Costa Coffee, Birmingham Airport. I can’t believe that I’m finally on my way to Bangladesh. As Practical Action’s Head of Communications I am not a frequent traveller. We have communications staff in each of our offices who do a fantastic job, and as local people they are much better placed than I am. But we have a number of major new pieces of work in Bangladesh of global significance, so I’m going to spend a couple of weeks working with the local teams to develop plans for the next few years.

When I do travel, I do so with mixed emotions. I am really excited at the prospect of seeing our work in the field – we read so much about it, that it to see it in the flesh in always exciting. But I hate being a burden on our local team, so there’s always great pressure to ensure that every minute is used as effectively as possible. On a personal level I hate being away from my young family. And then there’s the journey itself … at time of writing we’ve not got off to a good start. The flight is an hour and a half late due to fog in Dubai (ironic given that it’s pouring down and freezing here!), which means I may have to sprint to make my connection … but let’s wait and see.

Hopefully more entries coming soon. I’ve promised to test the boundaries of new technology so look out for tweets, photos and videos if everything goes to plan!

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 1:07 pm and is filed under Bangladesh, Field reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.