Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong
Less than an hour after arriving in England I found it impossible to describe what i was feeling, so mixed up were the emotions and thoughts inside me. Terrible sadness at leaving Switzerland and not a little culture shock at being in the UK. I found since living in Switzerland I always needed time to adjust to the manic frenzy and the general grim in England. everything seemed to be difficult for me today and everybody seemed to be completely miserable in this country. the flight over had left me quite emotional and misty eyed at leaving my home in Lausanne and I was so tired I feared that I might break down once I got to the training centre - and what kind of impression would that make? They would hardly consider me a fit volunteer to send overseas and the fear made me tense and the tension made me more likely to crack...vicious spirals of self defeat that I was all too familiar with...
And all of a sudden I felt very alone as i struggled to cope with he events of my last few weeks in a country and a place I had grown to love. I had never felt much whenever I left Ireland but leaving Swissland could only be described as heartbreaking, although I doubt such a cliched phrase could do justice to the awful, painful things I was feeling, like someone was ripping my heart from my chest as I stood watching. Had I finally, after all these years and after all these travels discovered what real homesickness was?
And how ironic and how like me that it wasn't even for my native country! I marvel at my own ridiculousness sometimes. All I wished for now was a deep and peaceful sleep, blackness, no thoughts and no pain, just sleep.
The first training weekend passed, I even began to relax by the end of it. VSO requires you to do at least two weekends training and warn you that you are on continuous assessment throughout the training. I found this incredibly difficult as a learning atmosphere and very stifling. The training centre is in a small village on the outskirts of Birmingham with nothing much around it so there is quite literally no escape on the courses. I left for London feeling even more tired than I arrived in Birmingham and still carrying over 30kgs of luggage from Switzerland with me. Not to mention the fact that I was now officially homeless, jobless and countryless until I got installed in a city over 20,000kms in distance and over a month in the future.
I decided to call into the VSO office while i was in London seeing as I had a friend who lived nearby. They hadn't thought about my visa for Rwanda as my tickets weren't issued yet, there was a delay in that due to the fact that I wanted to stopover in Kenya for week before continuing. Now they wanted my passport however I had a trip to Ireland and a trip back to Switzerland to make before heading off. The timing was clearly going to be very tight.
Before making a quick trip to Ireland I had another training course, the people on a course really kept me going but I was still carrying 20kgs around with me and rapidly heading towards exhaustion. If I suspected there wasn't much left for me in Ireland previous to my trip home, I was certain of it by the end of the week. Almost everyone I'd known in Galway was gone elsewhere or too poor to be on the social scene. It was a very different picture to the boom town in the middle of a dot com bonanza that I'd left five years previously. Many friends from university had moved to Dublin and were getting on with their lives and their plans in a way with made me wonder about the future direction of my life. At least I knew what I was doing for the next year - its not much but at least its something.
I went straight from a week in Ireland to a week and a half at the VSO training centre with three courses back to back. I must point that that these courses run from 9am to 9pm everyday with a hour for lunch and another hour for dinner which are served my a catering company in the centre using what can be called modest portions. I was reproached more than once by the head chef for trying to get seconds. My exhaustion was reaching critical levels, something had to give and when at the end of the first course the instructor told me he was filing a selection validation report (ie a red flag in the he continuous assessment of my suitability of as a volunteer), I completely broke down. Less than an hour later I had to be present for the start of my second course. I was now terrified to say anything in the course in case i got another wrap on the knuckles. However despite my best efforts the trainers on the second course decided to have a "chat" because they thought I was looking upset.
The remainder of this sorry episode I will omit from my journals in order to bring up with the VSO high command someday if it seems to me that they are open minded enough for criticism (this is not my current opinion). Suffice to say the whole incident ended up in me being called for a two hour "interview" at the head office in London on that Friday, for them to satisfy themselves I was suitable to be sent overseas to work in their name. I use the word interview loosely here, you might also use the word interrogation.
Again I'll spare you the details except to say that the outcome of this process was for them to tell me on that Friday afternoon that they would get back to me the following Monday to tell me if I was still suitable. I should point that this stage that I have the tickets to Rwanda in my pocket, I have the visa in my passport and I am due to depart that following Saturday. I have given up everything, my job, my apartment, my sanity and have been rushing around with my possessions on my back for nearly a month and now need to wait for some faceless officials to decide if I will be allow to go.
I spent that weekend in hell and what should have been a final party weekend with some friends in London became a nightmare of "what if's" and worst case scenarios and torturing myself over how many different and possibly better ways I could have responded to the questions in the interview.
That following Monday I returned to Switzerland for a final farewell and to sort out some admin details. I still hadn't heard anything about the go ahead for the trip and had left England in a state of panic and uncertainty. When that go ahead finally came on Tuesday morning, I can't say that I felt a great wave of joy, I merely felt confused and emotional and was left with a deep sense of mistrust towards the organisation that was supposed to be providing a supporting role to me through the year in Africa. I was truly on my own now.
