I'm going home!!

It's September 3, a big day for me - I'm sitting in the Guayaquil airport at gate #8, waiting for a flight to take me to Canada. I arrived here nearly 7 months ago, and the time has come for a visit home, to visit family and friends, fit in a trip to the dentist to fix my broken tooth, and most important of all - meet my grandaughter!!!! Elly is now 3 months old, and we think it's high time that she met her other grandma - "abuelita" as they say here.

It has been a whole new experience preparing for this trip, it's all backwards this time. All of the other 8 times that I have left here it's been with great pangs of sadness, as I said goodbye to my friends in Bastion, knowing that it would be a year before I saw them again. This time I was able to say - see you in 3 weeks! And that was nice. And it's so exciting to look forward to being home in Canada and seeing everybody there. But then it will be time to come back, what will that feel like? But let's not think about that right now!!

And the culture shock as I return to Canada - it's usually an issue even after 3 weeks away, I can't imagine what it's going to be like after 7 months. And what will it be like to not have the continual noise and chaos that is part of life in this land? And what if it's cold???

It will be a busy 3 weeks, I think, lots of catching up to do with family and friends. But it will be good, and I"m really looking forward to the time.

Now if American Airlines can just break with tradition for once and keep to schedule......wouldn't that be nice!!