Back from hibernation

Wow. It's been an exciting and inspirational enough couple weeks to kick even this lazy, haphazard blogger out of hibernation. I don't even know where to start! If I picked up where I left off, I'd have two whole months to catch up on!

It's amazing how time moves here. The pace of life is akin to a New Yorker's vacation mode - divided by 10. Yet somehow the days fly by anyway. Until this week, my life here didn't exist in front of my computer like it does at home, which made it easy to put off blog updates until "tomorrow". My days were full of random adventures, curious encounters, and unexpected lessons on everything under the sun. Officially, I job hunted. But in my spare time, I organic farmed, dabbled in chicken and duck raising, bused to the border of Zambia, got myself to advanced proficiency in Swahili, and took daladalas to and from every corner of Dar es Salaam. I blinked and two months had gone.

The official task - the job hunt - is better now that there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Job hunts are full of anxiety and impatience regardless of where you are. The fact that my job hunt is underway in a place where haraka haraka haina baraka ("haste has no blessings") is the unofficial national slogan only added to my anxiety. 95% of emails go unresponded to. Organizations that promise meetings, express interest, and sometimes even follow up once or twice sometimes turn out to be doing so just because it appears to be the polite thing to do, despite the fact that they never actually had any interest in hiring you. Contacts with whom you've had a great start sometimes fall off the map for a month or two before resurfacing. But sometimes…a company you contacted on a whim despite the fact that their mission is really only on the fringe of your career aspirations calls you in for a meeting, leaves your jaw on the ground with the number of perfectly-fit-for-you projects they have in mind, and tells you that they have a computer, mapping software and a desk that will be waiting for you when you get to work tomorrow at 8am. And sometimes…in that very same week, you finally get a call from an urban housing and slum upgrading organization that you have been after for going on three years now, to tell you that they have been designing a project specifically for you to take on…and that project happens to be about all of the issues that you are most interested in working on over the long term - decent and affordable housing for the urban poor, upgrading of informal settlements, sustainable building, and permaculture. And sometimes…the scheduling even aligns so perfectly that you will still get to visit home for Christmas :)

So while the hunt for a decently-paid job continues, I have two great organizations I'll be spending my weekdays with while I grow my network, all the while adding experience that is exactly the kind I was looking for when I made the call to move halfway across the world. Cheers to the universe working things out in funny and unexpected ways…looking forward to keeping you all updated on the projects I've got in store!