heat, humidity, rain, and limited personal space :)

So Kolkata has proven to be quite the test of endurance. As someone said this morning, "it's just a challenge for us Canadians to get up in this kind of environment". It's something that takes getting used to I guess. I think we're doing okay - as long as there's a fan nearby.



We've spent the last couple of days at the Loreto Day School, and once again, I'm super impressed by what I've seen. This place (see Gemma's blog) runs like a well oiled machine... certainly not a porsche or a lamborghini, but just as innovative, more powerful, and way more efficient. Sister Cyril Mooney (google her name and read about her b/c I won't do any justice in a short blog), is just one more of the extremely inspiring woman who I've met on this trip who shows that we can always do more to educate children - rich or poor.



In our first day, we were given a tour and introduced to members of the staff. Today, everyone branched out and followed their own interests - kindergarten classes, science classes, environmental issues, child labor and human rights issues, music and dance, etc. Since I'm in the midst of completing this ed. admin. program, and lightly considering the idea of becoming a principal, Sister Cyril gave me some time and shared her insights about the world of education and human resource management. I took a lot of notes b/c she was clearly a model of excellence in terms of organization, understanding, execution, and I really liked her overall educational philosophy. I plan to share more about what I learned, but since I'm dying of heat in this little "cybercafe", and it's getting late, I'll sign off for now.



Tomorrow, we're all heading out to some villages, where the students of Loreto visit on a regular basis to provide education and friendship with the many underpriveleged (sp?) children. I'm sure that someone will write their thoughts about our experience in the "village outreach program" tomorrow night, as long as we don't get trapped there by the monsoon rains.



Until then... g'night.