Expat Life

Time has flown and dragged; I’m in a strange state, trying to reimagine my life in New York while milking every last experience in Africa. I have an urge to stay and seek opportunity here, live a nice life on the peninsula, join the yacht club and hang out with the comfortable, spirited and perhaps slightly, cynical and smug intellectuals who do development work from their air conditioned offices and mansions by the sea. I’ve made true friends who seem so much part of my life now that it’s hard to imagine leaving them. And yet there’s a life waiting for me – a life that, except for the awful financial stress of the last year, I love. What will it be like to arrive back home? Will I leave almost immediately again? What’s next? Nairobi? Pemba? LA?

I am sitting in the little charter airport now, on standby for a flight to Pemba at 9 am and secure on a 2 pm flight. I’m well into the last task on the list I was given: finishing up a plan. I now have a budget that shows current funding and the gap between commitments and need. I see clear areas where we could cut the budget – because the community is already connected to the power grid and there is already a plan to build standpipes for clean water within one km of every dwelling place in Kiuyu Mbuyuni. The real challenges are: water for irrigation, the entire agriculture/environmental management strategy, education and health. OK and food security. These are hungry people.