Leaving On A Jet Plane
The same weekend that Love At The Speed Of Email launched, way back in June last year, Mike and I learned that we’d be leaving Luang Prabang in April 2013. Mike’s position is being handed over to a Lao national staff member, which is good. Working yourself out of a job is exactly what you want to do in international development work, and Mike’s great at that sort of capacity building. So this is a good thing, and we always knew we wouldn’t be here long term. And, yet. There’s a difference between knowing you won’t be somewhere long term – that you might be moving in “oh, a...
Read MoreSending out an SOS
We traveled back to Laos from Thailand last Wednesday, a week after Mike’s surgery. Three suitcases, three carry-ons, a stroller, a baby, and a husband who couldn’t lift anything. It was special. Actually, it was pretty special because so many people helped us along the way. The check-in staff heaved our suitcases around, friendly strangers carried hand luggage on and off the plane for us, and an office driver met us at the airport. He not only handled all the heavy stuff there but also carried it upstairs for us once we reached the house. I’m not used to being in the position of...
Read MoreFamily moments across the miles
7:40 this morning, just after I get out the shower, skype rings on my laptop. It’s my grandparents, playing with their brand new iPad. When I answer, my grandparent’s living room pops up and I can see my mother and grandfather peering, puzzled, straight into the camera. Me: “Hello?” Pa: “Now how do you…” Me: “Hello?” Mum: “Don’t press that one!” Me: “Hello? Can you hear me?” Pa: “Well, where’s the other little thing?” Me: “Hello? Did you call me?” Mum: “It’s somewhere down the bottom there.” Me: “You called me accidentally, didn’t you. And you...
Read MoreMaking hard choices about priorities
Wow, this week is so turning out to be zero steps forward and five steps backwards. What happened to my relatively content child who, when sleepy, was usually happy to be placed in his crib with his stuffed rabbit? Who is this little being who refuses to be put down, who wants to be walked and sung to sleep instead? Who wakes up jumpy ten minutes into a nap? Who stays awake long past his bedtime and seems perpetually hungry? And why did his father decide that this was the perfect week to take a two-day trip up to remote villages in the north?? It’s Wednesday though, so here goes with a few...
Read MoreLooking Like Love: A Letter To My Parents
It’s been five months since I stepped off the plane from Asia, roundly pregnant at 28 weeks, and saw you both there waiting for me and smiling. The hills here were green, the cool air smelled of wet eucalyptus and the pancakes that we stopped for on the way home were heaped with berries, tiny crimson waterfalls falling from the stack. As I unpacked in this bedroom later that morning I thought that five months seemed like an eternity. So many milestones in life had to come and go before I would depart – Mike’s arrival after ten weeks apart, the baby’s arrival, then...
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