6 months later.

Well, it's been six months since I came back from Tanzania, and I'm pleased to say the experience is still with me. I was worried coming back into the UK's pace of life that I would very quickly forget the value of taking time to enjoy the little and the big things; forget how difficult life can be for some people. After the world stopped spinning, several weeks from getting back, I began to feel the need to question the effectiveness of financial aid; to question their government; OUR government, over how come people are still struggling to live a healthy life with limited access to healthcare and education after 53 years of supposed outside support. How to make sure that if aid is given to a country, that it reaches everyone who needs it; that all projects to attract funding are always realistically designed and relevant to the locals, rather than appearing to help while making life cushy for some and paying staff salaries which are high even compared to Western standards whilst living in a LEDC. Something that would teach me how to help those who address corruption, and encourage accountability and transparency: issues not restricted to LEDCs, I know, but issues that affect all of us wherever we are in the world, directly or indirectly; as recipients of aid; as taxpayers; as members of society; as human beings. I still have those questions and concerns, but I need to remember that I don't have to bear it all on my shoulders. I feel like I need to say I haven't given up on you, Tanzania, and that my experience there is not going to become an anecdote to dust off and talk about years down the line, but will shape my next steps.

Any change of career or step in a new direction requires training; studying; or an internship/work experience. Of course in reality, the catch-22 of a lack of experience means I won't get an internship, or work placement, at an organisation in a new field, where I will also get paid - I've just volunteered for a year (more like 2 when you consider the time used at each end) and can't now afford to keep doing it for work experience. I don't have money for the tuition fees of a Masters', let alone for the accommodation, books and associated costs, so it's not something I can just go and sign up for because I want a change. Since looking at different possibilities, it seems like a loan that you can get is not like for the Bachelor's degree (or how it used to be) where you borrow the amount to cover fees and start repaying once you're earning a certain threshold - it appears to be like a regular bank loan, albeit at a low-ish interest rate, but which you have to start repaying pretty imminently at the end of your course. And if you want to keep studying and change the Masters' to a PhD, the loan still needs repaying as well as a new one taking out. Afterwards, of course there are no guarantees I could get a job working for an influential organisation or for the government anyway. So what else?

I considered (and started applying for) a job in Malaysia, I contemplated re-volunteering in Papua New Guinea or Cambodia, and I thought about going to teach in China. Whilst these would be interesting, and potentially, with the first and last, enable me to save (very, very gradually!) towards university fees, none of them would be of much direct help if I want to change career direction towards something like advocacy and governance. The good news is I've got a job back down in London. I didn't think I would want to go back to the concrete jungle, but since July I have ended up going there on average once a month and enjoying it. And at least I'll be staying in the same country as most of my family so I'll see them a bit more, hopefully. The flipside is that I am now making some really nice friendships oop north where my dad lives, having been staying with him while I ruminate on ideas for world peace ;-)

At least it's only me moving daaan saaaaf so when I do visit, I will have friends up here I can catch up with too.

More good news about the job is that it's only two and a half days a week, so maybe I can work and do a Masters' part time. Financially it will feel like I'm volunteering again, but it certainly opens up a few possibilities without leaving me flat broke or, worse, in major debt. Working whilst doing a Masters' is something I considered for all of about 5 seconds when I was teaching - there's no way I would want to devote the energy needed for both, and my hat goes off to anyone who has managed/is managing it. I know it would kill me: I struggled with the whole 'work-life balance' when I was just teaching!

Either way, whatever I end up doing, it's been so helpful to have this quiet time since getting back to the UK to just readjust, and to contemplate. To look down different avenues and think about what I want to do. I knew I didn't want to return to mainstream teaching full-time (see above!) and get back into the rut of living to work to pay the rent to go to work to pay the bills... I did very much enjoy teaching, but the atmosphere in schools can be negatively charged thanks to the constant changes and added pressures.  I know I'm in a fortunate position where I haven't had to make immediate decisions on where to live and what job to do, and I've had a room to escape to when the incessant advertising and focus on materialism got too much. The hardest thing to come back to was with people trying to (unintentionally) get you caught up in the rush of their life by wanting to know what was next for you, 'what are you going to do now'; not imagining for one minute how dizzying the pace of life is here and that it can feel like a constant whirlwind. I do remember expressing my concern before I left that I would adapt too well to an environment where the pace of work is less driven; that I would not be able to work under pressure when I got back, having got used to a different dynamic. Well, the pace of where we were was frustratingly slow (I know, hard to please!) - seriously, if you achieved one thing a day, that was good. If the water bill needed paying, don't add anything else to your day because chances are, paying the water bill will take most of it. That did become difficult to get used to, but it was therapeutic; the fact that it was the 'norm' took the pressure off, and after about six months, I had adapted. I didn't necessarily like that aspect, but I didn't let it stress me out if I hadn't also done several other things I had wanted to. Ideally I suppose it's a balance, like everything.

It doesn't matter that I don't know what I'm going to do next in the 'long term'. It really doesn't. I know what I enjoy doing; I'm trying new things; I have some ideas about what I'd like to do next, and if they change, it's fine. This new job came along at the right time offering me a culmination of good things. The best reminder for me during these six months has been to take a breath; look around, and enjoy the moment. Please take the time to do that for yourselves too. Enjoy life; explore it, try something new, take a risk. Then when an opportunity comes along we're not so busy that we miss, possibly, the moment we've been waiting for, even if we didn't know it.

From one of the many books I've enjoyed reading over this time:

“I want to shake the millions of people who are sacrificing everything to attain a standard of living at the expense of having a life. I want to reach out to the millions who cram their lives and schedules until they are full, whilst they remain so empty.”

Simon Guillebaud, 'Dangerously Alive'.