Put the kettle on, I’m coming home…

As many of you know, in fact as anyone reading my blog will have undoubtedly worked out, things on the work front have been rather dire here in Bangladesh. It was without surprise then, after months of meetings and wrangling and a few raised voices that I was finally informed, just before I left for Thailand, that my placement is totally unviable, and has never really existed. The background is a long and sad tail of incompetence, miss-management and corruption, that I can’t quite bare to hash over again (and which I’m sure you’re far to busy ACTUALLY working to read about). The long and the short was: it was time to find me a new placement.

Having stewed on this for 2 weeks in Thailand, I had just about reached crisis point by my return to Dhaka. It’s been a pretty tough few months all in all. Again for so many reasons that would fill the whole internet, never mind one blog. The hardest thing, though, has been being in such an unfathomably poor place and being able to do absolutely nothing.  Zero. Zilch to contribute.  It’s felt a bit like a perverse form of poverty tourism at many points. Whilst I’ve met some amazingly inspiring people and seen some incredible projects, I’ve essentially spent 3 months sitting in a room playing solitaire, playing with Facebook, and getting more and more de-motivated and at times rather depressed by the waste of it all. I feel like I came here with a lot of energy and a lot of commitment and have ended up almost, but not quite, hating the whole dam affair.

And so today was D-Day. The big meeting with the VSO big wig. It was a bit of a relief to hear that she agrees that things have been handled badly, that my placement was perhaps never viable, and that “lots of learning needs to be done”. We went back and forward for 3 hours and I was at least given a chance to say what I needed to say, what had been bubbling under the surface for all the weeks of incessant Solitaire playing.

And then I just did it. I resigned. Finished. Shesh, as they say in Bangladesh. She offered me another placement in the South of the country, in the middle of nowhere, trying to do the same sort of thing that I’ve been trying to do in Dhaka and I just couldn’t. The though of starting all over again, moving to another place, a new home, making new friends, building relationships at work, and so on and so on, on the vague off-chance that this placement might actually work out, is just a bit more than this frazzled brain can handle right now.

So, after spending months packing and unpacking and packing again, closing down bank accounts, 56 leaving parties, tears and more tears and a last cup of actually proper tea with proper milk for what would be two years-I’m coming home. At the end of January.

You know what? Writing that is the happiest I’ve felt in months. I suppose that’s what it’s about really…whilst this was always meant to be hard, and at times incredibly hard, it was never meant to be an endurance test.

So dear friends, that’s me . I’m coming home. Am I glad I did it? Without doubt. It’s been the most incredible experience, despite the bad bits. But yes, I’m really looking forward to the next step, new challenges, different types of adventure, and of course seeing all of you. And a fucking cup of tea. Put the kettle on peeps, I’m coming home…

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