On flickers of hope.

Well it’s day whatever of the lockdown and it’s been (not surprisingly) extended a few more weeks and overall, I'm doing really pretty alright.

The last few weeks have really been a blur; since the stress of evacuating all volunteers and the emotional toll that took, to renegotiating life in general and being forced to stay home, all with the backdrop of fear and anxiety.  The potential for massive civil unrest, martial law, rampant illness and infections overwhelming and crashing the health system, hoarding of food and supplies, and desperate people all make for a pretty bleak outlook; wondering if I was crazy to stay here (along with thousands of others who have chosen to stay) while watching the health and wellbeing of America slowly deteriorate into war zone conditions in New York and toilet paper shortages across the country.

I’ve been grieving the things we’ve lost, as humans, and the things I’ve lost, as an individual. And I’ve been trying to still lead my team while we’re all working at home, trying to be somewhat productive, trying not to lose too many hours watching Netflix, waiting for all that bad stuff to happen.

And... it hasn’t.

Here’s an article from BBC from a few days ago about the unexpected lull we’re experiencing:  BBC Story

And while I do think there is a lack of testing and I do think the numbers aren’t accurate, there’s also a flicker of hope that gradually is getting stronger; maybe, just maybe, all that bad stuff just won’t.   Maybe we’ll work from home for a few months, maybe (for sure) the economy will struggle, maybe… just maybe… the widespread chaos and despair and destruction I’ve been waiting for won’t happen.

And instead of being consumed by the paralyzing fear I’ve been living with for the last few weeks I’ve found myself feeling hope again.  I’m getting out of bed and doing productive things and cleaning and baking and I’ve started doing the daily yoga I’ve talked about doing for weeks and haven’t done.   I’ve really struggled with working and suddenly I find myself looking forward to using my brain again and navigating this season that has the potential for so much creativity and growth and learning and a much needed reset to launch us into bigger and better and stronger. 

And I’m looking forward to flying again, my travel bug is getting quite antsy; to seeing family and friends and giving out huge hugs and laughing together and feeling the joy that is exploring the world with people I love. In the meantime, I’m working hard to be grateful for the joy of today; for time and space that isn’t stress filled, for the smell of freshly baked bread, for the love of my dog and for the hope of things that are yet to come.

I made Challah for the first time and it turned out delicious. 

The cooking post.

When my mom was here in January she was (rightfully) appalled at the lack of certain things in my kitchen.  I said at one point, “Know what I need?” and she said, “Mom to come visit and actually use your kitchen”.  She wasn’t wrong in that.

It’s not that I don’t like cooking; on the contrary, I like it a lot, when I am cooking for someone else who will appreciate it.  And when I have the time and space.  The last time I cooked a lot was when I was living in Boston, I was dating someone who enjoyed what I ate and I had easy access to anything I needed at the store down the street.  Since moving here, I have been drowning in work, and the last thing I want to do after a ten hour stressful work day is come home and cook. I’ve had a lot of grilled cheese, salad, cereal, and an occasional Uber Eats delivery.

But now, those reasons have gone out the window and suddenly I find myself with time and energy and plenty of desire (even though I’m still just cooking for myself).  About two weeks ago something possessed me to buy a whole chicken in the store; I’ve never cooked a whole chicken before, but I stuck it in my slow cooker with some vegetables and seasonings and man, it was beyond delicious.  Honestly, I won’t ever buy a rotisserie chicken again.

With the carcass and some instructions from Mom, I made some really, really delicious chicken soup.

  

Pita chips, and hummus.  Both are so easy and so not worth the price in the grocery store.  Pita here is a little different than in West Africa, I had to roll it down thinner (the first round turned out more like croutons) but pairs perfectly with my garlic hummus. Yum!  (next I’ll try making pita myself….)

Zucchini bread, with some substitutions for things I can’t find here. Side note, zucchini in South Africa is called marrow and in England is called courgette.

Other things that didn’t warrant a photo: sloppy joes, tacos, butter chicken with halloumi instead of chicken, a second chicken, pesto pasta from my garden basil…. That’s what I can think of off hand.

