Ok, usually ‘normal’ people celebrate 6-month or 1 year anniversaries but from what you have read it is safe to say that normal isn’t what we do. So HAPPY 8 MONTH ANNIVERSARY US. We have survived ... so far and when I talk about survival it’s not in reference to the different lifestyle here, the food, the weather (although we are in cyclone season so this may change) or Samoan people, it is us. We have survived us. The family has not imploded – there were times and I still get glimpses of it every now and then when I think ‘shit, fuck we are a bunch of fucking lunatics and we really shouldn’t all be in the same place together ... alone .... with no escape hatch’. Watch this space because it may change as life often does. What does it mean that we have been here just over half a year? A lot has changed, and I have gone from being a whinging expat wife of, complaining that I am not ‘utilising my skills’ to a whinging expat wife of complaining that I have too much on my plate. Be careful of what you wish for, it may come back to bite you in the arse. For a while there I was spreading myself too thin, volunteering in three different places and running around like an idiot that didn’t know which way was up and which way was down and then I got an actual job and reality sunk in. I will have to go to said job 5 days a week, do a shit load of planning and mentoring and deal with the politics of other people! What was I thinking? Why couldn’t I just be like the other expat mums here and swan about in my flowy dresses or active wear and do what ever the hell I want to do because I am on an extended holiday?! Thankfully things, like work visas take a long time here (even though the process is relatively simple seeing as I already have a temporary visa) so I am still volunteering and have some degree of flexibility and I feel it is a good way to ease myself into the workplace. I could be wrong because let’s face it I often am. I have been mulling over a lot of contentious issues since arriving in Samoa. I haven’t been able to coherently express them because I have been challenged on a deeply personal level by them that emotionally it has been hard to deal with:
I suppose we're all implicated in colonialism in the massively and increasingly corporatised milieu of education - over here, it's so naturally spoken of as an industry or a business, it seems crazy to talk about (and so construct it) in any other way. But I guess therein lies a tiny space for speaking back. So another one of my jobs now is to find spaces, no matter how small to ‘speak back’. This is a work in progress and will take many hits I am sure of that. I just hope that I am up to the task. My parenting on the hand, that is still very much in question as to whether I am up to the task. But then, who really is? How is the child thing going I hear you ask? Well it is the first week of school holidays and I want to buy a plane ticket, for myself back home! Ok I am being overly dramatic, it really isn’t that bad, they don’t even really want to interact with me anymore, unless it’s for food, water or to watch a movie. I guess I am redundant now? Not a chance. Bed time is still fun, and I am now finding it so stressful that I get anxiety when it gets dark because I know that is when the shit storm will hit. I know, I know that my own stress levels are adding to the drama and there are some nights I am cool as a cucumber but then there are other nights, I just release the Kraken! Then I feel guilty and tell myself I am a bad parent. I then proceed to Skype my mum and she consoles me by regaling stories about her fuck ups with me. Good to know I am carrying on a family tradition.
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