At small group on Sunday night we were discussing how we often have to distinguish between the leading of the Spirit and our own instincts, our own voice. I mentioned that my contract was coming to an end at WV and didn't know what was next. I was given Psalm 130 which is basically, wait and hope, hope and wait.
Well I didn't have to wait long! I had a meeting on wednesday morning with my boss about the different projects I'm working on and then he brought up the questions I hadn't really asked yet - what comes next. I now have three exciting options, although none of these is approved or final and I haven't accepted anything. I'm trying to think and pray about these to figure out where the spirit is leading.
Option #1: I have been the junior project officer for Chad for the last two months. There is an opportunity for me to spend 3-6 months in Chad essentially doing many of the same things I've been doing, except I'll be in Chad. I'd also be doing a lot of capacity building and it would be an amazing learning experience and a good challenge. It would also look nice on my CV:) However, Chad is not the most secure country and it comes with many challenges I am not sure I want to face.
Option #2: There may be an opportunity for a placement of 12-18 months in Rwanda starting in October. Of course I am jumping for this placement and would love it so so much!
Option #3: I do both. This has not really been suggested by my boss or anything, but it would solve the problem of trying to decide. I could go to Chad for 3-4 months and then go to Rwanda. It would mean that I may be gone almost two years so there would be plenty of time for people to come visit...
So it is entirely possible that one or all of these options may fall through, but it is equally possible that I will be back in Africa before the summer is over. Obviously I want to take option #2 and return to Rwanda but it isn't as easy a decision as I thought it would be. Chad would be crazy difficult compared to anything I've done to date and if you'd asked me two months ago if I wanted to go to Chad I would have adamently said no. Now I feel like it is something I need to consider so if I am not able to do both I will have to choose between these. So maybe I am still waiting and hoping for more direction after all!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
My No Good Horrible Really Bad Day...
Yesterday I needed to go into the office in Mississauga but my carpool was either on vacation or in meetings off site so I had no ride in. My mom offered to let me borrow her car for the day, something she hates to do because she is afraid that something will happen to it. It is too bad that we can only see foreshadowing in retrospect!
I arrived in Mississauga and had some time before I had to be in the office so I treated myself to a coffee. We all know how much I love coffee and most good days start with a good dose of caffeine. While leaving the Tim Horton's parking lot, six blocks from the office, I realized that my breaks weren't actually working. My foot went all the way to the floor and the car only slightly slowed. I managed to get to the office parking lot via a side road with only a couple of stop signs. Just a little stressful. When I got out of the car there was a puddle of break fluid on the pavement and a trail of fluid following my route to my parking space. I'm not very good with cars, but I know this is not a good thing.
I called my dad who drove all the way to mississauga from Waterloo, fixed the car so that it had front breaks (the back break lines were very broken) and left me the van so I could have a more reliable ride home. Again I missed the foreshadowing.
After work I went out for dinner with the other two WV interns who were in DRC and Tanzania while I was in Rwanda. We met at Yorkdale Mall and ate at Moxie's and it was fun.
And then I drove home.
I left for home around 9pm. They have been tearing up parts of the 401 for several months now so when you drive on these sections it is very loud. I finally noticed that the van was making odd noises even on the smooth sections of the road. It was only a couple of minutes later that the sounds got worse and I was thinking I should pull off at the next exit when BANG!! The van made this heartstopping noise and something fell out the bottom and dragged on the pavement for a short distance. I was in the middle of three lanes and had to cut off a transport truck in order to get over to the side. Luckily the exit for Highway 6 was right there so I managed to get up the off ramp and over to the side before the truck completely died. It is now 10pm and after I stop shaking and can pick up my cell phone, I once again have to call my dad to come and get me. He arrives about a half hour later and looks under the hood. Beyond repair. Or at least not worth the money it would take to repair.
A rod went through the crankshaft and into the engine and fell out the bottom of the van. Essentially the engine blew up. Again, I am not very good with cars, but this is a very bad thing! So after cleaning out all the stuff in the van and putting in the trunk of the car with only front breaks we drove home and left the van on the side of Highway 6 for the wreakers to pick up today. I got home after midnight and promptly went to sleep so that the day would end.
And so ends my story of the No Good Horrible Very Bad Day.
I arrived in Mississauga and had some time before I had to be in the office so I treated myself to a coffee. We all know how much I love coffee and most good days start with a good dose of caffeine. While leaving the Tim Horton's parking lot, six blocks from the office, I realized that my breaks weren't actually working. My foot went all the way to the floor and the car only slightly slowed. I managed to get to the office parking lot via a side road with only a couple of stop signs. Just a little stressful. When I got out of the car there was a puddle of break fluid on the pavement and a trail of fluid following my route to my parking space. I'm not very good with cars, but I know this is not a good thing.
