Over two years. February 8, 2012

My third trip. Wow. So much has changed over two years. That first year I was an aerospace engineer in Arizona. The next year I was homeless and jobless, in transition between Arizona, Texas, and Canada. This year I’m a professor in PEI.

The first year when I went to pack, I had all warm clothes to choose from and had to remember a sweater for the plane. The next year I was living out a suitcase that had wedding, winter, and summer clothes. This year I had to figure out how to get to the snow-covered airport with as few clothes as possible to stay warm, but conserve suitcase space once I arrived in Kenya.

The first year preparations were full of anticipation and excitement. I knew my Uncle had a dramatic change because of Mikinduri, and I was really curious what would cause that. The second year, I knew how great it was going to be, but was so busy planning for the next week, I didn’t have time to think about how excited I might be. This year I wasn’t excited.  I became perturbed about how not excited I was, until I had a realization. It’s not that I wasn’t looking forward to the trip, because I was still counting the days. Mikinduri had become so much a part of my everyday life once I moved to PEI, that it was just a given. Since I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen, I realized my previous excitement was really tied to the unknown.

It’s neat to reflect how much the people in my life have changed as well. The first trip, my sister had just got engaged. The second, she got married. Two weeks before the third trip, she had a baby. In only two years, while I feel my life has taken an entirely new direction, I can see what a 180 flip Linds’ life has become.

These ‘deep’ philosophical thoughts can only be because we are in hour 22 of flights. Seriously! We left at 5pm from Charlottetown, 90 minutes to Montreal, only 20 minutes between landing and boarding the next plane, 7 hours to Brussels, a brief 1 hour layover, then 12 hours to Nairobi. (No that’s not a typo. The final flight is 12 hours!) We boarded this flight at 9am local time, and while I knew we were only a few hours time difference from Nairobi and that we landed at 11:30pm, I couldn’t fathom how could spend an entire day on a plane! Around hour 8, as I saw the sun setting I started to clue in. Luckily I procrastinated the database work for statistics so have had plenty to do on the plane!

 Also since my good buddies Nancy and Karen didn’t come this year, I became the veteran Mikinduri-ite. That means I have been ‘herding’ the other teammembers around the airport to make sure we all arrive safely. This has been quite an easy task, but it dawns on me how different this trip will be without Karen, Greg, Nancy, and Bill.

  I will end this blog the same way I started it – The first year I travelled on my own, enjoying the club lounges with my gold airline status. The second year, I travelled alone, nearly a hobo. This year I travelled in a team of 18. That sums up quite well how my life has changed in two years.

 Quick Blip: Life has changed a lot in three years, not just for me. Oh, and 22 hours of flights tend to cause delirium and unnecessarily deep thoughts!

Check out the pics here: http://mikinduri.com/tripblog