Today was the best so far – I made bagels. I can’t find decent bagels here in SA and I’ve heard they’re easy, just a little time consuming.  They turned out AMAZING.  Next time I’m at the grocery store I’ll look for some sesame seeds to sprinkle on them!  I’ve been dreaming of good bagels for awhile, and am looking forward to making a breakfast sandwich with one of these beauties.

What are you making while on lockdown? What else should I try?? 

On comparing shipwrecks.

Congratulations, you’ve made it another week in this upside-down world we currently find ourselves living in.

I’ve noticed something happening that’s really unhelpful and it’s been on my mind for a few days now.  This is not the first time I’ve written about this unhelpful phenomenon, and it’s probably not the last.  It’s something that slithers in to our seemingly innocent conversations, perhaps under the guise of “gratitude” or “perspective”, both good things at face value, but when used as a mask for something else can be incredibly harmful, hurtful, and dangerous.

I’m talking about comparison.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is Comparison is the thief of joy, widely attributed to Theodore Roosevelt, and over and over in my life I’ve found it to be entirely accurate.   In other seasons it might be comparing accomplishments, awards and acclaim, working hours or salaries, busy-ness levels, love, body shapes and sizes, or any one of a million other things we can compare to others and be left feeling insufficient, unwanted, or unappreciated.  Whatever it is that makes you think that’s not fair.

In this season what I’m seeing is something even more sinister; instead of comparing what is usually considered good, we are comparing the shipwrecks we all find ourselves in right now, in one way or another.  This usually starts with at least or includes a comment such as lucky you, and is intended to point out how much better someone has it right now than another person.  These are all things I’ve seen in the last week or so; some of them, I do confess, are my own.

At least you don’t have to worry about losing your job, I don’t know if I’ll have one tomorrow.

At least you don’t have children to worry about, I’m losing it trying to homeschool and work and feed them all and keep my house from imploding.

At least you have people who love you in your home to keep you from feeling the desperate loneliness I experience every single day. I haven’t talked to another human in over a week.  No one would notice if I died.

Well, you’ve only been on quarantine for four days; I’ve been under for twelve. It only goes downhill.

Lucky you have Amazon and restaurants are still delivering; you can order anything you want to keep you busy, 

At least you have a fridge full of food and a house to live in.  Did you read that story from India about all the starving people walking for days to get to their hometowns?

At least you have a house, we don’t even have a yard to spread out in, we’re crammed into an apartment.

At least you still have good internet, ours is trash.

Lucky you are near to your family, mine is a million miles away and all flights are cancelled.

And on and on.  I’m sure you can think of a few more.

Joy is hard to find right now, I know. I feel it. The news is awful, the restrictions keep coming, the numbers keep climbing, the supplies keep dwindling. But comparing one situation to another is like comparing one shipwreck to another; while they look different, it doesn’t end well for anyone. The ship is never meant to sink.

I’m not saying this won’t end well; on the contrary, I think once we make it through this upside-down season we are in we will come out stronger and more resilient, more appreciative of things like hugs and runs and grocery store clerks and hospital cleaning staff and all the millions of others laying down their comfort and stability to save lives.  We will also all be touched with grief, with loss, with financial or familial struggles, with a sense of this isn’t how it was supposed to be… but this is how it is, and comparing that grief and loss to someone else’s will still be unhelpful, long into the future. At least her mother didn’t die.  At least they still have a happy marriage. At least she didn’t lose her life savings. At least they didn’t have to go through what I did…. It’s so unfair.

Yes, it really is. It’s so unfair. It’s so unfair that the world is upside down, that some people are devastated while others complain from their comfortable homes while others are killing themselves trying to save others.  Pointing out where others should be grateful might sound like a noble thing to do, but often it comes with a backhand of shame; be grateful for what you have, because you’ve actually got it really good, compared to me (or them).

