Hello hello hellooooo! I am in the middle of a 6 hour
layover in Istanbul, on my way from Budapest to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It’s
Canada Day and there’s a good chance I’m the only person in this whole airport
who is aware of it. The wifi is NOT working because it’s a stupid system where
you need to get a code via text message and for whatever reason I just can’t.
I’ve taken a very long nap, eaten, and now am bored enough to finally get
around to writing a proper update.
A couple of weeks ago I handed in my thesis on sex work
policy blahblahblah. I was in Budapest for 10 months, and they went by super
fast. I learned a lot of useful new skills and definitely gained some knowledge
and understanding that should help me out in the future. There were about 30
people in my program, and we were split into two classes for mandatory courses.
This means we all saw A LOT of each other for that 10 months, and became super
close. As people have been leaving this past 2 weeks to start internships
around the world, there have been a lot of tears. It might be a long time
before I see a lot of them again. Now I’m fighting back tears in the airport so
I’m going to stop this nonsense (next day edit: I will miss many people
immensely, but having gone through this before I know I’ll see a lot of them
again somewhere too!!).
I was lucky enough to have several visitors while I was in
Budapest. My Dad and his lady friend Teri came in November. My good friend
Dawn, who I met in Korea, came for a couple days in May, and my brother was there
a couple weeks later. Finally, Mom and Grandma came for a couple of weeks and
caught my graduation ceremony. I was also able to travel a little tiny bit. I
made it to Brussels to visit another old friend, Kate, to Barcelona for
Christmas because the ticket was cheap and it was warm, to Ireland to visit
Conor, to London to see Natalie and Hridi and to Austria with Mom and Grandma.
I had many more intentions of traveling, but between school, work (online
teaching), and doing a tiny bit of volunteer English teaching, and visitors, my
schedule was constantly packed.
The final component of my degree is an internship, which I
am completing with UNICEF in Uzbekistan starting MONDAY (hasn’t sunk in yet,
caps are to convince myself haha). I’ll be there for 3 months, working on a
report of a capacity-building program. I’m certain I’ll find out many more
details in the coming week. I’ve done pretty limited research on the country
and it’s capital Tashkent, but it sounds like I might come out of it being able
to speak a few sentences in Russian (???), which hasn’t ever really been a goal
of mine, but I guess could be cool! And I’m very stoked about interning at a UN
agency. UN internships don’t often turn into jobs afterwards, but I don’t even
care about that. Just getting the experience, making some contacts and finding
new potential references is great in itself.
When I’m done my three months, I’m hoping my American
roommate from Nepal comes for a visit and we can do a week-long silk road tour.
Then I’ll be home in Canada for October, at which point I intend to eat the
equivalent of at least 3 whole pumpkin pies. I haven’t been home for
Thanksgiving since 2011, so the pumpkin pie eating is a pretty big deal.
What’s in the works for November is what’s really exciting.
While applying for summer internships, I accidentally got a job. Some of you
will be familiar with CUSO International, an organization that sends people
from Canada and the US to work with their partner organizations in various
countries around the world. I applied for a position that started in July, but
they contacted me about a position starting in November in Myanmar. I have very
few details other than that…the final stage of the process is to get matched to
a suitable organization, so I’ll need to wait on that. However, it’s seeming
increasingly likely that I’ll be in Myanmar for 2018, an incredibly exciting
prospect.
That’s the update! If you read this, it means I successfully
stayed conscious long enough to get on the plane and get to somewhere the wifi.
Instead of sleeping last night I got some friends to come over and drink all
the leftover alcohol in my flat ;), and am riding what is sometimes referred to
as “the struggle bus”. (Next day edit: I bought some water shortly after
writing this and the young guy was like “are you tired” and I was like “I’m SO
hungover” and he was like “me too”).
24 hours later:
I’m sitting in my new (to me, definitely old in general)
flat, somewhere in Tashkent. A UNICEF driver dropped me off here very late last
night, about 3AM. Getting through the airport took an eternity. Myself and a
Brazilian couple needed to get our visas at the airport, and we had to wait
about 40 minutes for the guy who gives out visas to even show up. Luckily the
couple was friendly, had just left Montreal after 6 months and proved me wrong
about nobody else knowing yesterday was Canada Day. Getting through customs
declaration also took an eternity. Had to get all of our luggage scanned right
before leaving the airport. When I found him the poor driver looked bored to
death, so I apologized, and apologized again when he lifted my 28kg suitcase
into the back of the vehicle.
The outside and the halls of my new building are definitely
nothing to brag about, but the flat itself is huge. Living room, kitchen, big
bedroom, fully furnished AND air conditioned J.
Someone was even thoughtful enough to have some bread, water, juice and eggs in
the kitchen for me to use today! Unfortunately, as far as I can tell I’m
internetless, and I also just have no idea at all where I am haha. The same
driver is coming to pick me up at 9AM tomorrow to take me to the office, at
which point I hope to be buried under an avalanche of useful information, as
well as enjoy an internet connection. NEED MY FIX!
I’ve made an uncharacteristically meek decision to just stay
in today, rather than go explore. I have no local currency, no internet, no
map, and still haven’t quite wrapped my head around the idea that I’m not in
Budapest and that I need to go to work in an office tomorrow morning. I slept
most of the morning, did my unpacking, watched Mad Max (the ONLY movie I have
on my hard drive haha), and will take some time to prepare for tomorrow. It’s
taken up nearly the whole day already.
July 3 edit - Sending this from the UNICEF office in Tashkent, will update more later. Much love to everybody, but especially my Dad who turns 67 today, and who pre-emptively accused me of forgetting his birthday 3 days ago. Touchy in his old age I guess.
