Starting Somewhere

"You should journal"
"Yea, its a good idea."
I'm in the kitchen at the farm I work at. Sally and Rob are my employers and full enablers of my frequent escapades- the most present not excepting.
"So are you still going to Uganda?"
"I told them I'm good for it, but I'm not sure how certain they are that its happening yet."
"That would be so cool!"

One of the reasons I love working for Sally is that she loves to live vicariously through my escapades. Another is that she has a fantastic taste in books. I frequently borrow them from her and had just borrowed a memoir based in parts of Africa that I've since finished. I've also since found out that the organization I'm working with is certain of going to Uganda. I'm going to be in Africa.

"Do you write?"
"yea, sure. I like to write."
The stranger asking me is a man I've struck up conversation with in a line to get passport/visa photos back from London Drugs Photo department.
"I spent six months in South America. Wouldn't have gotten some of the places i got to hadn't it been for the help of Missionaries that lived down there. Wrote a journal and kept a photo log..."
He pulls a yellow hardcover from his bag.
"I happen to have one on me co-incidently. Not like you need to get published or anything. Although if you want to put out a thousand bucks and push it off to all your friends... It's more the fact that I wouldn't have remembered half of what i saw and did had i not kept this kind of record of it."
The Hardcover with this man's name pasted on the front Somehow doesn't set thoughts of glory and fame rushing my mind. I hardly consider writing a best seller. Naming it "A Long way Under" to steal popularity from another franchise doesn't even tickle my consiousness. But He's right and I know it.
"Take it as you will" The man carries on, "Advice from a stranger!"
I wouldn't have thought much of it if he were giving financial advice, but in this case...
"Thanks, I'll take it."

Truth is, if there are two things that consistently want more time in my life it is reading and writing. I love them both, but both tend to take a lot of time and effort. Fortunately excuses havn't stopped me altogether.

From the London Drugs I get back on the subway. I'm in vancouver en-route to the Philippine Consulate where I am to (hopefully) start processing a visa.
The next stop drops me across the street from my destination (I love the new vancouver translink service), but the elevators confuse me. I see about six of them, but see no buttons for service. I watch someone else figure out where the single button is and follow them onto the lift, hoping that i will inherit a brain quickly that will get me back to the bottom once i get to my floor.
I don't know what floor the consulate is on, so i start at the first and work through the sixth with no success. I skip straight to the fourteenth where, of course, i find it.
I need a bank statement. I'm missing a bank statement. If I want a visa, i need a bank statement. I can do that. I just need to find my bank and have them print it one off for me.
"Did they tell you if there was a minimum amount that you need to have in your account?" a Filipino girl behind me in line asks.
"I didn't think to ask, i guess they just want to know that you're not poor."
I start to be concerned about this on the way out. I'm not poor am I?
The Filippino girl and her friend catch me up in the elevator.
"Did you ask them about a minimum?" I ask non-chalontly.
"They said there is no minimum"
"Apparently you can be poor and still go!" her friend adds jokingly.
"Actually, it never used to be this much hassle to get a visa." they muse "I'm pretty sure you can still show up at the airport and get the minimum visa extended right there"
"Yeah, you know, in case you meet someone on the plane." friend says with a wink.
Philippinos; forever matchmaking.

I'm not sure if my transfer is expired, but the transit cop doesn't stop me so I make a stop in central vancouver looking for my bank. I am really enjoying the translink.
There is every other branch of bank. Each one gets its own castle. I immagine mine on the outskirts in a tiny outclassed stuccod two floor. I look for an internet cafe. Google maps could find me a branch. A printer could print off a statement. There are many coffee shops. There are no computers. When every Black Tie carries a Blackberry and every student an i-phone I guess it would be reduntant for all but this out-of-towner.
I find the Vancouver Public Library and immediately want to live in vancouver.
Six floors of research and best-sellers with every other nook and cranny visible through glass walls from the deviding court-walk that intersects the building at an angle are a draw like rain to earth.
Sometimes there is computers with printers or internet access at public libraries, but i find no success when the computers are geared for research only. My search continues.
I enter a ICBC to ask a teller if she knew where my bank was. The client a till over overhears my question and helps me out.
"About 5 blocks down."
There are street performers everywere. Some are doing Christmas numbers, others not. All of them are good. Most of them have good charitable causes. few of them get my time. None of them get my money. But I wish you a rich generous business man sometime today.
I get to my bank at a jog and discover that my bank gets a castle as well, and even has a moat to boot. I enter to find the friendliness I'd come to expect at my home branch. The cutest girl the company has working for them prints me out a statement and deposits a check for me at the same time.
"Do you need anything else" I immagine her saying.
"Do you have a phone number?" I immagine me saying.
Time to go.

Back on the Translink. Back at the consulate. More well-humored Philippinos. This time one takes a picture of me with her friend. Apparently the notion of a tall blond white guy going to visit their country makes a Kodak moment. I love these people. They don't even ask you to laugh at their jokes.
I'm sent back onto the street to get an express mail envelope so they can send me my passport and visa by mail. By the time I'm done everything my planned schedule is set back at least an hour.

When I took the ferry over in the morning i rode with Graham. He works for a shipping company and we shared a coffee and tech talk for the trip; his paid time and my paid ride. He said he would shoot for the five back. I said I'd shoot for the 3. Turns out both our days went later so I didn't get his company back. I was a little more dissapointed because I knew my friends Werner and Steph were coming back on the 3. I would have felt the brunt of a twisted fate had not Werner and Steph missed thier ferry by five minutes and provided company for me after all.

Back. Retrieve skateboard from the bushes- in the dark. Skate back to my car parked in church parking lot. Pick up Steph and Werner. Go to a movie. No writing today. Maybe next week.

18 days to lift off.