That may be true. I’ve got it really good compared to a lot of people, but also, it’s still really hard.  And minimizing that isn’t helpful.  I want to be compassionate towards the grief and loss that everyone is feeling, no matter how ‘insignificant’ someone might judge it to be, it’s significant to them, and loving others well means holding space for whatever needs to be felt and grieved and surrendered, not minimizing or comparing or shaming. 

I’m sorry for your loss.  I’m sorry life doesn’t look like it was supposed to right now.  It’s okay to be angry, or anxious, or fearful, or sad, or whatever else you feel.  I’m glad I can feel because it means I am alive. And for that I will always grateful.  

 

My Jay, gazing at the houseplant with longing.  He wants to go hiking, I'm sure. Same, buddy. Same. 

Okay.

It’s day three of the 21-day lockdown (which, by the way, I fully anticipate being extended beyond 21 days, so refuse to put my hopes into a countdown) and I find myself going from okay to  not okay and back again multiple times a day; multiple times an hour, even.

I woke up to the sun shining in my windows this morning; this always gets me out of bed quicker with a sense of optimism for the day.  Okay.

I sip my coffee on the patio, my Jay pacing around me, back and forth, a high-pitched whine every other breath or so coming from him, unable to understand why we’re not going on our usual morning jog.  I think about the fact that a few weeks ago I was so excited and sure this was going to be my marathon year; something I’ve always wanted to do but life prevented, until now.  I’m registered and everything, so committed to this goal…. Not okay.

I have a lovely chat with a friend, whom I haven’t talked to in years, but have a shared history and it’s so nice to be heard, understood, and have the time to invest in reconnecting with others.  Okay.

I organized my pantry, freezer, refrigerator, and kitchen cupboards. I made some really delicious soup, and plan to make bagels soon. Okay.

I took out my anxiety on my flower beds yesterday; ripping and pulling and piling and pruning away all the creeping weeds choking the plants I love, and destroying all that awful rosemary the person who lived here before me must have loved.  I was sweaty and it was sunny and it felt great. Okay

And when I was all done pulling and piling and pruning, I sat in the yard and cried. Not okay.

I video chatted with my mom for the first time, it was awesome. Okay

I’m excited to have space and time to really focus on some work projects, and I feel the difference the lack of work stress has had on my body in the last few days. Okay.

I scroll through the increasingly depressing news headlines, wondering at what our future holds.  I think about my own privilege, that which is causing me the most grief is the losses of experiences few on the planet will ever get to have. It’s realizing that this uncertainty, this wondering at the future, what it looks like and how all this out of our control will affect what little we can control; the people in Syria live with that uncertainty every day.  And in Palestine, and in Yemen, and in millions of other homes, towns, and regions across the globe.  And what do I do with that? Not okay.

I know I’m not alone in this; nearly everyone I talk to identifies the fact that we're all on the spectrum between okay and utter despair, or fear, or grief, or doubt, or lonely, or anxiety, or whatever else big feel happens to be at the front of the pack at that moment in time.  The world looks very different to the one we knew; and sometimes that can feel overwhelming.  But also, I’ve done hard things before, and I’ll do more hard things in the future, and someday this will be that one thing that happened that one time.  And until then, I’m going to look forward to that first hike, first jog, first dinner out with friends once the lockdown is lifted; I’m going to focus on what I can control instead of what I can’t, and seek out and enjoy the benefits of a slower pace of life.  One of which is a much improved flower garden.

There were more plants in the garbage pile than in the garden once I was finished! (it was embarrassingly bad...)

Lockdown.

The President of South Africa announced on Monday a strict nationwide lockdown starting tonight at midnight, with military enforcement.  This was not surprising nor unwelcome; our (widely under-reported, I assume) infection numbers are growing rapidly and from a public health perspective it’s the right thing to do.

When it was first announced, I felt a huge sense of relief; my work and life in South Africa has been ten of the most stressful months I’ve ever experienced, and while I love it, I’ve been on the edge of total burnout for awhile.  To be able to breathe for a bit is such a gift and to force myself into a simpler life made my introvert heart very happy. At first, they indicated that jogging and dog walking would be fine; it’s a beautiful end-of-summer season here in South Africa, and I have a great setup to work from home, with my Jay to keep me company, 21 days at home and in my neighborhood felt like quite a gift.

