Good-Bye to All That

Gaetan is an artist in my class from Quebec. He's drawn all of his life, but never picked up a brush until this class, and he's turned out three professional quality surrealistic paintings this quarter. He speaks French and Spanish and enough English to communicate with us quite well. After our Show and Tell program Gaetan disappeared and the word was that he accompanied a sick friend back home. Last Thursday he reappeared. His friend is in his 80's, and when the friend became sick, his rich friends just disappeared, so Gaetan paid for his and his friend's ticket to Montreal, and Gaetan's back to PV. Gaetan suggested that if he can, the friend could help pay for the tickets, but he's on a pension and may not be able to do so. However, Gaetan has another 92 year old friend who will help out. Gaetan helped this friend when the friend was in PV and needed a transfusion or he would die. The hospital explained that they didn't have blood to give him, so Gaetan went from cafe to cafe asking for donors until he found two women who would give blood, and so saved his friend's life. Can you imagine going into that many cafes for anything, let alone for donors for blood, but he did. Gaetan has now found his way onto my list of People I Admire. He's one of those folks who help other people and seem to enjoy themselves doing it. How can I help but admire people like that?

We are finishing up doing the things you do when you are getting ready to go home. We're packing, no Richard is packed, I'm packing. We've cleaned out the kitchen and given most of the stuff to one of the workers who really is happy to get it. It makes me feel like the Rich American, but I'm glad we could give the stuff to someone. We changed our money back into dollars and of course found some that we forgot to change. We saw our friends last night and then ran into one of them again today. Friends are the best thing about PV, that and the weather.

I found that I can send photos to my techie sister, Vandana, and she puts them on the blog. I'll send some different ones to her as soon as I figure out how I did it the first time. Thanks so much for sharing this blog with me. Hasta la proxima!