employed and planning

i've had a lot of quarter life crises in joburg. blame it on the aggressive cement topped with electric fences and other people who have a job and more purpose. its led to frantic job applications that feel like stabs in the dark and don't pan out.

a few weeks back in zambia a friend forwarded on yet another call for applications, but this time for an organization called students offering support based out of waterloo (www.studentsofferingsupport.ca). basically, the organization runs exam-prep classes at campuses around canada and the fee charged is put towards building school projects around south and central america.

they were looking for a director of international outreach to help run their building projects in the field and help co-ordinate volunteers and university chapters around canada, and then some more. they've been wickedly successful with the exam prep courses and are now pulling in more money than they know what to do with so... they need help spending it. i read this job description on a public computer thinking man, that would be cool but i haven't got anything to apply. then, walking home i realized i'd been lugging my damn laptop around and that i had a few hours to go back to the internet cafe and try my luck against 130+ other candidates.

after an intense interview process that i was more anxious and excited about than i think even i knew, i found out earlier this week that i got the job! i haven't been far from cloud nine since. i continue to find myself breaking out into random uncontrollable smiles despite being very much lost somewhere in joburg suburbs (stamps are a VERY difficult thing to locate and have now accounted for almost 5 hours of lost walking... although maybe thats the result of a poor but overly confident sense of direction on my part).

so. now i re-group, again, and make new plans for a very long time given how the past year has gone. i'm still going to ghana because i've invested so much money in a hellish process. i'll be there until the middle of july with the new volunteers before i fly all the way back to south africa only to turn around to fly all the way up to senegal and then, across and HOME for the 19th of july! go figure. home for 2ish weeks to get sorted with SOS in waterloo and then, south america for 3ish months!

i'm obviously pretty stoked about south america. never been before and am really keen to take spanish beyond random descriptions of pirates and teddy bears (thank you stu and SPAN010 for those helpful skills). i'll be going around with some of SOS's volunteer outreach trips and figuring out how they work for a few weeks and then, when they all go back home, i stay on conducting needs assessments and figuring out where schools can be built and maintained! i'm the first person to really take on this role so think there is a lot that i could do with it. greg seems keen to trust me and my judgement, so i suppose this will be a very good test of what i think i know.

in the job interview, i was asked if this was my dream job. it kind of is. i was anticipating YEARS of bitch work filing papers for interesting organizations before i could actually move onto a job that i was excited about! nice change of plans.

now, for the most long-term plan ever. for the next YEAR i'll be based in waterloo working with SOS. there will likely be return trips to south/central america throughout the year but, much to my mom's delight, it looks like KW will once again be my home base. i think i've had enough time away to actually get excited about going back to friends and family. i certainly needed 4 years of uni and a year of traveling to get to this point but, this all feels right.

and, this by no means spells the end of ETFL. it wasn't ever a project i seriously thought about pursuing as a full time career. i don't think my model really works for that. it will continue to be a project - that i need help with - and being based in kitchener will make that much easier... so there we go. a year(+) of my life planned.

i don't think i've ever said go figure as much as i have this week. partly from this job, partly because i'm currently watching michaels new cleaning lady, nelly, iron cotton tshirts and socks. she is nothing if not thorough. she'd have a field day in my room of crumpled cotton things that have been "packed" in anticipation of ghana for 2 weeks now.