Details, Details

My role in this organization has been interpreting Elizabeth's vision and goals into logistical plans and steps. Anyone who knows me well would atest that in this pond I am a duck on water. I love the component level of this project--from researching equipment, to figuring out itineraries. Booking our flights has been difficult for a number of reasons, but there is nothing like the sense of accomplishment that comes from seeing the email itinerary and knowing that one way or another we are locked into this trip.

Our most recent logistical adventures have revolved around getting a 60 lb printer to Ghana. This is the Shinko 1245 Dye Sub printer. We have chosen to take this printer with us because it can print an 8X10 in 30 seconds that will hold up for 100 years. This is will be invaluable given that there there is no good way of distributing the pictures we will be taking after the fact. We will be able to hand the family we just photgraphed thier picture with virtually no delay.

The machine is roughly the size of a small TV/VCR combo and is so dense that it comes with its own 40 lb Pelican case. That weighs in at a stunning 100 lbs with no other equipment in the case. The recent debate has been whether or not we can "pack" this printer and somehow carry it on the plane. However, none of the packs that it would fit in either under the seat or in the overhead compartments. Though carrying the printer on does eliminate the possiblity of the nightmarish "loss of baggage" scenario in which our sole purpose for going to Africa ends up somewhere far, far away from the people we are photographing, our flight to Ghana is non-stop so I think our chances for checking the Pelican case are as good as they could be (famous last words).

Today has been a great day for thinking about this up-coming trip on a very practical level because it was been 100 degrees and very humid in Louisville. I spent the morning and early afternoon doing yard work and was amazed at the physical tole it took on me. We checked weather.com and found the conditions to be almost identical in Ghana. There is something to be said for acclimatization! We went to the Barnes & Noble tonight to look at books on Africa as a starting point for research into the culture, etc. The first sentence in the book I was reading about Ghana referenced the comunity culture that is created by the need to get out of the house to escape the heat! I had to laugh.

From everything we have read the country sounds amazing. We are excited to struggle through all the necessary details to experience it and its people first hand. Until then, we contine "brick-laying" the plans and arrangemtns into place.