UNFPA
Americans for UNFPA
Jim Cowan

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Things I wish I'd taken more of:

Personal toiletry items. I left my toothpaste behind in one hotel and had to look hard the next day to get some more. Two small tubes of stuff like that, rather than one larger one, is a good idea.

Things I wish I'd actually had with me:

Antiseptic hand wipes. I didn't bring any of these. I was determined not to get any gastrointestinal illnesses during my trip, and really stuck to the peel it, boil it, cook it or leave it appoach to food. However, during long days on the road, wipes (borrowed from Peggy) were an additional barrier to having my trip ruined by illness. Next time I'll bring a big bag.

Maps: I never knew exactly where we were and where we were going, and I like to know this sort of thing.

Things I took too much of:

Clothes. You can get laundry done at any hotel. I took four sets of clothes - business casual for site visits, casual for safari and sightseeing, hiking for gorilla trekking, plus swimming gear for rafting, and I had several days supply of business casual and casual. Could have got by with fewer clothes and more use of laundry, and lightened my suitcase. This is important because we rarely stayed more than one or two nights at each place, so there is a lot of packing and unpacking to do.

Books. I took a lot of reading material and had almost no time for reading. If you can read in a moving vehicle (which I can't - I get sick) then you might need some.

DEET: I took two bottles and used a fraction of one.

Sunscreen: I took one medium bottle and used less than a quarter. I could have taken a smaller bottle.

I also took a mosquito net and never used it - even the poorest hotels had mosquito nets that I sprayed repellent on the netting in the early evening.

Other things I'd do differently:

Read the materials about the country and the organization before the trip. I was constantly struggling to figure out where we were and what we were doing next, and I never really got caught up on this. The pace on the trip was fast and I wasn't prepared for that. It was entirely my fault - the materials were available.

Read the materials about the sites before the site visits. Not always, but mostly, materials were available ahead of time, and really enhanced my understanding of the site and the work that was being done there.