would like to go home now

yesterday, i had one of those days where i wanted to have my own car, the yellowpages to find someone to repair my leaking cooking gas hose, and a taste of winter to cool me down from the tropical heat.

the key to getting over that hump of what i suppose could be described by some as culture shock, was to have a serious in-the-bed nap and go for a run once the heat of the day had passed.

part of my frustration comes from the fact that although i have a few small projects that i am working on (including writing up a research report that is taking me far too long, but i am enjoying), i am beginning to get slightly stir crazy and need to have something that is mine, that i can accomplish, and that will show that i did something during my time in liberia.  it is a bit of a challenge in a city like monrovia, where you often have to do a little digging to figure out how to do more than go to the regular expat haunts and hang out by the pool or beach and the easiest way to go about this would be to find a short term consultancy so that i can have evidence of living in liberia on my cv (because we all know a person's value is based entirely on their cv in some circles...).

but then i am reminded that soon enough, i will have a job and i will too busy to sip my coffee into the morning hours while watching episodes of tv shows i usually don't have time for or reading book after book sitting poolside.  ups and downs, pros and cons, are always there, their content just shifts with time and location.

deep breaths

after moaning about not knowing what i should be when i grow up, recently some options have materialized.  my recent flurry of job applications has resulted in 3 job interviews this week.  i've only heard back from 1 of them and i have the option of moving to azerbaijan if that were to tickle my fancy.

and it might.  it is just that i am still not really clear on what my next move should be.  and yet i am also perilously aware that this indecision can turn into paralysis.*  but so many factors need to be weighed.  salary, contract length, career direction, my interest in the roles, levels of responsibility, distance from the people i love.

more than anything, i am wondering if i am ready to relocate after coming to liberia just 2 months ago.  and after another few months in another location, if i will be ready to pick and leave again.  perhaps i could do it for a year or so, but the idea of having a home base once again is rather appealing.

but what is equally appealing is more field-based experience and more travel and adventure (even if adventure means sitting by my pool in tropical heat in december).  and i keep thinking it is a mutually exclusive decision, but maybe i need to think more creatively and explore ways to achieve both a sense of home and stability with the challenge and excitement of 'the new.'

i sense a few pro/con lists in my immediate future.  and more than a few reminders of deep breaths and that this decision, like all that have preceded it, is not the last i will make and that it is just as much ok to say no as it is to say yes.

* paralysis is a rather tricky word to spell without spellcheck.

um, hi

so, it's been awhile.

not quite sure why, really.  i just didn't have it in me to write and i was generally sick of listening to myself go on about 'i don't know what i should be doing,' 'i wish i knew what to do with my life,' or 'i sure hope i figure out the next step soon.'

now, i wouldn't say that i have quite figured out the answers to any of those questions, but i have made a pact to write twice a week.

and well, i am moving to liberia without a job, so i have this suspicion that i might have extra time on my hands for doing things like writing.

this return to the blogging world means that i will also be reading more blogs too, which i am equally as excited about!

what do i want to be when i grow up?

my dream job would be an expert (whatever that means) in foreign aid/development working within an academic institution so that i could a) teach, b) do qualitative research, c) write papers, and d) do speaking events where i could talk about how aid has not yet worked and work with other experts to brainstorm ways to make the field of development more effective.

in keeping with this dream job, i have added two blogs to my blogroll over there on the right, Good Intentions Are Not Enough (and they're not) and Aid Watch (whose website says, 'just asking that aid benefit the poor' and is partly written by William Easterly, who should really consider supervising my future phd.  i mean, if he knows what is best for him!).

here i am

but what am i doing?  where am i going?  what do i want?

i wish i knew!

i am feeling restless and like i am not sure what direction i want to head in or what direction i should be headed in.  i am holding out hope that the universe is going to show me the way on this one.  i am not one to have faith that things just work out without doing the hard work and putting yourself out there, but i have done some of the work and have asked for what i want and i am going to try and have faith that the universe will point me in the right direction.  or that it will point the right opportunity in my direction.

part of my current stuggle is that i am a little bored with the state of my life.  it is good, don't get me wrong, but i feel as though i might be loosing my edge, loosing what makes me interesting and unique.  and i am not quite sure what to do about getting that back apart from trying to find a job outside of the country.  but then in reality, would i be ready to make that sort of change?  i wish i knew.

sheesh.

changing winds

(december 7, 2007)

i have never thought that international development had the answers to all the world’s problems and i have always been one of its strongest critics, as evidenced in my dissertation title Foreign Aid, Global Governance, and Compromised Sovereignty: The Corruption of Foreign Aid by the Neo-Imperial Agenda. but i still knew that it was what i wanted to do. or what i wanted to try and do.

and now i am here, in sub-saharan africa working with an organisation that does development work and i have a real job where i get to do a specific type of development work with all those buzz words ‘capacity building,’ ‘awareness raising,’ ‘community sensitisation,’ ‘sustainability,’ etc, etc (kenyans insist on repeating etc and actually pronouncing each letter – e.t.c, e.t.c and it drives me mad every time i hear it). and i am no longer sure it is what i want to do.

my belief in ‘development’ has been shaken and although i see a lot of wonderful things happening in this country, i am just not sure it is what i should be doing. what is a western canadian woman with a bunch of letters behind her name doing in east africa where she is frustrated daily with the lack of street lights, awful customer service, and work ethic of others around her? i am just not sure at the moment.

i love parts of my job. i would say that i love most parts of it. but i am not sure that it makes me happy enough to continue doing it. i will stay for now and i am quite proud of my project that i developed and am not implementing and i want to see it through. in doing so, i am gaining experience that will be valued where ever i go next and that i could not get through any other channel. but i am just not convinced of how long i can keep doing it.

i have really enjoyed my time in nairobi and have learnt so much and met so many people. my life is here right now, but i am not sure how happy i am about that. i am looking forward and i know that i need to find a path or a new goal, but i haven’t come up with anything concrete. then i wonder if i shouldn’t stay put because there will be some opportunities that arise very soon that could change how i feel about what i do and where i am. but how long do you wait for such things? i feel like perhaps i should stop living on foundation of the future and instead enjoy exactly where i am.

this has been on mind a lot recently and i have been applying for other jobs. the ironic part of it all was that i went to a cocktail party last night that involved far too many dirty martinis, tequila shots, and vodka sodas (really, a splash of soda with lemons and vodka – why are we allowed to keep mixing our own drinks after we’ve had a few?!) and i thought that i saw death on the horizon this morning but i got up and went to work, where i lasted a total of an hour and a half. and most of that was on facebook. after a nap (more of another night’s sleep than a nap), i decided to complete a job application and had to laugh to myself when i had to demonstrate how i have an ‘excellent record of attendance and punctuality’ whilst writing it at home because i was too hung over to stay at work. such class.

i am so lucky to be going home right now, not only to see my fam, my ladies (and gents), and have a proper canadian christmas, but to gain some perspective and think about life in nairobi outside of nairobi. 4 days!