Progress Report on the Boniface and Hamisi Project
December 14, 2000

Merry Christmas to all of you, and greetings from the small town of El Gouna, Egypt!

We're sorry for the long gap between reports, and we are sure you are all wondering what is happening with the Boniface and Hamisi project, which you have all so generously supported.

The reason for the delay has been difficulties in communication: on our part, because we've been sailing up the Red Sea with very few opportunities to access the internet, and on the part of Andrew, the oldest brother, who has only now managed to set up an internet account that will permit him to communicate efficiently with us. We had sent him a card, a fax, and a message through Kenneth at Plan International, who had helped set up an account for him.

We have had a wonderful response from readers to the dispatches describing the accomplishments of the first part of the project, and I'm very pleased to tell you that we have received more than $5000 in new contributions, making the total project fund in excess of $6000. My dad is still putting together the names and totals for me, so I will provide the particulars in a future update. Among the contributors are a young family with two small children who sent $1000 to cover the cost of Kitsao's surgery. A second family has also offered to contribute to those medical bills if needed. Several people sent in their "Mike Harris" refund cheques, and a group of young people at a school have also indicated they want to participate. This has been so heartwarming for us on Northern Magic, to see so many people sharing in this dream!

We have asked Andrew and his family to get together and make a priority list of educational projects that need to be funded. I have said that your interest is in funding education that otherwise they couldn't have afforded, such as a college course for one or two of the older brothers, who told me of their ambitions in this regard. I'll let you know as soon as they get back with more specifics of what they propose to do. In the meantime, all of the contributions remain in a special bank account my father has set up in Calgary. I have told Andrew we will reimburse him for the expense of e-mail communication with us.

I have included the e-mail we just received from Andrew yesterday.

If I don't get back to you before Christmas, please accept our warmest wishes for the merriest Christmas ever.

Diane Stuemer
S/V Northern Magic
El Gouna, Egypt

From: Andrew Thuva
Subject: our family, your family
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 10:40:08 -0800 (PST)

Dear Diane & Herbert,

Many thanks for the post card that you sent me in October.It was truly nice reading from you, and I instantly wished then that I had an e-mail address which would have enabled me communicate with you one month ago.

I must hasten to mention that I am now happy that I am able to reach you by way of this invention.

I had asked Kenneth on phone to get an e-mail address for me, but when he eventually did, I could not access it.I then decided to open a new address which I first used by sending a 'thank you' message to Mike and Esther Moghadam - remember the couple in Canada that sent a contribution of $200.00?Well, I could not send a message to you because I had not carried your address with me.

I am just wondering whether you might have sent any message to Kenneth for me other than that I should urgently open an e-mail address for ease of communication.If you have, I would rather you resend everything through this address, as it is proving to be extremely difficult for Kenneth and I to meet very often, perhaps because of the nature of our jobs.

My father is still not in the best of forms, and is still undergoing some clinical tests.The doctor's advice is that all the necessary tests are to be thoroughly exhausted before making the seemingly final inevitable decision of carrying out an operation.He obviously is a bit sceptical about our ability to see through the entire process of tests and operation, especially when he talked about my father having to be referred to the country's National referral hospital for further tests. His other option was to bypass some tests and carry out the operation, further clinical evidence notwithstanding.

To mention that someone had offered to carry this gigantic task of paying for the treatment of my father, was an overwhelmingly touching news to me, I will not know how exactly to thank that person even before anything comes into being.You are the only ones who can adequately express my sincere gratitude to him or her.

Boniface is very anxious to start school in the coming year and Mark is progressing well in his studies - now on holiday.

Magic, Hamisi's cow is also getting on well.I offered to provide it with free tap water until it starts being productive.

So how are you,Michael, Jonathan, and Christopher?How is Yemen? Are you still there?Hope you are all doing fine.What about my article - did anything come out of it, comments - anything.

Well,there are a half dozen people here who would like to use the computers.

Bye for now, and best of luck, ALWAYS!

WARM REGARDS,

Andrew Thuva.