Today is the day: we commence our long way to “move the world“, the AIDS awareness expedition 2011. The starting day is also a day to bid farewell in Wolfsburg and Berlin, in Bad Camberg, Nizza, Cape Town and Norway. For almost four months we will live and work apart from our life partners, children, families and friends, for all of us not an easy decision and a daily challenge.
In Birkenfeld the mayor, Mr. Schebler, bids farewell to Sandra and Uwe from Unterfranken, a part of Bavaria. The parish priest, Rev Fr Possmayer wishes us well, luck and he bestows a blessing on us and the whole team. And last but not least a word of greeting from Rudolf Wukovich, president of “be your own hero e. V.“ concludes the farewell cermoney.
The day continues to be a long one: two hours flight from Frankfurt to London, followed by another 10 hours of flying to Vancouver. With the stop over of two hours we need more than 14 hours to reach our first goal. Our emotions are a mixture of excitement, melancholy and the feeling of responsibility. We would like to succeed in adding to the fight against HIV and AIDS in a meaningful way. Not easy to catch some sleep while flying against the time, but most of us are simply lost in different thoughts, interrupted from some dozing away in between.
It is late afternoon when we arrive in Canada, Lothar and Gudio are our welcome team, having been here since Friday to do some preparation for the cars. They are waiting for us at the VW centre of distribution in Canada.
We arrive at our hostel in the middle of the old part of Vancouver; take a bite before falling into bed and hanging on a last thought before dozing away: We have completed the first step in our adventure to “move the world”.
Filed under: Uncategorized, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Move the world, stefan hippler