Blessings to You and Yours...

Let It Snow....man

Winter has come! And in celebration, here's an homage to the ever infamous snowman that we all know and love......

Mackinac is Mackinaw.....

Many have heard of Mackinac Island and the Grand Hotel. Most of those not from Up North will pronounce this word with an 'ack' on the end, but alas.... it actually is pronounced with an 'aw'. It just is.


Some have said it's because the Indians pronounced it that way in their language. I'm not so sure... I think the English (or French?) just spelled it wrong, and didn't want to admit to their mistake afterwards.


To make it even more interesting, there is a Mackinac Island with a town on it, and across the water on the mainland is a city called Mackinaw City. Mackinaw City is newer. One might think we Americans named the newer town 'Mackinaw' to right the previous wrong, but the story I got while visiting was the spelling was different to simplify mail delivery.


We had a fun visit to both places while Erika was here in October. Here's several photos of the Island and the city on the island.... (by the way, the only transportation on the island is by foot, bicycle or horse.... quite fun!).

Fall and Family- Good Times

We just finished a lovely 2 week visit with our daughter Erika, who flew over the pond from her home in Edinburgh, Scotland. My parents came up to see her, since it had been 2 years since they were together.

We all became a bunch of 'leaf peepers', and the leaves were beautiful!

Cheers to you and best wishes for a lovely Autumn season....

More About Sakena Yacoobi

I got to meet Dr. Yacoobi, or 'Ustad' as she is called from her employees with the Afghan Institute of Learning. (I think 'ustad' means 'teacher'.)
She has won a number of national and international awards for leadership and human rights. Her travel schedule is punishing- she is traveling almost non-stop to conferences, forums, and back and forth between Afghanistan and the United States.

She is a quiet, unassuming woman with iron-hard determination. Her passion and dream is a future Afghanistan where women and children are literate, have good health care, and can learn skills to maintain a family lifestyle. She is Muslim, and believes in the equality of men and women that is referred to in the Quran.

Here is a great video that shows a bit of what Sakena is accomplishing:

More About My Job....

I work for Creating Hope International. It's a nonprofit that is the USA partner for an Afghanistan nonprofit called Afghan Institute of Learning. Their purpose is to give educational and health improvement options for Afghan women and children. CHI also does work for a group of Tibetan Bon refugees in India.

Toc Dunlap is my boss and the executive director of CHI. She worked in the Peace Corps years ago and served in Afghanistan. While there, she met the Afghan family of Sakena Yacoobi. Sakena wanted to go to a university in the USA, and Toc worked with her to overcome the challenges to get there. After that, Toc went back to law school and then spent several years working as a lawyer. Toc then spent a number of years working in Pakistan with the International Rescue Committee.

In the ensuing years, Sakena got her degrees at 2 universities and was a health consultant and teacher in the US. She then spent three years in Pakistan working with Afghan refugees for a couple of organizations.

In 1995, Sakena founded the Afghan Institute of Learning. In addition to education, AIL was the first organization to offer human rights and leadership training for Afghan women. AIL supported 80 underground home schools for 3000 girls in Afghanistan after the Taliban closed girls’ schools in the 1990s. AIL was the first organization that opened Women’s Learning Centers for Afghan women—a concept now copied by many organizations throughout Afghanistan.

Using their grassroots strategies and holistic approach, AIL now serves 350,000 women and children each year through its training programs, Educational Learning Centers, schools and clinics in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since 1996, over 6,700,000 Afghans have benefited from AIL’s education and health programs.

In 1996, Toc and Sakena worked together to form Creating Hope International. CHI works on behalf of AIL to prepare grant proposals and reports for existing grants from companies that support the work of Sakena and AIL. The Afghan Institute of Learning funds all its programs from private and corporate donors. Organizations like Nike, the Oprah Network, and Abbot have allowed AIL to continue their important work for the Afghan women and children.

Two interesting and dedicated women, two nonprofits that do great work. I learn more everyday, and I only become more impressed....

Autumn is a' coming......

On September 2nd, I noticed a funny thing.

Our firebush by the deck was starting to have a reddish tinge in its leaves.

Over the next couple of days, flickers of color started to pop up in singular trees among the forests of green.

Fall is here in the 'up north' country.

Today, the Sunday before Labor day, I saw the oranges, red, and golds beginning to creep along in earnest among the tree population.

Wow! I'd heard from a number of people that Northeners love their summers, even if they are short. And this summer the grumble has been "what summer?" since it's been rainier and cooler than normal. But I'm only now starting to realize how fleeting and brief summer really is......