Leaving on a jet plane....tomorrow!

Hello hello!!

Well the big adventure starts tomorrow! I can’t believe how quickly the last couple months have flown by. April was jam packed with exams and the last couple assignments and essays, moving out of my student house (tear…) and going home to Thunder Bay for Arte’s big 50th last weekend.

My flight leaves tomorrow at 6 pm from Pearson in Toronto (flying KLM). There is one stopover in Amsterdam for 3-4 hours and then on to Entebbe, which is the major airport in Uganda. I get there around 8 pm Ugandan time on Sunday night. There is supposed to be someone meeting me in the airport (yay!!!) and my first night I’ll be staying in a hotel somewhere near to the airport.

My plans have changed a little bit for what I will actually be doing while I am there. Mid-march I found out that the clinic where I was going to be volunteering and doing my study is no longer able to take volunteers. So, now the first two weeks or so I will try out five different placements that are HIV/AIDS related and then from there will pick two or three that I would like to stick with while I am there. I am not really too sure what the placements will be like yet, so I guess I’ll find out when I get there. I will still be using this experience for my fourth year thesis, although I’m not sure in exactly what capacity yet. I will be keeping journals while I am there and will let my interests guide me and go from there in September!

I wanted to say HUUUUUGGGGGGGEE thank yous to everyone who made donations towards this experience. I was able to fundraise over $2500 which was a ton more than I had originally anticipated! This covered nearly the whole cost of the program fee which was amazing. And thank you so much to Mom, Dad and Lauren for their support for the trip. Also thank you so much to Uncle Ray, Auntie Michelle, Andrew, Eric and Stef who have helped me with a lot financially, with organizing and helping me sort out the little details, moving out, and for giving me a place to crash and food for the past little while! Also big thanks to the housemates (Andrea, Kristen, Jess and Heather) and all my other friends for listening to me banter on and on about being excited, etc. this past little while. Also Neil was able to provide me with a huge amount of medical supplies that I will be able to clinics while I am there – which is amazing! Finally thanks so much to Dr. Arratia for all the wonderful talks in your office (I look forward to many more next year), keeping me excited and motivated, and for all the help and support (academically and otherwise!).

I’ll try to update this site at least once a week or so. I really have no clue what the set-up will be so I’ll play it ear and see how it goes. I will have a cell phone there (in case anyone wants to call….haha) – I’ll post the number when I get it. Same goes for address. Otherwise, I think best way to contact me is through my hotmail account (leslielappa@hotmail.com). Again, not sure how often I’ll check it, but probably at least once a week. Thanks again for all the messages and best wishes. Much love. Cheers,leslie.