And then they took away jogging and dog walking and suddenly I felt the whiplash of lockdown closer resembling a jail cell than a welcome relief. I need exercise for my mental sanity, and my Jay will whine incessantly for a walk he can’t have; I can see both of us falling into that dark, seedy combo of depression and anxiety. 

But it is what it is, and I’m giving myself regular pep talks; I’ll throw a ball for my Jay to chase in my (little) yard and I can walk laps around my house and garden. I’ll do yoga every day and yard work will get me outside, at least on sunny days.  I have a lot of work I’m excited to have the time to really dig into, as long as we don’t have problems with our internet provision.  I constantly find myself wavering between positivity and negativity, anxiety and hope, with that nervous pit in my stomach a constant companion.  If I let myself open it up, I get all the what-if questions: what if I should have evacuated? What if all hell breaks loose? What if I get sick? What if my family gets sick and I’m a million miles away? What if this thing gets much, much worse?  What if lockdown lasts for months?  So much unknown, so much uncertainty, so far from home.

But I do want this time to be fruitful and beneficial; so I’m making a plan that includes meditation and yard work and cooking and working and relaxing and reading and thinking about how, when this is all over, I’ll take a beach vacation and hopefully set up a life that isn’t quite so stressful on the daily. I also want to set up some video calls with friends and family; even if I haven’t talked with you in ages, if that’s something you’d like, please do contact me!

Today I went on one last lovely hike with my Jay, enjoying the fresh air and exercise and the soul-filling beauty of nature.  I just sat by the creek, listening to the waterfall, breathing in as much peace as my lungs could hold, pressing down the fear, the anxiety, the doubt, the questions, holding them at bay for as long as possible.  And now we do the next right thing, for as long as we need to; breathing in and out, sunrise and sunset, holding on to hope that this b-grade low budget sci-fi movie we find ourselves living in has a wonderfully anticlimactic ending sooner rather than later.

In the waiting.

I’m sitting at my computer, waiting for the face of the President of South Africa to appear and begin to speak in my livestream feed.  I’m beginning to regret not getting TV services while here, but my internet is pretty good and I can find most things I’m looking for, including tonight’s Presidential address.

South Africa jumped from 273 to 402 cases in the last day, and I’m 100% sure that the actual infections are wildly un- or under-reported.  We’re ahead of Italy in terms of number of infections for week 2 of the outbreak in this country; not a race I wish on anyone. That could be because there’s more testing here than there was in Italy in the beginning; let’s hope that’s true. 

Most flights in and out have been cancelled. I’m expecting President Ramaphosa to announce even stricter social distancing requirements; which, in my opinion as a public health expert, are necessary and probably too late. Let’s hope not. 

I’m used to living a long way from family and friends; I’ve lived in Africa almost continuously since 2009, but I’ve always known in the back of my head that if things get really bad, I can always go home.  And I have.  I went home on a last minute trip several years ago to say goodbye to a loved one with cancer; I’ve gone home for holidays, for time with family, for just a break from being an expat in a foreign land.  So I’m used to living far away, but this feels a lot more vulnerable, to not be able to leave if I want to.  It’s a bit unsettling.

I could have left and I chose to stay.  Any American staff wanting to leave were able to, before the flight restrictions set in.  But I have a great house here, a dog, a fridge full of food, a pool in my backyard, security guards at my door in minutes, and I just couldn’t imagine trying to deal with quarantine and working somewhere else, in an apartment or hotel room somewhere, alone, abandoning my dog, no car, etc.  And I’m a low risk individual, so I’ve chosen to stay.  I’m gonna hunker down like everyone else in the world, and hope this blows over sooner rather than later. 

I wonder what the President is going to say, waiting here for him to start speaking. Some speculate that he’ll call on the military to enforce stay-at-home orders.  South Africa has the highest population of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world; every one of them immunocompromised, meaning if the outbreak continues to spread, we’re likely to have a high mortality rate.  It’s so much unknown. 

