What’s Changing Around Here

So much has changed during the last six weeks it’s hard to know where to start.

We’ve packed up the house in Laos and bid some wrenching farewells to our dog, Zulu, our staff, and friends in Vientiane.

We scrambled through two weeks of medical and dental appointments here in Australia (all of Mike’s one year post-cancer scans came back clear. Hooray!!) so that we could all leave together for Port Vila on Feb 18^th. Then we decided at the last minute that Mike should head out first and spend some time in the more remote projects while the kids and I stayed in Australia for few extra weeks.

We decided not to live in the house we thought we had lined up in Port Vila (the fact that it was built on a cliff and had a rotten perimeter fence had somehow escaped previous communications).

We decided not to rent, after all, but to buy a house in Port Vila.

In amongst trips to the field and getting a handle on his new job as Country Director, Mike toured a dozen houses in town. Then we put an offer in on a house. (And if you’re wondering if I found it a little scary to put an offer in on a house I’ve only seen photos of, in a country I haven’t been to yet, the answer to that question is “yes”.)

Last, but not least, Alex has pretty much stopped eating anything but bananas, yogurt, porridge and peanut butter sandwiches, and in the last three days Dominic has pretty much stopped using the toilet.

The kids and I are supposed to leave for Vanuatu on Monday morning, but ominous changes in the South Pacific may delay our departure for a second time. Cyclone Pam is currently bearing down on Vanuatu, intensifying as it approaches. No one is sure yet whether it will merely be an ugly storm, or a catastrophic one. We’ll know more in 24-48 hours.

In the meantime, I’m here making spaghetti sauce, reading stories about little yellow diggers, arguing with a three year old about proper toileting protocol, and helping my Dad teach the kids how to swim. Over there, Mike’s battening down the hatches, pulling together emergency protocols, identifying disaster recovery priorities, and figuring out which room of the house is safest to bunk down in if a super-charged Pam collides with Vila.

We’ll touch base periodically by Skype until their electricity goes out… and then I’ll wait.

It’s not the first time in our marriage we have been living parallel realities that seem worlds apart, but it is one of the most extreme.

I’ll post again after all these chips fall as they may. In the meantime, if you have more time for reading and you’re dealing with plenty of changes of your own, you can check out my post this week for A Life Overseas, Little Lives In Big Transitions: 14 Ways to Help Children Cope Better With Change.