I decided to volunteer overseas

I have done some volunteering in Canberra and enjoyed it. However, I often thought I wanted to do more. While Thomas, my son, was working at a country hospital in Mseleni in South Africa I looked at their website and saw an advertisement for a hospital manager. It occurred to me that I could probably do that.

On Saturday 27^th October 2012 when was lying in my hospital bed in Melbourne the day after my heart operation I was looking at the Voluntary Service Overseas website on which there were example jobs. One was manager of an orphanage in Bangladesh. I thought that was really the sort of thing I wanted to do so I put in a ‘short’ application. Almost by return I received a request to fill in the long form. There were two questions I couldn’t answer. “Are you healthy?” Which I couldn’t answer ‘Yes’ as I was only just off the operating table! The other was, “Do you owe any money?” Well, of course I do! So I had to get healthy and I had to decide what to do about paying the mortgage while I was away. In January my cardiologist told me I was cured but I had to wait until March to come off the Warfarin. I decided that I would rent the house and any difference between the mortgage repayments and the rent I would pay out of my savings.

I was prepared to resign from CASA if I had to but I really wanted to be able to come back to a job - any job - after my year away. I am too old to be unemployed. I asked John if he would give me a year’s unpaid leave and an administrative post of some sort when I returned. He said that if I wanted to take a year’s holiday then he wouldn’t but if I was going to volunteer, then not only would he keep a job open, he would keep my job open for me. What a fantastic boss!

Strangely I struggled to find suitable projects. Most were of the voluntourism type that required volunteers to pay for the privilege of working for them. I was going to give up a year’s salary and a year’s payments into my super - I was damned if I was going to pay on top! After digging around a bit and following various contacts I was directed to the RAWCS (Rotary Australia World Community Service) website where there were lots of projects.

I didn’t want to work in countries where I needed to be under armed guard so I sent my CV to several organisations in Kenya, Tanzania, Cambodia and Laos. A former colleague very kindly contacted friends of his in Ghana on my behalf.

The first to reply with a professional response was Mines Victims and Clearance Trust. I met with two of their board members and felt that this was a project where I could make a contribution and also get something out of it myself. I was after a challenge for myself as well as wanting to help people directly. I wasn’t sure whether any other suitable organisations would come up so I committed to MiVAC for 6 months and then month-by-month after that.

http://www.mivac.org/

Shortly afterwards I was approached by New Hope Cambodia who run a school in Siem Reap. I asked them if I could use them as a back-up in case the MiVAC project didn’t work out. They were happy with that arrangement and asked me to come to Siem Reap to see the school on my way to Laos. I agreed.

I’m not sure when I made the final commitment but it was around the beginning of September 2013. I decided to leave work on 7 November but I had already booked and paid for a holiday with Kate in the UK followed by 2 weeks on business in Montreal between 4 September and 7 October. So in about 5 weeks I did the following:

Passport photos

Visa for Cambodia

Visa for Lao PDR - 3 visits to embassy

Letter of introduction from MiVAC for visa

Vaccinations - 3 visits - Typhoid, tetanus, polio, hepatitis B #1, #2 and #3, measles, mumps, rubella, Japanese encephalitis and malaria tablets.

Claimed back vaccs from Medicare

Engaged an agent to rent the house.

Arranged insurance - overseas for a year, landlord’s, car in the shed (if not sold), house contents in a shipping container and shed - not as easy as it sounds.

Advertise car for sale car - put on website and got quotes from garages.

More passport photos - just in case

Arranged for mail to be forwarded

Stopped gas, electricity, broadband/phone

Took spare clothes to Salvos

Visited neighbour - got knocked over by Alpaca named Frank who wanted to play football (really!). Hurt wrist. Harden up!

Repaired track at the top to allow truck to deliver container. Repaired track lower down so that it would last a year of rain/erosion. (Aggravated wrist)

Took old computers to tip.

Rented container and took delivery.

Visited Sydney to see close friends.

Bought new phone, bought sim card, ported phone number from work. Got Contacts out of Outlook and into phone

Cleaned gutters (fell off ladder and hurt wrist again - worser)

Visited hospital for x-ray of wrist - ok - toughen up princess.

Sprayed all noxious weeds (3 sessions)

Wrote instructions to tenants on water tanks and pumps and aerated water treatment system.

Doctor for check-up - ok

Blood tests - ok

Dentist for check-up - ok