Monday, July 13, 2009 7:23:49 PM
Interesting meeting this afternoon...
This wasn't a "game changer" meeting, but I think some of you that believe that things happen for a reason will find this rather interesting...
It's a semi complex story, so hang in there, I'll try to make it brief; it's a two-part story.
First of all, I had a lot of problems getting my visa to travel to Nigeria in January, most of which was my thought that I could walk in at pick it up that day. While I was there I met a young woman with a very young child who was trying to get her visa so she could catch an 8pm flight. They were less than helpful and a few of us started talking to ease the frustration. She was an incredibly nice woman, very patient, but you could tell the stress of dealing with a flight time that was closing in with a 2 yr-old that was wanting to get out a run around was catching up to her. We both left and came back on Monday to finalize our Visas and we chatted some more about trips we both had coming up. We were successful in getting our paperwork taken care of and parted ways. When Dr. Pandey and I got to London I mentioned that there was a possibility that she would be on our flight to Abuja and sure enough when we got to the gate she and her son were sitting there waiting for her connection. We laughed about meeting again in London, talked for half an hour and said our goodbyes.
Skip to last night... I've been connecting with a lot of people in Africa, many in Nigeria, to develop relationships that might be helpful for us in the future. Last night I ended up with a number of new "friends" in Abuja or are Nigerians, one of which asked me about the projects that I've written about on my page. I told her a bit about it, we exchanged a few emails and she told me she was moving to Abuja in a few weeks and asked how she could help me. We decided that it would be beneficial if we got together at the GDPAU offices today and set up a meeting.
I got to the meeting a bit late because I was chatting with John Sovitch and then stopped in to see Dr. Pandey, so by the time I got to the conference room she and Betty, GDPAU's Administrator, had already had a nice chat about a lot of Xechem and GDPAU items. When I walked in I looked at her and got the feeling that I knew her from someplace, but I just couldn't figure it out. For the next 10 minutes it bugged me until finally I just said, "OK, you look so familiar to me, have we met before?" She replied, "I was thinking that same thing, but I'm not sure..." We laughed and figured we'd come up with it eventually, I honestly thought she was someone that was in a bowling league my wife and I were in a few years ago, that's how far off I was. As I got to talking about Xechem, she looked at me and said, "the Nigerian Embassy and London! We were going to Abuja at the same time..."
Of course we had a pretty good laugh over the whole thing and how amazing things work out some times. As we like to say, there's a higher power working in our favor and while we have no guarantees, we know that we are heading in the right direction. As we discussed how she might be able to get involved she tells us that one of her aunts is the Nigerian Ambassador to Ireland, one of her aunts was a special assistant to former Nigerian President Obasanjo and other one is a close personal friend of Minister Dora Akunyili; in other words, there are a few contacts in the family.
What's it all mean? I have no idea, but I do know that it leads me to believe that the more contacts we have the more contacts that can help us we will have and it pays to be nice to a crying 2 yr-old in an airport...
Oh, and I was contacted by someone in Abuja over the weekend, seems I'm going to be heading back there sometime soon.
This wasn't a "game changer" meeting, but I think some of you that believe that things happen for a reason will find this rather interesting...
It's a semi complex story, so hang in there, I'll try to make it brief; it's a two-part story.
First of all, I had a lot of problems getting my visa to travel to Nigeria in January, most of which was my thought that I could walk in at pick it up that day. While I was there I met a young woman with a very young child who was trying to get her visa so she could catch an 8pm flight. They were less than helpful and a few of us started talking to ease the frustration. She was an incredibly nice woman, very patient, but you could tell the stress of dealing with a flight time that was closing in with a 2 yr-old that was wanting to get out a run around was catching up to her. We both left and came back on Monday to finalize our Visas and we chatted some more about trips we both had coming up. We were successful in getting our paperwork taken care of and parted ways. When Dr. Pandey and I got to London I mentioned that there was a possibility that she would be on our flight to Abuja and sure enough when we got to the gate she and her son were sitting there waiting for her connection. We laughed about meeting again in London, talked for half an hour and said our goodbyes.
Skip to last night... I've been connecting with a lot of people in Africa, many in Nigeria, to develop relationships that might be helpful for us in the future. Last night I ended up with a number of new "friends" in Abuja or are Nigerians, one of which asked me about the projects that I've written about on my page. I told her a bit about it, we exchanged a few emails and she told me she was moving to Abuja in a few weeks and asked how she could help me. We decided that it would be beneficial if we got together at the GDPAU offices today and set up a meeting.
I got to the meeting a bit late because I was chatting with John Sovitch and then stopped in to see Dr. Pandey, so by the time I got to the conference room she and Betty, GDPAU's Administrator, had already had a nice chat about a lot of Xechem and GDPAU items. When I walked in I looked at her and got the feeling that I knew her from someplace, but I just couldn't figure it out. For the next 10 minutes it bugged me until finally I just said, "OK, you look so familiar to me, have we met before?" She replied, "I was thinking that same thing, but I'm not sure..." We laughed and figured we'd come up with it eventually, I honestly thought she was someone that was in a bowling league my wife and I were in a few years ago, that's how far off I was. As I got to talking about Xechem, she looked at me and said, "the Nigerian Embassy and London! We were going to Abuja at the same time..."
Of course we had a pretty good laugh over the whole thing and how amazing things work out some times. As we like to say, there's a higher power working in our favor and while we have no guarantees, we know that we are heading in the right direction. As we discussed how she might be able to get involved she tells us that one of her aunts is the Nigerian Ambassador to Ireland, one of her aunts was a special assistant to former Nigerian President Obasanjo and other one is a close personal friend of Minister Dora Akunyili; in other words, there are a few contacts in the family.
What's it all mean? I have no idea, but I do know that it leads me to believe that the more contacts we have the more contacts that can help us we will have and it pays to be nice to a crying 2 yr-old in an airport...
Oh, and I was contacted by someone in Abuja over the weekend, seems I'm going to be heading back there sometime soon.
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