Advertisement
Published: November 12th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Morning Visitor
Beautiful songbired or 5:30am annoyance? Greetings from Rwanda! All is well here and I am fine. My work is going well and I am actually ahead of schedule. I’ve had some great meetings so far with another one scheduled for Friday afternoon.
Friday evening there’s a dinner party at Jennifer’s house. There are five Americans visiting Rwanda at the moment so we’re having a get together. I’ll meet more co-workers from North Carolina that I haven’t yet met there here.
My first day here, I gave three bags of candy to the receptionist. They are big fans of chocolate here and all US visitors bring different selections. Taking advantage of post-Halloween sales, I brought big bags of M&Ms, Hershey bars, and Snickers. Not long after I gave the candy to the receptionist, one of the house staff brought around a neatly designed tray of chocolates for everyone to pick from. He had separated the selections and lined up all of the packages. He went around to everyone in all three buildings - it was very nice of him. There must be another American here today since there was a tray of Hershey’s Kisses and miniatures on offer this morning.
I found a great
Chinese restaurant last night and had a nice dinner. It was open air and a lovely evening to sit outside. There was so much food that I have lunch for the next two days as well.
Many of you know the story of the sheets, but for those of you who don’t, here’s a recap. A few days before I was schedule to leave for Rwanda, I got an email asking me to bring over two sets of king size sheets, one off-white/cream and one light blue and to buy these sheets for $20 each. There were just a few problems with that. You can’t buy anything for $20 and especially not king size sheets. Also, they are bulky, heavy, and would never fit in my suitcase. Through a series of emails, I got permission to spend up to $40 per set so two nights before I left, I went shopping. After three stores, I found ivory and light blue sheets for $35 per set. They indeed wouldn’t fit in my suitcase so I had to bring an extra carry-on bag. At RDU, the TSA person opened the bag and gave me a really funny look. Once I got
here, I found out the person who wanted them was on a two month leave! So, there was another series of emails and multiple hand-offs, but she now has the sheets, her daughter will get a nice wedding present, and I got my money.
Not much excitement yet, but the weekend looms ever closer! I have confirmed my gorilla safari and will get picked up from the hotel at noon for the three hour drive to the park. Here are a few photos of the trip so far - hopefully, there will be many more exciting ones next Monday!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 53; dbt: 0.0766s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Diane & Luz
non-member comment
Can't wait for more pics!
Glad to hear you're settled in and doing well We're looking forward to pics from the gorilla safari!