fabulous comeuppance

a retrospective glance at life since my last update:

*i stayed in chiang mai, thailand until march 2010 teaching english and working for a burmese education non-profit organization. after having been there for more than 18 months, i started to feel like i was losing sight of my purpose. i'd originally gone to thailand in an effort to figure out what the hell i wanted to do with my life - teach english? health professional? anthropologist? masters student?!?! i met many amazing people, made loads of beautiful friends, ate some incredible food, was blown away by larger-than-life landscapes...but at the end of the day, i was not any closer to realizing my destiny than i was when i first stepped off the plane in 2008.

i'd decided it might be time for me to return to the U.S. - not totally a failure, but with a sense of defeat that i wasn't quite comfortable with. then something amazing happened. a group that i was volunteering with asked me if i would come to their office, because they wanted to introduce me to a couple of people. they would often ask me to come by to meet their songwriter friends to help them edit their songs that they wanted to perform in english; or teach their friends who wanted to open a restaurant catering to tourists how to make western food. so figuring this was another one of those scenarios, i gladly threw on a pair of cut-off shorts and a halter top, hopped on my motorbike and headed over to the office.

when i arrived, i was greeted by two american women, who were introduced to me as the leadership team of clear

path international, an international ngo that supports victims of landmines. they were the primary funders of this organization that i was volunteering with and had asked the group if they knew anyone who would like to help them out with some of their projects in se asia. apparently i fit the bill, but as they scanned me up and down - with my backpacker attire and empty-handed (no CV, or even a pen), i feared they had doubts. but then again, so did i. of course i wouldn't want to interview and be considered for a job that would keep me in asia. i'd already failed at developing a strategic plan for myself, and had wasted two years of my life in the process. screw you guys, i'm going home. or so i thought.

over the next few hours i spent chatting with these brilliant, compassionate women i was won over by their stories and hopes for the organization. i found myself then praying that they would accept me into their ranks. ah, but money. they didn't have a budget to fund my position, so told me that they would try to secure some grant money to bring me on, but in the time being just to hang out

a little while and just wait. yea, sure. i live in freaking asia, how many times had i heard that before? from tuk tuk drivers telling me that their vehicle was tired and i needed to just wait a little while...4 hours later we're still stuck in the middle of the jungle with hungry, fanged beasts scurrying around our feet. or the restaurant owner telling me that my dish will be out soon, just wait a little while. 2 hours later i'm passed out in the floor in a near diabetic fit. hellz no, i don't wait for anyone in asia anymore. but they persisted, and 7 months later, i received an email informing me that they'd received funding for my position, and they wanted me to start working immediately. so with that, i bid thailand and all my gorgeous memories farewell, for the time being. holla!

*during that 7 month period after thailand i lived in burma, an experience i'll cover in subsequent blogs. i'm realizing i'm a much better blogger when i write about the events retrospectively, after i've had time to reflect and see how things were actually pieced together through the end.