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I’m off to India and Bangladesh to see some of the Grameen Foundation USA’s projects in action. Grameen Foundation USA works in partnership with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, pioneer of small loans to the poor, to fight poverty all over the world. It was established in 1997 to provide financing, technical assistance and technology support to the growing numbers of grassroots institutions that are successfully replicating Grameen Bank's success in countries as diverse as Malaysia, India, Uganda, Mexico and the United States.

A few months ago while visiting the Grameen Technology Center’s headquarters in Seattle, I was invited to attend their inaugural Grameen Connections trip. The trip has been organized for the benefit of donors so that they can see some of Grameen’s projects in India first hand. Never one to let a simple trip alone, I arranged to also visit the Village Computing project in Trichy and the Village Phone Project in Bangladesh. I will also be attending the Asia Pacific Micro-Credit Summit in Dhaka.

Early Monday morning I arrived at the Sacramento airport for my trip to India. On the way, my fiancé Susan and I sang our traveling songs and said a prayer for a successful and safe trip. Upon arriving at the airport, we were greeted by a ticket agent who said that the flight to San Francisco would be leaving very late, and that there was no hope that I would be able to make my connection. He suggested that we drive to San Francisco and board the flight there. Susan wonderfully agreed to drive me, and we set out on the two hour trip, driving through the pouring rain to the San Francisco airport. We took her two-seater car, so we cruised through the rush hour traffic in the carpool lane using the “two-seaters with two people ok” exception to the three passengers minimum rule. Susan madly dashed through the rain, with only limited visibility at times. It seemed like there was no way I could make the flight. When I arrived at the gate, boarding was already in progress. I didn’t have a seat assignment - nor did a dozen or so others - and we waited in the boarding area as the flight continued to board. I was getting nervous that there would be no more seats available, but at last my name was called and I boarded the ten hour flight to Tokyo.

The flight was very, very long, and we encountered huge amounts of turbulence early on. The plane was bouncing around like it was a yo-yo. It didn’t help that we were soundly over the water, many miles from the nearest possible emergency landing spot and a half dozen hours from our destination. I felt trapped in the plane, and knew that there was nothing I could do if it were to succumb to the pounding and fall from the sky. After a while, the ride smoothed out. It seemed like forever before we landed. I was never so happy to be on the ground in my life!