During the week in Switzerland I really wished I'd had at least triple the time, I hardly had a chance to catch up with myself but I was still under pressure to get things done and unable to relax. It didn't help that almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong from losing my Swiss permit to being locked out of my laptop. And in the state I was in any minor bump was a major catastrophe! I left for England, so tired I could barley think...
And all of a sudden I felt very alone as i struggled to cope with he events of my last few weeks in a country and a place I had grown to love. I had never felt much whenever I left Ireland but leaving Swissland could only be described as heartbreaking, although I doubt such a cliched phrase could do justice to the awful, painful things I was feeling, like someone was ripping my heart from my chest as I stood watching. Had I finally, after all these years and after all these travels discovered what real homesickness was?
And how ironic and how like me that it wasn't even for my native country! I marvel at my own ridiculousness sometimes. All I wished for now was a deep and peaceful sleep, blackness, no thoughts and no pain, just sleep.
The first training weekend passed, I even began to relax by the end of it. VSO requires you to do at least two weekends training and warn you that you are on continuous assessment throughout the training. I found this incredibly difficult as a learning atmosphere and very stifling. The training centre is in a small village on the outskirts of Birmingham with nothing much around it so there is quite literally no escape on the courses. I left for London feeling even more tired than I arrived in Birmingham and still carrying over 30kgs of luggage from Switzerland with me. Not to mention the fact that I was now officially homeless, jobless and countryless until I got installed in a city over 20,000kms in distance and over a month in the future.
I decided to call into the VSO office while i was in London seeing as I had a friend who lived nearby. They hadn't thought about my visa for Rwanda as my tickets weren't issued yet, there was a delay in that due to the fact that I wanted to stopover in Kenya for week before continuing. Now they wanted my passport however I had a trip to Ireland and a trip back to Switzerland to make before heading off. The timing was clearly going to be very tight.
Before making a quick trip to Ireland I had another training course, the people on a course really kept me going but I was still carrying 20kgs around with me and rapidly heading towards exhaustion. If I suspected there wasn't much left for me in Ireland previous to my trip home, I was certain of it by the end of the week. Almost everyone I'd known in Galway was gone elsewhere or too poor to be on the social scene. It was a very different picture to the boom town in the middle of a dot com bonanza that I'd left five years previously. Many friends from university had moved to Dublin and were getting on with their lives and their plans in a way with made me wonder about the future direction of my life. At least I knew what I was doing for the next year - its not much but at least its something.
I went straight from a week in Ireland to a week and a half at the VSO training centre with three courses back to back. I must point that that these courses run from 9am to 9pm everyday with a hour for lunch and another hour for dinner which are served my a catering company in the centre using what can be called modest portions. I was reproached more than once by the head chef for trying to get seconds. My exhaustion was reaching critical levels, something had to give and when at the end of the first course the instructor told me he was filing a selection validation report (ie a red flag in the he continuous assessment of my suitability of as a volunteer), I completely broke down. Less than an hour later I had to be present for the start of my second course. I was now terrified to say anything in the course in case i got another wrap on the knuckles. However despite my best efforts the trainers on the second course decided to have a "chat" because they thought I was looking upset.
The remainder of this sorry episode I will omit from my journals in order to bring up with the VSO high command someday if it seems to me that they are open minded enough for criticism (this is not my current opinion). Suffice to say the whole incident ended up in me being called for a two hour "interview" at the head office in London on that Friday, for them to satisfy themselves I was suitable to be sent overseas to work in their name. I use the word interview loosely here, you might also use the word interrogation.
Again I'll spare you the details except to say that the outcome of this process was for them to tell me on that Friday afternoon that they would get back to me the following Monday to tell me if I was still suitable. I should point that this stage that I have the tickets to Rwanda in my pocket, I have the visa in my passport and I am due to depart that following Saturday. I have given up everything, my job, my apartment, my sanity and have been rushing around with my possessions on my back for nearly a month and now need to wait for some faceless officials to decide if I will be allow to go.
I spent that weekend in hell and what should have been a final party weekend with some friends in London became a nightmare of "what if's" and worst case scenarios and torturing myself over how many different and possibly better ways I could have responded to the questions in the interview.
That following Monday I returned to Switzerland for a final farewell and to sort out some admin details. I still hadn't heard anything about the go ahead for the trip and had left England in a state of panic and uncertainty. When that go ahead finally came on Tuesday morning, I can't say that I felt a great wave of joy, I merely felt confused and emotional and was left with a deep sense of mistrust towards the organisation that was supposed to be providing a supporting role to me through the year in Africa. I was truly on my own now.
During the week in Switzerland I really wished I'd had at least triple the time, I hardly had a chance to catch up with myself but I was still under pressure to get things done and unable to relax. It didn't help that almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong from losing my Swiss permit to being locked out of my laptop. And in the state I was in any minor bump was a major catastrophe! I left for England, so tired I could barley think...
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