It's 6:30 in the morning in Nairobi. And I'm still in Little Rock, where it's 9:30 at night. Dero and I were thwarted yesterday in our travel attempts because of snow in Atlanta. I know, right? If you're not from the South, you'll have a hard time appreciating how little snow it takes to bring everything to a screeching halt. Luckily, Pierre Ferrari was already in Atlanta and was able to catch the flight to Amsterdam that Dero and I would have missed had we boarded the plane from Little Rock. Both of us are parents, so being stuck in Atlanta for a day or two sounded like less than fun.
All is not lost, though. With much effort, we were able to change our travel plans, and we'll be leaving tomorrow afternoon and arriving (barring any other wintry weather) on Wednesday in Uganda, rather than Kenya. We'll get there a day before everyone else, and we'll have missed the field visits in Kenya, but this is certainly a case of better late than never. We still get to meet Heifer Uganda staff and spend two days in the field. I'm also looking forward to attending the meeting of the Africa Area Country Directors, which is scheduled for Sunday. We'll head to Kenya that evening, and Monday morning we'll accompany Pierre to his appointment with USAID officials.
A few good things have come out of this whole mess. For starters, I'm one step closer to being a more flexible person! And I now know that the top pockets of my travel pants are good for nothing. I lost my passport and boarding passes while going through the security line (recovered both, don't worry), and I about lost my phone several times. I'd not met Dero before yesterday, but I'd say yesterday was a crash course in team-building for us. I'm really glad I wasn't on my own, that's for sure.
