certainty returns

Job certainty, that is, as due to "extensive feedback" my employer has decided not to cut my post, after all.  So the last month of worry and up-and-down emotions has all been for nothing (well, except that it prompted me to get some old emails backed up, I suppose - that will need doing eventually).  Although with some of that feedback coming from my own staff, it is wonderful to discover that I am so valued by them - that is cetainly one positive outcome.

& now I am expected to carry on as if none of this happened, as if I didn't spend the last month trying to persuade myself that I didn't want the stupid job anyway ... now time to build myself back up again to being a hard-working and motivated employee.  Here again, the support of my staff throughout this makes a huge difference, as I am of course very motivated to do the best I can by them.  Plus I've always been one to do whatever I am doing to the best of my ability, so even whilst the motivation fell, I still tried my best.  But it has been hard.

Looking forwards, though, it is such a relief to know that I won't be faced with a return to the UK just as they start to move in to the cold and dark days of winter.  As their COVID cases start to mount again, and lockdowns return.  Just why is it that sub-Saharan Africa is doing so well against the virus??  It's true that we have a very young population, and so there might be many more cases than we know about, affecting young people who remain asymptomatic and thus never get tested.  But on the other hand, the trace-and-test regime here for contacts is very strong, and those testing positive are moved to isolation facilities even if they are asymptomatic, thus restricting the virus spread.  Rules are rules, so like everyone else here I wear my mask down on my chin as I walk the streets, pulling it up to cover my face as soon as I go into any shops or other busy places - although I've mostly spent my time at home, working with my laptop at my dining table, so my exposure to any potential virus-carriers has been low in any case.

From home I have taken far too many photographs of the early morning sky from my balcony (I haven't had the will-power to do anything involving any commitment, such as starting a book), but I was so happy when the place where I go swimming re-opened (again) last weekend, and in celebration I swam 80 lengths of the pool - 2 km!  Which of course doesn't help with the weight situation - I have lost so much weight, clearly my home diet is insufficient but this is only apparent now that I don't spend 60% of my time away eating hotel breakfast buffets (how I miss those!!) and restaurant dinners.  Most of my clothes no longer fit, which is not a problem for the five days a week I am indoors working at my dining table, but for the one to two days I go to the office, and even for quick trips across the road to the supermarket, I am struggling to find anything I can wear.  Maybe I need to start drinking more wine!!

uncertain times

 

Still trying, as we all are, to squeeze some enjoyment out of this strange year, I accepted an invitation from someone I hardly knew to spend a day out of Dakar, some 60km away, where he was going to visit his parents.  The picture above was taken from his front door.  There we had time for a walk along the beach, as well as a walk through the fields to where his father was tending aubergine, pepper and peanut plants.  It was pleasant.

& I suppose the year hasn't been too bad, in the sense I that I have been kept busy with work, as well as sorting out personal admin (backing up old photos and personal emails, for example).  Now we are into the depths of the rainy season - and a particularly rainy one, with as much rain falling yesterday as we normally get in the whole three months, leaving many suburbs flooded (and indeed the whole of the peninsula where Dakar is located was cut off from the rest of the country for a few hours, until the floodwaters subsided) - which means high humidity as well as rain, so even the thought of walking around the streets is less inviting than normal.  Our museums, live music venues, national parks and beaches remain closed, and gyms and swimming pools have had to close their doors again as the number of cases in the country continues to (slowly) rise.  So, in the last year of my contract, I cannot make the most of my remaining time here - so frustrating!

Making the situation worse is the knowledge that my contract may even be cut short, with COVID-related falls in the funding of our organisation leading to large proposed cuts, including a 30% reduction in my department's budget.  I've been formally told that my position is one of those at risk, although at the same time I know that there are people lobbying to retain it.  So I sit and await the outcome of consultations on the proposals, not even able to make the most of what might be my last few months here because of the measures in place to stop the spread of this stupid virus.  Hence my focus on backing up personal emails, and so on.

I have also been mulling over what I might do if this job does end soon.  Whether I would go back to the UK.  There are certainly things I would appreciate about going back - reading somewhere today about a glut of figs in Europe right now had my mouth watering! - but as I've been backing up the old emails, I've been reading them, and have been reminded about the things I don't really want to go back to.  The long, cold months of winter (cold to me, who has had fourteen years of life in hot countries), the lack of sunlight (hard to imagine now that it can really get dark at 4pm!!), and the current politics of the place which I know would infuriate me.  Then I wonder whether it would be possible (practically as well as financially) to go and live for a while in Morocco, or Croatia, or Istanbul, or to go backpacking around eastern Europe or south-east Asia.  I can get quite carried away with the possibilities ... and then have to remind myself that I may still get to keep my job.  It's a difficult mental balance between on the one hand convincing myself that if I lose my job it won't really be a bad thing, and on the other hand retaining my motivation to stay!

Hoping that they announce their decision soon as the uncertainty is probably the worst thing, even though I know that every day that goes past without a decision being made, is another day of living here in this warm climate, and another day of earning a salary.