I flew back from the Balkans at the end of June 2022 in time to head down to Minnesota with Attiya and Hayley to attend Kim and Mike's wonderful (KG themed!) cottage wedding, and then to fly back from there in time to take part and Laura and Mo's lovely wedding here. It was there that I got a call from Mariya asking if I wanted to join an OSUN project working in the education sector in refugee camps.
Despite knowing that I was burnt out and really should give myself a break, I felt like I really couldn't give up a chance to work on something that united all of my knowledge and expertise (anthropology, international relations, disaster management, ESL teaching, and education development) in such a useful and fundamentally good way so I ended up agreeing to take on not one, but two projects (after first dashing off for a quick Manitoulin camping trip with Robb). The first, my main project, involved developing the initial sections of a new (primarily online) bridging curriculum for refugee students in Kenya, Jordan and Bangladesh who were looking to apply to English-language universities, whether online from their camps or abroad as part of their resettlement, and needed to upgrade their English language, writing, general academic and study skills in order to do so. The second project had me working as a teacher trainer in the Cox's Bazar camps in Bangladesh, helping to build the mentoring skills of local and refugee senior teachers and administrators responsible for the ultimate rollout of and teacher training on the new curriculum for the Rohingya refugees (who had at that point been without schooling beyond the grade 3 level for almost 5 years). This built of work I had been doing at AUCA helping to mentor our trainee teachers from our Master's of Teaching program, and later to help mentor and advise other mentors working with the program. The work itself was interesting, but the practical, administrative and (most of all) bureaucratic hurdles just made everything so challenging. This was especially devastating and frustrating when I was working directly with our refugee students or trainees in camp whether to gather data in order to improve the programs or to conduct sessions, because the limitations on their lives and what exactly it was actually possible for us to accomplish in trying to help were just so, so unavoidably glaringly obvious. And there is nothing worse than seeing people suffer and being quite literally powerless to offer anything more than a bandaid solution when you know that the only thing prolonging their suffering is quite simply politics and the lack of will to actually implement a solution on the part of other people because of optics, and yes, more politics. It's gut wrenching and awful even just as an observer and it really should not be that way.
Needless to say, last year was not really a break of any kind. I learned a lot, made some good friends, got to enjoy many a lovely Cox's Bazar sunset and cheap seafood dinner (in the few hours I wasn't working) while in Bangladesh for most of the fall and some of January, and got to visit the giraffes on a brief fall trip to Kenya. I was also extremely fortunate that I was able to organize some stopovers in London in order to visit Lisa (and Jo! and other Jo!) in Cambridge, as well as attend the Arch & Anth dinner at Ox while Lisa was still with us. Sadly, we lost Lisa on Nov 3rd. Cancer is awful. I am still so devastated (though I guess marginally less angry) that we lost her at such a young age. She really was the best of us and I was always so grateful that I got to follow along on her journey from the sidelines as she became the badass archaeologist and academic she was always meant to be, championing equality and open access the entire way <3. She was just such an incredible person and her determination - even when she was younger and doubted herself - was always incredible to watch. I loved watching her grow into herself and was so, so proud of her and all she had accomplished. I told her years ago that I used her as an example of what could be accomplished through determination when I was encouraging my students to follow their dreams and she kind of scoffed at me then, but she just went on accomplishing more and more as the years went on and I still can't really believe she is gone. We got way too short a time after she was told the cancer had returned, but I will forever be grateful that the universe conspired to organize things so that I got any time at all <3. And I am so, so glad you had (your) Jo with you throughout. Love you Lisa. And I will now forever mispronounce the word dahlia in your honour ;).
So fall was busy times. I was home for a grand total of 6 days, during which I moved from Zia J's where I had been staying for the second half of the summer (I had been staying with Emily B in between Nonno's and my time back in KG, but she very sensibly acquired a new roommate while I was gone) to my condo. Thankfully, the majority of my stuff had been in my storage locker in the basement here for the last 10 years, so I didn't have to move it too far. I also lucked out and was able to source most of my furniture from castoffs from friends and fam as well as from previous tenants. So that made coming home for x-mas much more pleasant! That said, I am still sleeping on a mattress on the floor nearly 10 months later (it's perfectly comfy! and I am much too lazy to source another bed), so... shrug. Ma and John ended up deciding to sell their place up here in Jan, so they are now also in the condo (sleeping on my actual bed) when they are not down in Costa Rica, which means I now have far too many plates or cutlery for one place, having also inherited theirs, but at least don't have to carry all of the costs of living here :P.
So fall was busy times. I was home for a grand total of 6 days, during which I moved from Zia J's where I had been staying for the second half of the summer (I had been staying with Emily B in between Nonno's and my time back in KG, but she very sensibly acquired a new roommate while I was gone) to my condo. Thankfully, the majority of my stuff had been in my storage locker in the basement here for the last 10 years, so I didn't have to move it too far. I also lucked out and was able to source most of my furniture from castoffs from friends and fam as well as from previous tenants. So that made coming home for x-mas much more pleasant! That said, I am still sleeping on a mattress on the floor nearly 10 months later (it's perfectly comfy! and I am much too lazy to source another bed), so... shrug. Ma and John ended up deciding to sell their place up here in Jan, so they are now also in the condo (sleeping on my actual bed) when they are not down in Costa Rica, which means I now have far too many plates or cutlery for one place, having also inherited theirs, but at least don't have to carry all of the costs of living here :P.
