Sunday 6 Jan 18.30 GMT 

Dear Bill,

You may perhaps have noticed that I was not on frequency this morning. The reason? I was still asleep. Why?
Because I went to bed very late after a lovely and most interesting dinner party in our home.
What follows is a bit of Rotary history, which, I thought, I might share with ROAR.

 

In 1989, shortly after I assumed my responsibilities as District Governor, I welcomed an RF ambassadorial  young lady student from Ghana,
whose name was Joyce Boye. Under the (no longer existing ) 3-year program of Freedom From Hunger,  she started her studies at the well-known McGill University.
I was her counselor but that was a little difficult in the first year for obvious reasons, so a member of the Verdun (part of Montreal)  Rotary Club by the name of Al Hyland,
was very kind to temporarily take my place.

 

In 1992, Joyce's last year, there were alarm bells in that it was discovered that Joyce's liver was finished and a desperate search was made for a  transplant liver.
Her mother flew over to be with her. Very luckily a suitable liver was found fairly soon and a transplant operation was performed in the Royal Victoria Hospital,
part of McGill. It has proved to be a great success. Later the medical experts divulged that the liver, for sure, was affected by the anti-malaria drugs that Joyce
had swallowed in Ghana over many years. She was told that she could never return to Ghana again!

 

Note-worthy here is that for this temporary resident there was no Canadian medicare insurance for this type of event  but the Quebec Government gracefully waived
all charges! Meanwhile the study clock was put back two years!. The RF let it be known that they were not going to fund Joyce beyond three years, a decision
which, at the time, we found a pretty harsh one. Undauntedly, the Clubs in the District went into fund-raising gear while the 1993 District Governor John Murray decided
to withdraw $10,000 from the District Fund! Great man! Every member approved. 

 

Joyce (who actually has the lovely African name of 'Ashami') completed her studies successfully, wrote a thesis which (witnessed by me) she defended successfully
and so she earned a PhD in food science. We had a great party at our home. Meanwhile she had married a Ghanaian man, Kobi, who already  was a chemical engineer
in his own rights and he, successfully, also went for his doctorate at McGill.

 

Joyce found very quickly employment in the Canadian Government and  now she is high-up in one of the Government's laboratories and already she has been in important
centres of the world to attend conferences. She still takes her anti-rejection drugs and she is checked regularly but doing fine.

Kobi works for a private chemical engineering firm and and he too needs to travel.

 

This handsome, very intelligent couple was at our home and of course we talked a great deal about the plight of Africa and, lately Kenya. We click so well in that I spent
32 (years) of my working life in Africa and know some of the problems.

Voila, my sleep-in.

 

End of story.

73's

VE2GTI 

 

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                        That's all for this week,

                           73 de Bill g4yze.