I called my dad who drove all the way to mississauga from Waterloo, fixed the car so that it had front breaks (the back break lines were very broken) and left me the van so I could have a more reliable ride home. Again I missed the foreshadowing.
After work I went out for dinner with the other two WV interns who were in DRC and Tanzania while I was in Rwanda. We met at Yorkdale Mall and ate at Moxie's and it was fun.
And then I drove home.
I left for home around 9pm. They have been tearing up parts of the 401 for several months now so when you drive on these sections it is very loud. I finally noticed that the van was making odd noises even on the smooth sections of the road. It was only a couple of minutes later that the sounds got worse and I was thinking I should pull off at the next exit when BANG!! The van made this heartstopping noise and something fell out the bottom and dragged on the pavement for a short distance. I was in the middle of three lanes and had to cut off a transport truck in order to get over to the side. Luckily the exit for Highway 6 was right there so I managed to get up the off ramp and over to the side before the truck completely died. It is now 10pm and after I stop shaking and can pick up my cell phone, I once again have to call my dad to come and get me. He arrives about a half hour later and looks under the hood. Beyond repair. Or at least not worth the money it would take to repair.
A rod went through the crankshaft and into the engine and fell out the bottom of the van. Essentially the engine blew up. Again, I am not very good with cars, but this is a very bad thing! So after cleaning out all the stuff in the van and putting in the trunk of the car with only front breaks we drove home and left the van on the side of Highway 6 for the wreakers to pick up today. I got home after midnight and promptly went to sleep so that the day would end.
And so ends my story of the No Good Horrible Very Bad Day.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
a new kind of pack-rat
I am working from home today and am having trouble concentrating. Most of my work requires me to think in French, which most days is tres facile, but other days I just cannot get into the zone. Today is one of those days! So I thought I would take a break and do something I have been meaning to do for a long time...
I am not a pack-rat really. I have moved around enough that I have learned the value of having fewer things to pack up. The annual garage sales my parents would have in our front yard when I was a kid also helped train me to keep only what I actually use. I have one box in my parents house of things I am keeping for sentimental reasons from my childhood and I can't remember the last time I got rid of a book (why would anyone get rid of books?!) but aside from these things, I am pretty good at purging and keeping my worldly belongings to a minimum.
Except in one area. My email inbox. I have a hard time deleteing emails. I'm not sure where this comes from but maybe I think that I will want to read them again, or that for one reason or another they will someday be useful. So I have become a new kind of pack-rat. Now according to hotmail I have only used about 1% of the available storage space, but having reached 28 pages in my inbox I began to suspect that maybe it was time to go through some of these...
Wow. I had emails dating back to before I lived in South Africa! Some of these emails were easy to delete - notifications that someone had commented on my blog, emails about events that are now long over, updates from traveling friends about their adventures, emails from old camp friends. Other emails were surprisingly more difficult. Emails from my French exchange partner, the email that told me my cat Buddy had died while I was in SA, emails with news of new babies and upcoming weddings. Going through these emails reminded me of people I haven't emailed in a long time and gave me a chance to respond to some of them. There were even a couple of emails from people who I have forgotten how I know them....
Now, after much successful procrastinating I have widdled the inbox down to only 2 and a half pages. I need to transfer contact information to my address book and write out a couple of recipes and then I will get it down to one page. Now I just have to remember to delete emails as they come in so I never have to deal with this again! Although, it was a very useful means of procrastination...
I am not a pack-rat really. I have moved around enough that I have learned the value of having fewer things to pack up. The annual garage sales my parents would have in our front yard when I was a kid also helped train me to keep only what I actually use. I have one box in my parents house of things I am keeping for sentimental reasons from my childhood and I can't remember the last time I got rid of a book (why would anyone get rid of books?!) but aside from these things, I am pretty good at purging and keeping my worldly belongings to a minimum.
Except in one area. My email inbox. I have a hard time deleteing emails. I'm not sure where this comes from but maybe I think that I will want to read them again, or that for one reason or another they will someday be useful. So I have become a new kind of pack-rat. Now according to hotmail I have only used about 1% of the available storage space, but having reached 28 pages in my inbox I began to suspect that maybe it was time to go through some of these...
Wow. I had emails dating back to before I lived in South Africa! Some of these emails were easy to delete - notifications that someone had commented on my blog, emails about events that are now long over, updates from traveling friends about their adventures, emails from old camp friends. Other emails were surprisingly more difficult. Emails from my French exchange partner, the email that told me my cat Buddy had died while I was in SA, emails with news of new babies and upcoming weddings. Going through these emails reminded me of people I haven't emailed in a long time and gave me a chance to respond to some of them. There were even a couple of emails from people who I have forgotten how I know them....