It’s 7:45 and the 7:30 address hasn’t started; this is pretty common here.  Waiting.  When I go through some cross cultural learning sessions with Volunteers and their South African counterparts, I give them the following scenario:

A meeting is scheduled to start at 9am. 

And then I ask: when will the meeting start?

My American Volunteers all say 9am.  Their South African counterparts laugh and say anytime between 9 and the end of the day, or maybe tomorrow. They are used to waiting.

The uncertainty is unsettling, but makes me think about how confident we usually are in our everyday lives that tomorrow will look just like yesterday.  I have no idea what tomorrow looks like now, and in reality, we never do; how is this changing my outlook on my days, my hours, the inhale and exhale of life in my lungs right here, right now?

I’m not sure.  Things to think about.  I think I’ll have a lot of time for thinking in the coming days.  For now, I’m breathing in, breathing out, thankful for another breath, and hoping that somehow we see this through to the other side and emerge from the shadows stronger, more centered, more grateful versions of ourselves.  In the meantime, I'll try to get comfortable in the waiting.  

Jay is patiently waiting for some food to drop... He's better at waiting than I am. 

Standstill.

I knew that at some point I would want to dust off this blog and start writing again.  Today is the day.

It's like we're living in a movie, isn't it?

For those that need a refresher, I've been living in Pretoria, South Africa for about ten months now, running programming and training for Peace Corps.  It's been quite a ten months.  I've got some stories that maybe I'll start sharing and some that I hope are never spoken again.  I have a deep love and respect for Peace Corps, having served as a Volunteer in Benin 2009-2011, and I haven't really left Africa much since then.

In my ten months in this role, I've managed some significantly stressful events.  Consolidations, behavioral issues, staffing challenges, even the death of a Volunteer.  I thought it couldn't get any more stressful than that.

I was wrong. Welcome to March 2020, where Peace Corps evacuated all 7000+ Volunteers from across the globe in a matter of days, while up against an ever-changing landscape of flight cancellations and border closures, staff anxiety, increasing infection numbers, and questions about what this all means.

So here we are.  The photo above is today's newspaper, and I bought a copy thinking this is one of those moments I'll want to tell my grand-nieces and grand-nephews someday.  This is my generations' second life-transforming event; I remember distinctly the vast differences of life before and after 9/11, having been in college at the time, and now I believe our lives will be segmented once again to life-before and life-after the virus.

And I welcome you to peek into my little corner of the world.

Love, Krissy

Remembering.

I remember exactly where I was.

I was in college, and I was waiting for classes to start. I hopped into a computer lab, as these were the days before laptops and devices were a thing and there were big rooms around campus filled with desktop computers.  It was almost empty.  I remember only having one new email, back in the days before it was a primary mode of communication, and it was the one I expected, so once whatever it was I needed to do was done I logged in to a chat room for a band I enjoyed listening to.

There I was just scrolling through various song discussions and pop culture references, when I saw someone post something that said “oh my god look at the news, is this for real?”  I remember thinking geez, she needs to calm down. Then I saw another one, of similar sentiment and alarm.  I read something about buildings in New York, something about war, something about the Pentagon. I remember wondering what on earth is going on, is this for real? I stood up and hurried out to the hallway; certainly if this was a real thing, there would be people who knew what was going on.

I lurched out into the hallway, still believing it mustn’t be real, when just outside (had I missed it earlier? Had I been in the computer lab that long?) there was a TV in the hallway and about fifty students gathered around it.  We all stared in horror.

I remember looking around, wondering, what do I do now? Surely we don’t have to go to class.  I couldn’t watch the TV anymore, I moved down the hall to the student center where they had the radio loudly playing a news station.  I leaned back against the wall, and slid down it until my bum hit the floor, my forehead went to my knees and I just listened in shock and horror as they replayed everything they knew over and over.

