complete our Iqaluit preparations. I actually started to regret booking that cruise. Our plans for it went immediately onto the back burner as the desire to serve the Baha’i Faith in Iqaluit by acting as custodians of ‘Baha’i House’ burned ever so much brighter.
There is a Baha’i Centre in Iqaluit that was built in the early 1970’s and it was in need of custodians. We knew we could try to fill the custodial shoes until early September. That would mean a four and a half month stint. The Cuba cruise approached. We had come to think of it as our one-week taste of summer for 2015. And then it happened! Maybe it was a slight slip in the shower that started it or, was it the bumpy ride on a Cuban excursion bus or, maybe being trapped in an airplane seat for over three hours was the spine-cracking culprit. Most likely it was a combination. Whatever it was I had to visit the ship’s doctor to be diagnosed with sciatica and believe me, it’s a real pain in the butt and down my right leg.
I manoeuvred my way through the rest of the cruise on pain killers but on the third day after our return to home base AND another long airplane ride, I had my husband dial 911 to be peeled from our bed and carted off on a stretcher. A four-day hospital stay managed to get me up and limping through life ever so slowly. We delayed our departure until May 20th and, I’m delighted to say, I’ve had a surprisingly fast 'almost' recovery and now? Here we are!
Every day or two ... maybe three if I'm busy ... I'll post to my blog so those who wish to can have a taste of life in The Great White North.
------------------------------------------
Internet service is 'different' here and making it difficult for me to post pictures with my blog site. If you would like a pictorial view of our experience befriend Marlene Turner Russell on Facebook. If you have questions about any of this do ask and I'll try to cover the answers as part of my regular blog postings. Thanks for joining me. Enjoy the ride!
No comments:
Post a Comment