The Players

I've been talking a lot about the mission of this trip but I haven't discussed the players...there are four of us traveling in total.

Jen- the founder of Sweet Sleep
Myself
Beth- a colleague of mine who was so moved by my original email, decided to jump on board.
Stuart- Sweet Sleep's VP of Operations who lands in Kampala on Dec. 29th

Jen, Beth and I all depart out of separate cities on Monday. Jen and I meet up in Brussels and then we connect with Beth upon arrival into Entebbe at about 11pm local time Tuesday night. We will stay the night at one of the mission houses in Kampala and then the next morning travel about 6 hours to Gulu.

There we will stay at a hotel in Gulu, Hotel Roma. Looking forward to seeing what our accommodations will be for 3 weeks, I'm guessing I won't be able to collect Marriott Rewards points during this stay. We are hoping we have electricity when we are at the hotel, but we'll be gone during most of the daylight hours when I suspect we'd have electricity...hard to say, guess we'll find out. It's an adventure.

People keep asking me if I'm excited, I guess it hasn't sunk in yet. I'm flying to San Diego tomorrow for less than 48 hours to go check out my friend Cameron's photography exhibit at Cafe 976 in Pacific Beach. He has had some amazing adventures in his lifetime and has some killer photography which you can check out at Offyonder. If I was a boy, I'd want to grow up to be him someday :)

Anyway, so at the moment I'm looking forward to the weekend in San Diego and then on Monday I can get excited about Africa. Though today as I was driving to Radnor Lake for a hike, I did yell in the car "OMG I'm going to Africa...I'm so excited".

Aside from this trip being a moving and powerful one, I suspect there will be a bit of humor laced into the mix. I joke with Jen a lot about how can we be friends, because these are the only things we have in common:

Both the oldest of four
Both heart TJMaxx, Shoes, Purses, Baja Burrito, and Reese's PB cup blizzards

In fact tonight, we had Baja Burrito, stopped at TJMaxx, saw Inviticus and then attempted to go to DQ, but they were closed so we had to settle on Wendy's Frosties. May I recommend you all go see Inviticus, I really want to learn more about Nelson Mandela, what an amazing man...if only we all could learn how to forgive like he did.

I promised myself this entry wasn't going to be deep, so I'll save Nelson Mandela for another time.

I really wanted to talk more about the four of us on this trip and our personalities....but I'm tired, so I'm going to leave you with these few funny dialogues between Jen and I.


This summer leaving the Dairy Queen (which when we go we always get small Reese PB cup blizzards)
Jen "man these are so good, I wish we could get them bigger"
April...."pause"..."you can it's called ordering a medium or a large"

About two weeks ago over dinner discussing what to bring on our trip to Africa:
April- "ooh should I bring condoms"
Jen- tilted head with "really?" look on her face
April-"not for me silly....you know to pass out to help prevent the spread of HIV"

Last week-
April- "So I read Gulu has the highest concentration of aid organizations in one area"
Jen-"uh huh"
April- "This changes how I'm going to pack....hellooooo cute Australian, British, German, I don't care where your from aid workers"

This morning-
April- "Did you notice my rainbow colored luggage straps?"
Jen- "Yes I saw them"
April- "That's my way of saying F-You to the Ugandan Government and their stupid Ban on Gays"
Jen- "I figured"
April- "I actually was going to use them anyway....but now that's what they stand for"


These dialogues probably aren't funny to most of you, but it's my blog.

Love you anyway,

ajg