I don’t remember if I called my mom or any of my family.  I remember thinking I had to go to class, so I did, where we all sat in a daze, whispering about what we knew and what the news was saying and would we go to war and if they started drafting us, which of us would go first? We were the right age; I was 20. The professor came in and said anyone who wanted to leave was welcome to do so; if we wanted to talk, we could also do that.  I did, though I don’t remember much of the class or the rest of the day.  I remember feeling afraid, really afraid, for my life and for my family and friends, for the first time ever. 

Because I was the right age and so were all my friends; the news anchors were talking about possible war and reinstating the draft and for the first time in my life a world event shook me to the core.  I remember going home and watching MSNBC for hours and hours; I remember Norah O’Donnell was the White House correspondent there, her face for some reason etched into my memory, and every time I see her now I remember hearing her say things like ‘the Taliban’ while standing in front of the White House, a word that had never entered my vocabulary before then. 

Its funny how certain things etch themselves into your memory like that.

I had a volunteer sitting in front of me today, when I was signing a paper for her and realized I was signing 9/11, I said do you remember that day? She shared she was in first grade, and remembers the reaction of her parents, but not much about the day.  Her life was not rocked.   She doesn’t remember being able to go all the way to the gate at an airport, carrying full-sized bottles of water, juice, shampoo or perfume in your carryon if you wanted with no one batting an eye.  She doesn’t look at the skyline of New York and feel like something is missing.  She doesn’t remember the radio hosts saying things like, “until the rubble is gone, we’ll leave our headlights on” and seeing every car with their headlights on in the middle of the day.   She doesn’t remember saying hello, how are you to the random stranger at the next gas pump over.  For some reason, the guy I greeted that day stands out in my memory. 

It was not a life changing event for her, as it was for me.  And that’s to be expected.  Soon, the volunteers coming through my office won’t remember it at all. Their lives will be rocked by some other personal or public tragedy, as all are; those moments that bring us to our knees in grief, in gratitude, in disbelief, in shock, and in sorrow.

Today I find myself on my knees in remembrance.  For those that started their day just like any other, but never came home.  The kids who lost their parents, those who have fought all manner of illness as a result of trying to help, those that died in the military action as a result of that fateful day.  

As our newsfeed is filled, it seems, with daily tragedy and heartbreak, its easy to just go numb; but as I tell my volunteers, I want tragedy, injustice, the anguish of my fellow humans to make me hurt, cry, lash out, or shout from the rooftops. I need to feel that, to keep it fueling me in my life’s work and mission and passion and heart.

I am glad that I can feel, because it means I am alive, and able to use at least one more breath to speak life and shine light into dark places and make the world a little bit better, for as long as I am in it.  

On limericks and peace.

We were in our final of four weeks of training; weeks of group projects, scenarios, discussions, lectures, theory, stories, problem solving, and what feels like a few hundred people met and committed to memory. It was a super beneficial time, to be sure; I was grateful to be there, to be learning, to be surrounded by supportive, helpful people who were bending over backwards to ensure I knew as much as my brain could hold and when that was full, that I would know who to ask for when I needed whatever spilled over.  But by that day, I had had enough, and when they sent us to big pieces of paper and markers and said work together to draw a creative representation of today’s activity, I just couldn’t do it.  I didn’t have it in me. 

I’m usually a rule follower but with a spark of rebellion, I went to a quiet corner of the room with a bit of paper and a pencil, and in about five minutes came up with my creative representation of that day’s activity. 

In Zomba we had to work fast
The crises were varied and vast
We worked as a team
Respect was the theme
(and) Not one single team came in last

It was silly, but in those five minutes of solitary creativity using my preferred tool (words, not markers), I felt a spark of life in me I hadn’t felt in quite a while.  It’s the same spark I feel right now as I’m writing this.   And I realized in that moment why I had felt so out of sorts, so over this training even though I knew how important it was, so uninspired and tired and going through the motions. 

Writing feeds my soul.  Solitary creativity with words, whether it be an essay like this one or a silly limerick like the one about Zomba (the fictional country we worked in for the day) or even just a really well-written, clear, nice-to-look at email fills me with joy and peace and that everything-is-alright-now feeling that is beyond explanation or description.  After being grouchy for a few days before the Zomba activity, after just five minutes and some word craft I felt like an entirely different person.

