'The Nativity' A Salzburg Master c1400

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Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and a wonderful 2010

Love from Jenny.

Still nothing happening. My reports are on "Go Slow" too in sympathy - that's just a new slant on my usual procrastination at this time of year!

Christmas is edging closer so hopefully we'll hear soon that someone wants us. It would be great to announce where we are going in the annual Christmas letter.

More when there's more to tell,

Jenny

Africa time

My friend Paul is currently working with children in Tamil Nadu, South India, in schools run by the Church of South India. He has had to get used to India time which runs randomly but inevitably later than our standard linear whitefella time. We in the west are slavishly tied to our clocks from the one that wakes us in the morning to the one that tells us if we'd better be in bed soon or we'll be struggling again in the morning! In India things happen when they happen, not a moment before; and take as long as they need too and sometimes longer.

I have had the frustration each of the last two Fridays of sitting in a doctor's waiting room for up to an hour waiting to have essential vaccinations. I kept telling myself it was good practice for next year when we will have to get used to Africa time.

Patience is not a virtue I have in abundance - my children at school can testify to how quickly it runs out! So for the next 4 months I will be patient, I will be patient, I will be patient, I will be patient ...

My arm is like a pin-cushion. Five vaccinations on Friday and more to come! We are continually asked "Where are you going?" It would be wonderful to know. Maybe by the end of November we'll have some idea.

I have started gathering resources to take with me. I am grateful to Ian Lowe, a maths teaching guru employed by the Mathematical Association of Victoria who has done some work in South Africa and in Malawi training maths teachers in more student centred approaches, for giving me some resources he has used.

More soon, Jenny

Friday (yesterday) was an exciting day for many reasons.

1. I took my first wicket. A very unlucky TH&AC student fell, clean bowled, to one of my tricky but totally random slow balls. I also increased my batting average from 0 to 1 by making 3 runs before being clean bowled myself.

2. A package of goodies arrived from AVI-VSO to move us one step closer to (maybe) Africa. Over the next month we will be totally checked out - police criminal records check, medical check and dental check. We also have quite a lot of reading to do.

Friday next week we start the immunisation process with vaccinations against a whole lot of diseases I would never want to get - the thought of being in the same vicinity as a rabid dogs without Gregory Peck to protect me gives me the heebie-jeebies.

The cartoon is from dithyrambs.net/humanopodes. I think most players are in more danger from rabid beavers than from my bowling!

More news soon,

Jenny

Last year I convinced Steve that the time had come - our children were old enough to be left, finances allowed it and I was desperate to do what I had always thought I should do. So we started looking for ways to take our skills (teaching & agronomy) to another part of the world less privileged than Australia.

A trip to southern Africa in 2006 confirmed a love affair begun with reading Alexander McCall Smith's delightful works about Botswana, Precious Ramotswe and the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency.

If you asked me what fascinated me most about southern Africa I would truthfully answer "the windows". Everywhere we went I found my kitchen window - a standard issue 1950s steel framed article with brass handle. This one was in a road house in Nata, Botswana.

Nelson Mandela's house in Soweto had windows just the same.

So southern Africa was where I wanted to go! How could I get there?

Now I wanted Africa - Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Swaziland or Lesotho - to want me!

Australian Volunteers International (AVI) advertised for volunteers and we applied. I applied for an Education Manager post through the UK organisation Volunteers Serving Overseas (VSO). I discovered I would have to broaden my outlook.

After the interviews and reference checks we are looking at being offered a posting in Namibia, Ghana, The Gambia, Rwanda or Ethiopia on the African continent but also Nepal in Asia or Guyana in South America. When options for Steve working as an agricultural consultant are added the possibilities are increasing.

So it may yet not be a Year in Africa but I'm determined it will be a year somewhere. Maybe somewhere with a kitchen window just like mine.

I'll let you know what happens next!

Jenny