As the Korea chapter of our lives comes quickly to a close, we have been plagued with questions of what to do next. Where should we go? Africa? South America? Back to Canada? What should we do? Is there work for us there? Volunteer? Travel? Here, there, anywhere?!
It’s been exhausting and stressful to have the whole wide world as an option. I know, LIFE’S HARD 😉
And it’s extra hard when your wants are at war with your needs – we all know what that feels like – and it’s never a fun part of life. But it IS life. And so we’ve been back and forth debating the heaviness of our desires with the realities of our current situation.
My dream has long since been to do development work in Africa but I need to work for free, it seems, to get my foot in the door. That’s hard to do with student debt. SO, if we head to Africa, our time in Korea would have rewarded us with a trip to Africa…but not really helped us to accomplish any debt relief. You see the dilemma!? So it was this that had us going back and forth….and back and forth…and back and forth for what feels like months now (I think it really was months, actually).
All of which is a long-winded way of telling you that we finally have a plan 🙂 And I think at least some of you will be pretty darn excited about it.
Drum roll, please.
We are coming back to Canada! Exciting, right?!
Now, before we get too ahead of ourselves, you should know upfront that this is not permanent. We do, however, expect to stay through mid/end August. We’ll be hanging mostly in Osoyoos (and by ‘hanging’ I naturally mean ‘working our ever-loving a**es off’) but we will get to see all of you! We are so happy! Of course ALL of YOU strictly applies to those Canadian friends and family living in the Western part of the country. I am sorry to report that we will not be doing any side trips to Chile or Australia or Eastern Canada or the US or anywhere else to see our scattered family and friends. But we will be thinking of you, if that helps 😉
The Plan
Early December Jon is going to head to Johannesburg, South Africa to attend an International Teaching Conference. I am going to come back to Canada and he will join me about 10 days later. I’m not sure where we’ll be camped for the month of December…Victoria, Williams Lake or Osoyoos probably (or very likely some combo therein) but January the job hunt will begin in Osoyoos. Let me know if you hear of some seasonal (Christmas) work in any of those areas, mmmkkaaayyy?
The idea is that Jon gets a teaching contract somewhere awesome (our first choice is somewhere in Africa), and we head there in August to set up camp for two years. Then I can volunteer/work/look for work/try to get my life together (since I will be 30 by then and my god, will I ever grow up!? Hint: probably not. That’s boring). We don’t know where that will be, or IF it will be, and we have contingencies for where and if and when. But no need to worry about all that for now! We’ll keep you updated as we know more, of course. I am nothing if not an over-sharer.
In the meantime, I think it’s going to be great fun documenting our reverse culture shock back in Canada and I am really looking forward to playing the tourist in my own country – especially wine country! – for a while. The blog posts will continue (they’ll be continuing on a new site…stay tuned for more on that as well) and hopefully continue to entertain you as we fumble our way back into the world we know but definitely don’t remember accurately (culture shock is WEIRD).
There you have it! Right now we are busy planning our exit from Korea and entrance into Canada (and beyond), so though we would love to start making promises about when and how we can see you all 🙂 we won’t be able to do that just yet. We ask that you let us get back to Canada first, and then rest assured, we will absolutely make plans to see each and every one of your beautiful faces before we leave again. You don’t think we’d forget you, do you!?
#TBT…We (okay, me) are desperately hoping to avoid this horror upon our return. Ack! Snow!
gitanalife 