Long Travels

Wow, what a long day! I am on the Tarmac in Istanbul, Turkey at the moment. When leaving Ottawa on Friday we learned that our flight would be delayed by two hours which then meant that our connections would be impacted as well. The end result meant flying from Frankfurt, Germany to Istanbul, rather than going to Brussels. The change had meant for a longer day and a little stress which our gang handled quite well. We narrowly got on the plane in Istanbul due to some mix up with the tickets and once we got on board they have called for a doctor on the flight. We have approximately a 7 hour flight remaining to get to Uganda and we are now 22 hours into our travel.
Needless to say the whole gang is in good spirits despite being very tired as the other common denominator is that we are also working with a 8 hour time zone difference. We are all certainly looking forward to arriving in Uganda and retiring this evening. The time zone impact to me is six and a half hours. I took advantage of this tonight when I called home to wish my little girl a happy 9th birthday. It was great to hear her voice as I find that when you travel you find lots of things to remind you of home. It could be the movie on the plane or simply seeing other kids. I was real pleased to hear that when she blowed out the candles on her cake she wished for my safe return:)
The introductions to the safety videos are in three languages and is clear by the passengers that we are on our way to Uganda. It was great to see the warm smiles of the Ugandans in the airport and it immediately brought back memories of my travel to Ghana. I am really looking forward to meeting our partners and working them over the course of the next two weeks. It is currently 24 degrees Celsius there and 9:30pm, a welcoming change to Ottawa's -24. My partner and I will be visiting three credit unions in total. We will also have the next weekend off and we will be traveling to Murchison Park. If you google the park, as I did, it looks quite spectacular. I plan to take a boat tour up the river and snap a lot of pictures. In Mole Park last year I had the rare opportunity to see free roaming elephants and other wildlife. It would be great if I can get to see some hippos.
Well we are finally moving to the runway, I will be reporting tomorrow on our arrival.
Cory


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