Angola and Nepal

Last March I was quite close to visiting Nepal for a PDA assessment while enroute from Myanmar. Nepal has been engaged in turmoil between the Maoist communist “insurgency” and it monarchy for years. A few weeks before my departure for Myanmar, I received an email that conditions had deteriorated due to the upcoming constitutional elections that would determine the fate of the monarchy, and that we should defer my trip until a later time. The election was held and effectively ended the monarchy resulting in the King leaving the palace and retiring to a nearby house.

After reading that conditions had stabilized, an email to the country office in Kathmandu resulted in a green light to visit. They suggested the latter half of August which works out perfectly for me, since I am finishing the planning for a ten day assessment in Angola the first of August.

I seem to always be working the horizon, as I call it for trip planning. The analogy, for me, goes like this. The shoreline represents airline ticket in hand, bags packed and visa stamped in my passport (oh no! I’m running out of pages again in my passport!). The expanse of swells across the sea between me and the horizon are the trips in progress, e.g. Exactly what date should I arrive? Has my hotel reservation been completed yet? Am I going to receive my passport back in time from the visa courier agency? Beyond the horizon (with the masts poking above the line of time…) are the emails traded back and forth going like this: we will discuss it with our program persons, maybe in the fall. The Sahara is too hot during the summer! What is a PDA??? It seems my mind and email typing fingers rove to and from across this line of sight. The sun never sets, it seems…, but what a view!