Plans Aren’t Always Necessary

Have passport, no plan, but ready for travel

1986

It was coming to the end of my second year of study in Agriculture, and I was looking at what to do with myself after graduation. I was looking at job options, preferably some with an opportunity to travel. I’d completed a two-year journalism course previous to this, and I could have gone to work as a general journalist and make my way through the ranks with the hope of one day perhaps becoming an important political commentator; the other option was becoming an agriculture journalist, but that wasn’t all that appealing either. I wanted to travel, and write, before settling down to some of the more mundane things in life, like a real job, a car, a house and eventually, maybe a cottage on a lake in northern Ontario. Thirty years later, I’ve managed all those things in one way shape or form, but definitely not in the way that I had envisioned at the age of 22. The cottage on a lake became a small cottage on a reservoir in the mountains in Northern Thailand, the car became a succession of pick-up trucks over the years, and the house eventually became a condominium. Let’s see what the next 30 years bring. Still, a cottage in some country with a cooler climate with the possibility of camping, canoeing and sailing in the summers is still an option.

Moscow Res Square

When Opportunity Knocks…

So here I was in my final year, and I had to do something. As I was on my way to see a career guidance counselor, I noticed the board with positions open in foreign countries for a volunteer organization called CUSO, formerly the Canadian University Students Overseas. What attracted me was the exotic-sounding names of the places they posted people:

Ghana       Benin     Honduras     Thailand     Mali     Vanuatu     Papua New Guinea     Fiji

And a whole bunch more; it was like walking into a huge airport and seeing the large black board with signs constantly changing with letters whirring like a rolodex as they spell out the names of exotic far-flung places. Maybe this was something to look into, after all, when I was sixteen I had wanted to go to Russia with a few friends to see just what all this stuff about Communism was all about, and whether or not conditions were as bad as people said they were. (That was in 1979.) We never did make it to Russia in that year; what 16-year-old has enough money to go traveling like that for three weeks? (I eventually made it to Moscow in the early 1990s, and it was an eye-opening experience. More of that later.)

Uluru (Ayers Rock) Australia

I had started looking into going abroad after graduation, and the latest attraction was Australia, even though it was on the other side of the world. It was too expensive a trip, even if I could travel there and work there for a few months before taking the time to tour the country. But here was an opportunity to travel and to learn, and perhaps even to do something that might be of benefit to others.

Take a Deep Breath…

CUSO’s far flung network of volunteers working in strange-sounding countries was very appealing, and it didn’t bother me a bit that I would have to spend at least two years in a strange country with a strange language, and an even stranger culture. That’s what life is all about, learning, seeing and broadening your horizons, and in a way it was kind of reminiscent of the move to Canada only a decade earlier; then too, I had had to learn a new language, adapt to a new culture, and get used to climate conditions that at first seemed suitable only to some alien and frozen planet. As for widening horizons, I still insist that every young adult between the ages of 18 and 20 should be forced to spend a minimum of 6 months to a year living in a country where their native language is not spoken, and where the culture is quite different from their own. If 5% of all the money spent annually on national defense and military expenditures were instead spent on a program such as this, we would soon be living in a much happier, more respectful and understanding world, and we wouldn’t need to spend ever-increasing trillions on hardware and software meant to kill each other.

Ignore the Traditional…

Having read the brochure tacked to the announcement board, I jotted down the phone number, walked past the guidance office without bothering to arrange a meeting with a counselor, and made my way to the library where I typed out a letter to CUSO, along with an application form and other necessary documents. There was no opportunity to indicate a preferred or specific country, there was only the option of requesting a ‘region or continent’ – a huge expanse of geography in any case, considering Asia covers everything from Turkey to Japan, and I wanted to be posted somewhere in this continent. I submitted the application, and waited.

Landing on my feet, somewhere…

Make the Leap and Trust in Yourself

Surprisingly, I received a reply within a very short time. My application had been accepted and was being processed, and a ‘suitable’ posting was being found for me. The excitement rose, and as the school year was nearing an end, I got caught up in the excitement of a potential new adventure. By April I had received confirmation of a post being available, and I dashed off to the library, excitedly researching the culture and language of the exotic destination that was supposedly soon going to become my home. By May the excitement abated somewhat, as the first posting was canceled, and a second one was potentially in the offing, but no guarantees. When this second posting was scratched, the research became more of a routine, and a ‘what’er’ kind of attitude set in. Maybe that was the right attitude, because it kept me from forming any preconceived ideas on the place I might eventually end up, and I think it’s just as well, because nothing can prepare you for a total change in life.