My OLPCorps '09 experience was a one in a lifetime opportunity for me as friends were made, new tricks learned, experience gained, etc. The 10days spent in Kigali helped me understand people as there were 30 other teams there. I bonded with a lot of corp members but the CUNY team Ghana(Oliver & Derek) were the closest as we had lots in common and could relate to almost everything.
My deployment came to an end mid-September which was way past the expected timeline the team anticipated. Had high expectations for the deployment but didn't achieve most of what the team set out to achieve as the laptops were not released by customs till the OLPC paid about $3000, there was little or no support from our local partners, some of the kids didn't respond the way we anticipated. We made it after 12weeks instead of the scheduled 8weeks no thanks to the bottlenecks we had.
All teams where required to send a member to Boston for summit where each team talks about their lessons learned, sustainability of the project, deployment ups and downs as well as moving forward. It was also an opportunity to meet up with old friends. I was the member that had to go to Boston with all expense paid by the OLPC considering i wrote the proposal and was much more on ground through out the deployment. Had to get a visa to the United States which i was refused for the 1st time for reasons i can't fathom, finally got my visa the following week after Nia Lewis sent word to the Consular who in turn put in a good word for me.
A few weeks later i'm on a plane to the Boston from Abuja, 12 crazy hours with 2 stops, 1 in Dakar and the other in JFK, New York. Was gonna ditch the flight to Boston and take another the following day so i could attend Oliver's birthday party but my bubble got burst cos it would cost me $150 or so to change the flight. Got to Boston and kinda found it hard to locate the hotel i was going to be staying even though it was right in front of me..lol.
Had a great time in Boston and headed to NY to hang out with my buddies Oliver and Derek as well as old friends O-Mog and Yinka. even bumped into an old fling of mine on her birthday. Now i am back in Nigeria getting my hustle on.
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