It was back to Bangladesh for me in Jan to (I thought) wrap up the teacher training project (turns out we are running another round of training and I have somehow agreed to head back this fall?), and then over to Kenya in Feb to meet with our students in Kakuma and Dadaab and run some in person classes as well as do data collection in order to assess and re-work some bits of the curriculum. From Kenya, I popped on down to Zimbabwe to visit Shahnaz, Avi and Azhar in Harare and to travel around and explore (and dip back across the SA border to finally see Mapungubwe!). I got to meet and become friends with the awesome Mzi while I was there and had an absolutely lovely time travelling around the country. Definitely one of my favourite places in Africa. Despite the horrendous economic and political situation, everyone is well educated, curious, independent and interested in the world around them. It was a really great place to just go and hang out with the people. It also doesn't hurt that the landscape is gorgeous and the history/archaeology phenomenal.
From Zim, it was back to Toronto to implement the findings from my data collection and to wrap up the curriculum design process. As well as to continue my other job editing academic and policy papers for the Bishkek branch of the OSCE and the OSCE Academy (which I had been continuing to do throughout as well) and to drop back into my other, other job substitute teaching circus here in Toronto at Artists' Play. Finishing the OSUN project was such a relief. Guys. Three jobs (not even counting the sub-teaching) is too many - especially when you are already burnt out!
From Zim, it was back to Toronto to implement the findings from my data collection and to wrap up the curriculum design process. As well as to continue my other job editing academic and policy papers for the Bishkek branch of the OSCE and the OSCE Academy (which I had been continuing to do throughout as well) and to drop back into my other, other job substitute teaching circus here in Toronto at Artists' Play. Finishing the OSUN project was such a relief. Guys. Three jobs (not even counting the sub-teaching) is too many - especially when you are already burnt out!
Wrapping up the major projects also gave me some time to finish working on addressing some major health issues that I had been trying to fix for years but hadn't had the energy/time to adequately dedicate to (not to mention had been constrained by the slow, sloowww process of getting in to see specialists in Ontario and the limited access to medical care caused by covid prior to that). Turns out a lot of the more physical issues were down to my having (had) a twisted coccyx (for the last 20 + years!) that had gotten worse in the last few years due to my compensating for an ankle I had sprained (again) playing soccer (in 2017!) and in which the ligaments and tendons were now so overstretched that the bones have a (continued) tendency to shift and dislocate (thanks hypermobility disorder)... and which I had been dancing, circus-ing, hiking and back country skiing on (I knew it wasn't right, I just didn't know how not right...). Whoops. Anyway... the coccyx was essentially squishing my colon as well as causing a whole bunch of structural and musculoskeletal knock-on effects in my pelvis and core and spine and legs and... yeah. The impacts on my digestion (from having my colon squished, which, for the record, is not fun) were also exacerbated by the fungal infection I had had in my intestines back in 2019 AND the helicobacter infection I got sometime around late 2020/early 2021, as well as the decision by my digestive sphincters (but especially my gal bladder and duodenal sphincters) to dysfunction (since, you know, they are also connective tissue and therefore... felt left out? by not having previously been implicated by my hypermobility disorder?). Anyway... all of that is cleared up now - minus the ankle, which doesn't like it when I drive and thus gets grumpy and agitates the coccyx, but those are relatively easy fixes now that we know what is going on - and the fact that apparently my exhaustion was not just a result of general burnout and my body dealing with constant pain and the inability to digest a bunch of foods while everything was dysfunctional, but also a lovely side effect of the 2019 fungal infection having essentially thrown my adrenal system off kilter (causing adrenal insufficiency - it was BAD) and, now, the lingering effects of that. Fun. But, happily, that is also getting better and I am now starting to feel a (bit) more and more like my old self.
After wrapping up the projects at the end of May, I took off to Europe to visit friends and fam and get some travel in. First stop was England to visit Jo, and Charlotte(ish), and Jo and Lisa in her lovely wildflower meadow, and Alex and Erika for Alex's bday. Then it was across the channel to Dieppe to visit the cousins in Caen, see Tante Jeanine's final resting place on the beaches of Normandy, and visit Mont St Michel (thanks to Suzelle for hosting me!). Next it was down to Paris to visit Iselin and to catch up with Jawad and Gahzal, and then on to Lyon to finally visit Caroline down there (guys, Lyon is LOVELY!). From Lyon, I headed over to Zurich (via a wonderful stopover in Bern!) to collect Vanessa who was joining me for the next whirlwind leg of the trip trough Lucerne, Liechtenstein, Feldkirch, Innsbruck, Bolzano (where we met up with Pablo!), Cortina d'Ampezzo and the Dolomites, Trento, Venice (where we met up with Stephen!), Bologna, Rimini and Milan. While we were moving really quickly overall, we took 5 days to fully enjoy the Dolomites, renting a car and camping out in Cortina so that we could have enough time to get in some amazing hikes and even take Vanessa on her first ever via ferrata :D. After Vanessa flew out to Milan, I headed down to Genoa to visit the palazzos and hike Cinque Terre, then over to Savona to visit the Gareri side of the fam :), and then across to Nice, Monaco and Marseilles before flying home myself.
Since then I have just been here, trying to catch up on all my posts and updates, seeing/hanging with friends and fam, enjoying having access to a rooftop pool, working on editing projects, and teaching summer camp at the circus school :).
Not sure what I will get up to next. It seems like I am headed back to Bangladesh in September (and possibly again in October/November), and then... who knows? For now I am just trying to take a little break enjoying life as it comes :).
Not sure what I will get up to next. It seems like I am headed back to Bangladesh in September (and possibly again in October/November), and then... who knows? For now I am just trying to take a little break enjoying life as it comes :).