We've arrived!!! We made it to Abuja!!! It was a long set of 3 flights; we flew Northwest Air to Minneapolis, then Northwest again to Amsterdam and then finally KLM to Abuja. It was more than 38 hours from when we arrived at LAX for departure and then arrived at the front desk of the hotel. We held up well but are really glad that portion of the trip is over. In the airport in Amsterdam, we discovered the SAGE team from Singapore was also on our flight. Since we were going to miss the opening reception in Abuja, we felt like we were experiencing our own get acquainted event at the airport. When we arrived at the hotel, Benette's uncle and his wife, Ifeanyi and Leticia Umeh were already here waiting for us with bottles of water and phones that he had rented on our behalf. This morning he came back and took Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Strahn and Alberto to have some of our American dollars changed into Nigerian naira. The weather is warm and muggy but so far not too bad. It's been overcast so that has helped keep the temperature down.
Unfortunately it turns out that on our floor of the hotel we do not have internet connection so posting to the blog will have to be from the hotel lobby.
We are waiting for our first event to start. This morning we are hearing speakers on "Facing the Challenge of Global Youth" , "Youth Entrepreneurship, Education and Social Responsiblity ", and "Youth Entrepreneurship Development: The Missing Link between Policy and Action". We have discovered that Nigerians are a little more relaxed about time than Americans. Events that are schedule to start at 9:00am, really mean "about then" or a little later or a little later or maybe 2 hours later.
We will be posting more pictures as soon as Mrs. Harrison learns how to get the pictures out of her camera, onto the laptop in the right format for uploading to the blog. Stay tuned.