Now, after much successful procrastinating I have widdled the inbox down to only 2 and a half pages. I need to transfer contact information to my address book and write out a couple of recipes and then I will get it down to one page. Now I just have to remember to delete emails as they come in so I never have to deal with this again! Although, it was a very useful means of procrastination...
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Homesick
I needed a few minutes away from reading long french documents so I decided to write this post. My eyes are starting to cross!
I am working from Starbucks this morning since I needed the motivation of actually leaving the house to start working. There are so many distractions at home! So since my mom needed the car and I've been stuck either in the car or at a desk for the past couple days I decided to walk to Starbucks. It isn't far - maybe a 15 or 20 minute walk. As I was walking I was thinking of all the times I walked to the internet cafe while I lived in Rwanda. It was something I did often. Sometimes I would use the internet cafe and sometimes i would go to Bourbon Coffee (oh how I miss you!) where they have free wireless. Sometimes I would take a moto into town, or my driver would drop me off after work, but sometimes on the days I "worked from home" I walked just to kill time, or I would walk home from town (nicer because it is downhill on the way home). So it was a normal part of life.
Walking today, again with my laptop hanging over my shoulder, I was struck by how completely different it is here. For one thing, it was pretty chilly today, only 4 degrees celcius. Also, there was only one hill and it is like a bump compared to the hills of Kigali. I only passed two people in the 20 or so minutes I was walking, there were no children chasing after me shouting 'muzungu' or asking me to give them candy/money/food. No taxis or motos honking at me to see if I wanted a ride, no shocked looks that I was actually walking somewhere (apparently muzungus aren't able to walk?). The only reason i stood out, if at all, is because I was walking while everyone else was in their cars and because my coat is a little bright by Canadian standards since it was made in Rwanda.
Now I am at Starbucks and another difference became clear. We like to think that because we are in north america we are ahead of the rest of the world on so many things, especially technology. This is not true. Technology here is made so complicated and inaccessible. Cell phones are stupid here. For example paying for incoming calls? Automated voice systems that take super long to get anywhere? African cell phone systems are so much easier. And wireless internet. I can access free wireless from so many different places in Kigali, and here I have to pay 7.50 per hour? So there is a lot we can learn from the way technology is used and provided in Africa!
So while I am glad to be home and am adjusting to being back in canada fairly well, today I am 'homesick' for Kigali. It would be nice to look out the window at the hills and banana trees and sights of kigali rather than the traffic jam at the corner of King and Weber :)
I am working from Starbucks this morning since I needed the motivation of actually leaving the house to start working. There are so many distractions at home! So since my mom needed the car and I've been stuck either in the car or at a desk for the past couple days I decided to walk to Starbucks. It isn't far - maybe a 15 or 20 minute walk. As I was walking I was thinking of all the times I walked to the internet cafe while I lived in Rwanda. It was something I did often. Sometimes I would use the internet cafe and sometimes i would go to Bourbon Coffee (oh how I miss you!) where they have free wireless. Sometimes I would take a moto into town, or my driver would drop me off after work, but sometimes on the days I "worked from home" I walked just to kill time, or I would walk home from town (nicer because it is downhill on the way home). So it was a normal part of life.
Walking today, again with my laptop hanging over my shoulder, I was struck by how completely different it is here. For one thing, it was pretty chilly today, only 4 degrees celcius. Also, there was only one hill and it is like a bump compared to the hills of Kigali. I only passed two people in the 20 or so minutes I was walking, there were no children chasing after me shouting 'muzungu' or asking me to give them candy/money/food. No taxis or motos honking at me to see if I wanted a ride, no shocked looks that I was actually walking somewhere (apparently muzungus aren't able to walk?). The only reason i stood out, if at all, is because I was walking while everyone else was in their cars and because my coat is a little bright by Canadian standards since it was made in Rwanda.
Now I am at Starbucks and another difference became clear. We like to think that because we are in north america we are ahead of the rest of the world on so many things, especially technology. This is not true. Technology here is made so complicated and inaccessible. Cell phones are stupid here. For example paying for incoming calls? Automated voice systems that take super long to get anywhere? African cell phone systems are so much easier. And wireless internet. I can access free wireless from so many different places in Kigali, and here I have to pay 7.50 per hour? So there is a lot we can learn from the way technology is used and provided in Africa!
So while I am glad to be home and am adjusting to being back in canada fairly well, today I am 'homesick' for Kigali. It would be nice to look out the window at the hills and banana trees and sights of kigali rather than the traffic jam at the corner of King and Weber :)
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