There and Back Again

So much to say, but so little reader-attention-span to not abuse!! I must be succinct (you can all stop rolling your eyes now!) here and see if I can fit it all in.

So – it’s February already, which is truly terrifying – where is the year going? Where is my life going? I turn 30 in a couple of weeks and as far as I’m concerned, that is officially OLD. So I’m bracing myself. My plan was to be skiing on my birthday, but due to our organization being audited, and my presence being required (my project is one of those being audited) I have to stick around and will have my birthday in Kampala. However, a few days later I am heading to Chamonix to ski and then spend another week rocking around Europe so I’m pretty excited about that. I just booked my flights and am making arrangements – can’t wait. Mum and Dad are currently skiing (well – Dad is skiing, Mum is nursing a broken arm) in Aspen with a bunch of friends. They have terrible weather and I think they are only getting to ski half the days, but the thought of them out on the slopes has given me itchy feet and I can’t wait to get back onto skis.

In the meantime though, I have plenty of work to occupy my time! I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions any more, but I did vow to try to work less this year. However – I think we can put that under the heading of ‘pipe dream’ at this stage.

Home leave continued to be brilliant. My parents had a party for my 30th while I was still home which was totally awesome and I got to go to the first day of the Australia Open (love me some tennis) which rocked (thank you Mike!) Other than that, the time was filled with usual things – lots of eating out, seeing friends, trying to stay cool in the heat. I seem to have improved at poker – I won a few games (pity we don’t play for money, hey?) and adored getting quality time with Phoebe, who has to be the naughtiest dog alive (Mum is making noises about boot camp – if only there were such a thing for recalcitrant dogs!) I also got up to Queensland for a week – a few days in Brisbane, running around madly seeing people, then Noosa for a few days, to say a final farewell to the house as my parents are planning to sell it. Sadly, the weather in Brisbane was insanely hot and humid – real Brisbane summer, and then there were storms and rain the whole time at Noosa – I got one quick run on the beach in between the rain and enough of a break for Kara and I to check out Hastings St., but it wasn’t a great goodbye to a house that I have adored for over ten years. There are so many happy memories in that house, so many people have visited, so many great times – it has been a haven many times, for me to escape to when everything was too much. So I am really sad to part with it…

Emirates put on its usual production of debacles (which reminds me that I haven’t written my nasty letter yet – I need to get on to that!) for my return, so it was delayed by a couple of days while they tried to get their act into gear. When I finally did get away, my flight from Melbourne was delayed by three hours (gave me time to buy a watch in duty free, which was a birthday pressie from the paternal family) so by the time we landed in Dubai, my connection to Entebbe had already left. More lack of customer service ensued, and finally, I was rebooked onto a flight leaving Dubai that night at 18.00 and going via Nairobi (there’s only one flight per day to Uganda). Luckily, before I got on the flight, eventually some bright spark at the airport noticed that they had scheduled me to arrive in Nairobi twenty minutes AFTER the connecting flight to Entebbe took off. Not such a good plan after all. So I wound up spending the night in Dubai and flying out to Entebbe the following morning. That was okay – I got to see Gabriele (known to us all as Mama) from the Afghanistan office, who was in Dubai (and meet the new National Director too). I haven’t seen Mama since I left so that was all kinds of awesome and I loved catching up on the news. And then I finally made it back to Kampala – two days late!

So now I’m up in the north again – Kitgum today (up close to the Sudanese border). I have a week or so traveling around monitoring the landmines project (plus a little School Feeding in Pader) before heading to Soroti to check on the flood response. I can’t wait to get to Soroti – my friend Eli has relocated there from Gulu so she has a house I can stay in, and I can’t wait to see her. No more Soroti Hotel and two hours wait for dinner for me!

And on that note – I think it’s lunchtime….