Now I know that it hardly seems fair that I get to have a 6-week holiday and you dont. Well you can have a 6-week holiday too - Just follow these 3 easy steps:
1. Quit your well paying job
2. Start volunteering somewhere (if possible pick an interesting location: one without running water, that is sweltering hot, with a high cost of living, culturally different, medically dangerous and uses a foreign language or two)
3. Do a part time degree while you are in this fun location (which entails flying internationally to write exams twice a year)
...and at the end of the year you will be entitled to a 6-week break.
Easy aint it?
So when I tell you just how AMAZING these past 6 weeks have been then I'm not exaggerating. I have been able to catch up on all the movies that have come and gone, I have been able to sleep LATE and not be woken by the cheery shouting of our kids at 6am. I havn't had to worry about exams and studying. I have had hot showers and I've eaten foods that I cant get in Pemba. But mainly I've done nothing. Its been great.
BUT I'm not a total sloth - There has been the application for a DIRE (ID for Foreign Residents) so that I can reside in Mozambique without having to adhear to the
"3-monthly exit the country or else you pay a $50 per day fine" rule; I've been sorting out the paperwork for exporting a large object (more about this in the next post); shopping for items that will improve my life (microwave, tinned foods, kitchen utensils etc) and visiting with family and friends! (And I registered for this semester at university again - I'm a glutton for punishement I know: Linguistics, Classical Culture, Latin & Modern Hebrew...
what was I thinking!?!)
I'll be heading back to Mozambique on February 3rd, its only a week away BUT I'm really looking forward to getting home and back to work. I have such an excitement for this year, I can hardly wait to get started on all the projects I've got in my head!