I knew I needed to write about it, and I knew I needed to make writing a more intentional part of my life… and then I sat on these words for three more weeks before actually giving them the time and space they deserve.  But it’s never too late to do the right thing, so I’m sitting here tonight, my fingers grateful to get these words out of me into the world where they belong.  It doesn’t even matter if anyone reads them, what’s important is the offering. 

My work is all consuming, and I love it.  But as I’m settling in and finding my space here for more than just a sprint, I know I need to allocate time to things that will keep me healthy for the long run.  Sometimes I think it'll be writing about life here and there and wherever I find myself. Sometimes it'll be writing a silly limerick. But whatever it is, as long as it brings life, I need to give it the space it deserves. 

So here we are. 

-K

Taken from the top of the Watergate Hotel on 18 August 2019

On figuring it out.

Well here I am, a week into my new job and home and life in South Africa.  I can hardly believe a week ago I was still in DC; it seems like I have been here much longer than that.  This morning is the first morning since I flew out of my north woods hometown that I haven’t had to get up to an alarm; relishing in the leisurely enjoyment of my coffee while the sun rises into yet another beautiful day.

I’m lying on my borrowed couch listening to the fighter jets flying overhead; nothing to be concerned about, today is the presidential inauguration in Pretoria, and the whole city is putting its best foot forward.  All the streets in the area have been repainted, the sidewalks and streets cleaned, new flags strung up on every flagpole and a general sense of hope for this new government is in the air.

My couch is borrowed because my house isn’t ready yet, so I’m in temporary quarters, which is totally fine; a few less things to figure out in the first week is not a bad thing.  And that’s what’s been filling every minute of every day since starting; figuring things out, learning, trying to remember what the acronyms mean and what my role is in this or that and what exactly we are talking about anyway?

This job is so big, and my counterparts in other countries tell me it’ll be a year or two before I really feel like I know what is going on most of the time.  My driven, perfectionistic side doesn’t like that, and I’m working to silence that persistent whisper suggesting I’ve already failed or disappointed everyone because I don’t have it figured out already. Ridiculous.  But at the end of every day I know more than I did at the beginning of it, and I keep reminding myself no one is expecting the superhero I expect of myself.

And also, I’ve kept myself alive in a new place for a whole week. Let us not forget to celebrate that fact.  I’ve driven every day on the left side of the road in what feels like a backwards vehicle and I haven’t hit anyone or damaged anything.  I’ve gotten to the grocery store, I did laundry, I bought and used an iron, I made it to work on time every day without getting lost (thank you google maps), and a whole lot of other things that seem menial but can also be a big deal in a new place. Figuring out how to work the appliances, the vehicles, banking, internet, traffic circles and a zillion other things ever day isn’t a small thing.  So just know if you need a round of applause for keeping yourself alive another day, you’ll always get it from me.

Work has been one meeting, briefing, introduction, and orientation after another. I’m relieved to have a few concurrent minutes this weekend to read up on some things that need my attention but I’m still not really sure what we’re even talking about when they are brought up.  But overall, I really like it, and look forward to going back.  That’s a good sign.  I’m not only going to work this weekend, I’m also going to a market, a mall, hiking, exploring, and hopefully meet up with a friend for coffee.  The weather is gorgeous, beautifully sunny skies over cool mornings and afternoons around 70; a much more enjoyable winter than the one I just experienced in my north woods hometown.

So that’s the update for today  All well, I’m so happy to be working again and using my brain, the last several months of boredom and waiting were good in a lot of ways; but really, the best version of me is busy, slightly stressed, juggling several different things, and learning and growing and stretching and being brave and letting myself be seen every day. It seems I’m in the right place. 💜💜💜

Celebrating keeping myself alive... and South African wine is amazing. 

Seen during driving practice. This is just a couple miles away from my office! Amazing.

Snapped from my window seat as we were coming in to land at OR Tambo airport.