Living for Disco

Ok, I know that technically I’m not actually there yet, but I did receive confirmation from VSO that my tickets are in the post, and that I have a visa, so will be allowed into the country without the little piece of paper confirming that I am not a criminal, and have never in any way been involved with nefarious activities. That they know of.

I’m fully expecting to be on that plane tomorrow night, and I’m hoping that this will mean that we arrive safely in Windhoek at around lunchtime on Sunday. With these thoughts in mind, I have changed the blog to reflect my new status as ‘International Woman of Mystery’. Although I haven’t changed it much, that you’d notice.

This action will probably scupper everything. As my Namibia-bound friend Sue said the other day, we will probably all have to go to Torremolinos because we can’t come back from the airport after so many months of saying goodbye to people, and then running into them in Sainsburys’ and hearing the familiar cry of “Haven’t you gone yet?”.

Honestly, I feel as if I’ve been saying goodbye to people since January. Enough already, can we go now?

I haven’t yet said goodbye to the Beastette, who has been sadly neglected of late. It will be left, leaning forlornly against the balcony wall, until my flatmate can take her home to my mum. I’m not sure which is better – at least here it’s got a nice view of a churchyard. My mum’s garage has the largest collection of deadly spiders outside Australia. We don’t go in there any more. The cobwebs are too difficult to tackle without the help of a blowtorch.

I haven’t packed yet either, although my clothes are now piled up in little stacks (skirts, shirts, trousers, etc. – I am nothing if not methodical). The BF is coming over this afternoon to help me pack, which means that he will sit around holidng up vital items, saying “Do you really need this?”, and generally hindering my progress.

This will be my last post for a while, as I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to get to a computer next week. Please come back next weekend for an update (I expect the weather in Spain will be lovely.)

Oh my god. The last few days have been crazy. I had a party. Lots of people came. They all got drunk and watched me hurtle around in an insane parody of a social butterfly, except that I slopped more wine than an elegant society belle would do. And I may have had dirtier feet.

Then on Sunday we went punting.
This is why I love Cambridge. It’s stunningly beautiful, compact and easy to manage, has great pubs, and the most civilised form of Sunday afternoon entertainment on the planet.

Anyway, now I’m getting a bit panicky. I’ve got loads of work still left to do this week, and not much time to do it. The BF keeps telling me not to panic, and I keep trying to persuade him that the prospect of disappearing off to Namibia with a negative bank balance is not my idea of a good time. However, this might actually end up being the case, the way things are going at the moment.

Also, I have not yet had my Criminal Records Bureau check through, without which it is somewhat doubtful that I will be allowed past customs at Windhoek airport. Neither have I had any flight tickets, and my placement adviser seems utterly clueless as to what to do, and just keeps telling me not to panic.

So, five days to go. No packing. No visa. No tickets. No money. No sanity.

Oh well. Back to work.

There was a bottle of Lebanese rose on the wine menu of the pub on Old Street. I hopped back to the table, waving the bottle at my friend and gabbling in excitement. Once I’d managed to distract her attention from the barman’s bum, I explained to her why I was so elated.

I used to work in the Lebanon. If you’ve never been there, please go. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, and people are unfailingly hospitable. As you wonder along Beirut’s crowded corniche of a soft and springlike Sunday morning, you can watch the old men fishing peacefully from the rocks below, or playing chess in the shade of a beach umbrella. Under the palms, the pretzel sellers push their carts, and couples walk arm in arm, a slow romantic promenade. Far off in the distance, above the rising blocks of flats, the mountains range, stately and snow capped. You can be up there in just a few hours, snowball fighting amongst the ancient cedars.

It’s a country of hidden idylls. Bcharre, the birthplace of Khalil Gibran, is a treasure trove of mind-boggling views, situated on the edge of a huge chasm, the terraced edges of which are a miracle of agricultural perseverance. Countless small streams and waterfalls reveal themselves within the wild vegetation. Small, whirling flocks of blue butterflies cluster around tiny flowers. Flock of goats graze under olive trees. There are even a couple of hermits hidden in the hills. The air is so fresh it hurts.

One of my favourite things was sitting on the castle walls in Tripoli, watching the boys train pigeons over the tiled roofs of the ottoman old town, and listening to the bustle of the market below. The pigeons wheel and turn on the tiniest flick of the red flags, eventually being brought into land.

Anyway, I used to take my groups wine-tasting on the edge of the Bekaa Valley. We’d troop down out of the mountains, and wander up to the vineyard. They never minded uncorking a few bottles, so we would sit getting gently drunk. Then we’d all go and spend a fortune in the shop. Especially if you were me, and had to look forward to a week of traipsing through the oenophile’s nightmare that is Syria.

It’s difficult enough to find Lebanese wine at the best of times, and to find one from my very own pet vineyard made me deeply happy with nostalgia.

So we drank it*, against the backdrop of a very fine looking barman. And it was good.

*Yes, yes I know. No more booze. Frankly, I failed.

I’m in the middle of a mid-life crisis. I just don’t know what to do with myself, in the immortal words of Burt Bacharach. I go through this occasionally – I wake up with a desperate urge to shake things up and go and do something different with my life. Last time this happened, I gave up my job and went to gallivant around the middle east, trailing a disparate group of tourists behind me like slightly bedraggled ducklings.

Travelling has always sorted this restlessness out for me until now, but for the first time in my life, I have the feeling that upping and leaving for new and varied climes might not be the answer that I need. I think that maybe I should stay here and explore my own country for a while.

I have an interview on Wednesday that could conceivably change my life. If I’m successful, in the space of 3 or 4 months I could find myself somewhere new, like Bangladesh, Kenya, Mongolia or Kazakhstan, working for a modest living allowance to help small local charities in what is known in the jargon of our field as ‘capacity building’. I’ve always wanted to go off and do Voluntary Service Overseas. I’ve dreamed of it for a long time, but now I’m not sure that it is what I really want at this moment in time, and I think if I’m about to commit 2 years of my life to this then I should be sure that I am committed. If you see what I mean.

I’ve had weird random thoughts lately concerning my future. For some reason I’d like to go and be a chemsitry or physics teacher. I didn’t even do physics or chemistry GCSE for God’s sake. What has posessed me? It couldn’t possibly be those very persuasive TV adverts could it? The ones that feature laughing, healthy looking kids, engrossed in interesting activities, clearly desperate to cram knowledge into their sponge-like brains… I know from experience, and the counsel of others that the reality is somewhat different, but even so. It’s tempting.

I am also desperate to get out of London. Much as I love this place sometimes, it wears you down. It sucks your bank account dry and spews you, gasping onto it’s concrete shores, while stressed commuters step over you looking neither to the left or right, intent only on getting to B in as short a time as possible.

I grew up in the country, on a small farm in Wales, with views of the Cambrian Mountains to greet me every morning when I woke up. Well, when I could see that far, which wasn’t very often, because it rains ALL THE TIME in Wales. But anyway, rose-tinted specs and all that. Some part of me would love to head out of the city and live somewhere small and friendly.

Perhaps I could be a florist? I had a very pleasant dream the other night in which I was a florist. But then I had a dream last night in which I was an astronaut, and I’m not about to head off to NASA for a quick spot of training as a result, so perhaps I should calm down.

In any case, there is alot going on in my head. I’m confused and I don’t know what to do.

Sigh.

3 wise men, SNC
Originally uploaded by rachie_sparrow.

I’m very proud of this photo. It’s possibly one of the best I’ve ever taken. And it could be Christmassy – 3 wise men – so, Ho Ho Ho!