I woke up early yesterday to check the status of my flight to London. It was cancelled. Now, I was half expecting it but thought that, by some miracle, it would be flying. So, I began to unpack my half-packed suitcase. Nte kibazo (I never spell that correctly). So, I began the long wait on the phone with Air Canada where - after 45 minutes - the woman said "I hope you're sitting when I tell you this." May 1st!!!! That was the earliest flight out of here and that was just to London. She managed to also get me on a flight to Kigali but a later one as my original one was full. Great. Okay. Only waited an hour and a half for all of that. Whoo hoo. Except then she called me back to inform me that because I originally bought two tickets (instead of one ticket all the way through), I'd have to book my London-Nairobi-Kigali flight on my own. Sigh. Two hours later it was settled. I'd leave May 1st. Okay...no big deal. Just will have to adjust some timelines for workshops I'd scheduled before I left. There is nothing I can do about it. And I can get to the CBC Reads Book Sale which happens to be one of my favourite times of year. Silver lining, right?
And now I'm listening to the radio and checking the Air Canada website and wouldn't you know it? The flight to London is on time. I missed it BY A DAY!!!! (Secretly I wouldn't be sad if it, too, was cancelled......okay, well not really. I'm sure many people just want to get home.) From all the stories I've heard, I feel lucky. I'm at home, with my boxes of clothes out of storage, I have electricity and friends and family and bagels. Plus I can continue putting television series onto my new, fancy external hard drive. (Which, by the way, is one thing every volunteer should do before they leave for a placement).
And so, it will be another 10 days before I can share with you adventurous stories of flying maggots, water shortages, motorcycle rides, goat brochettes or the sheer comedy of living in a place where you try, but rarely succeed, to speak the local language.
***WANT TO HELP A RWANDAN LIBRARY?
If you can make your way to the CBC Booksale to get yourself a few good paperbacks (Can I recommend Pillars of the Earth or anything by David Sedaris?) then why not buy a book or two for the library in Rwanda? A few dollars for a good quality child's book and then a few more to mail it to me in Kibungo, and you can help with this project. Please contact me for details.
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