Day 1

When you spend a day at the airport there is not much to say but see if you can pick out the 14 names of the AC travellers on this page one of our WLS program, work project and conference through via this Blog.
Day 1 – Best driver, Will Raham picked up and transported 6 weary bodies, part of the 14 person squad, (it was 6.30 a.m.), using one of the Appleby mobiles and transported the troops to the airport. With a tear in his eye he waved his half dozen travellers goodbye. It did not take long before “Mother” arrived and started to collect her prodigies into a group. Cliff (#15) was missing the journey but his brilliant package of medical donations was shared around for carrying. “Papa Zuke” sported another bag with 4 basketball rims and nets, another terrific donation but ouch so heavy. With the group gathered “Panama Don” was pied piper as he led the 14 to a very long check in line. 2.5 hours later we all had boarding passes and also heard that our flight was delayed 5 hours to 4.00 p.m. Mother had money vouchers for food so we piled into Swiss Chalet where surprisingly the “little gals”: “Hanoi, SunTan, Girly, Kitty, Sara and Jamz” seemed to contradict their petit frames by wolfing down the special of the day followed by cream topped sundaes. “McT and “Runner” were jealous as they picked through their chicken on spinach salads. Yummy! Noticeably Jamz and Co. were quiet after lunch. McT set off too many lights and buzzers at the body search and “Yeller” was laughing waiting to see if any other clothing would be removed from the hapless McT. On to the departure lounge and not a 3 hour wait but 5 hours….yes we started to load into the plane at 5.00 p.m. SunTan had somehow found a stress ball and was busy having a tennis competition against a glass wall which we all found challenging. Mother made the rules so that Panama Don using finesse beyond his stature scored 5/10 the best score. Strangely we were the only persons in that part of the airport. (You had to be there and it was a looooooongg day). “GAL” kept us amused with many stories and it reminded me of what a diverse group we had: Canadians – several, Vietnamese, Singapore, English, Scottish, to name the easiest (Papa Zuke still claims to be Czech). “Carlo Amigo” was first to board the plane. And then we waited. The plane left 6.32 p.m. exactly 12 hours from when Will picked us up at AC.
I promise future blogs will be less boring! AC-Bloggers!