April | 2015 | Wright Outta Nowhere

Today we hit the 90 day mark. That’s 90 days until we leave Nepal. It feels so different from that same stage in Manila when departure was just three months away. Different, how? Well, for one thing I am very busy at work with a big project, and have work and play events scheduled out until almost departure day. I’ve been so focused on all of that, the 90 day mark just snuck up on me. By contrast, in The Philippines, I was ready to leave my job. As Manila congestion got out of control in my area of the city, it had ceased to be somewhere I wanted to live. I was also looking forward to the next country, excited and hopeful about the prospect of living in Nepal.

This time its different…challenging in new and demanding ways. Even though we have known for quite some time that our next post is Jamaica, I am still digesting this news. I’m still chewing over it and trying to figure out how I feel. It’s hard not to say that I’m super excited when I know what a privilege it is to have the opportunity to live in such a beautiful place, but part of me is holding back. Part of my excitement is just the dose of change that this journey will bring, and part of my hesitancy is just that: change. Moving around the world is amazing and also exhausting. Jamaica promises little opportunities work-wise, and it is further away from Europe and our home. And — let’s be honest — I didn’t pick it. And that grinds too. On a bad day, I feel cheated. On a good day, I remember Kingston’s relatively clean air, the fantastic opportunity to go and live on a West Indian island, and my sense of adventure.

Most days, I’m just getting on with the day-to-day. That’s an area where we excel. We have 90 days left and we have just planted new annuals in the garden. Planting flowers when we don’t know if we will be there to see them grow has become a sort of family motto over the years, at least this time (within the bounds of reasonable expectations) we know our departure date…so we plan on tasting at least a few of our freshly-planted tomatoes before we go.

See you at the 60 day mark.

I’ve chosen to do my last post on South Africa under the”Sign Language” banner because money exchange and wiring signs were everywhere in Cape Town, yet often they were the only real reminder that we had that we were truly in Africa. Cheap calling rates to Angola, bargains in West African francs and cheap tickets to Nouakchott. I barely knew half of the places and names advertised. I was warned by many before we visited that Cape Town wasn’t really “Africa” and–although I didn’t get the opportunity to see the contrast–what I saw was enough to still understand why.

Our time there was such a mixture of different emotions. You’d have to make the journey from one of the world’s poorest countries, to one of the world’s richer cities to understand the culture shock we found ourselves in. It took 24 hours just to feel normal again around traffic lights and sidewalks. I spent the next few days figuring out where I thought I was on the scale of all thing previously experienced: a little bit of England, a little bit of Australia, and a little bit of something else entirely. And, yes, judging by the staff who served me in the restaurants – a little bit of Africa. That was the oddest part. The separation of black and white is still very much in existence, but from the little slice of middle-class black South Africans that I saw, perhaps this is slowly changing.

Two weeks is not enough to see the country. I wish we had two months so see and explore the country more….and maybe we will some day. But, as it stood, it was the perfect break from the chaos of Kathmandu. ‘Til next time…