Welcome

Welcome my new blog about my journey, the trials and tribulations as work towards becoming a volunteer working on South Tarawa in the South Pacific country of Kiribati. I envision this blog to be a dumping ground for all sorts of random thoughts, experiences, highlights, and possibly lowlights, of my journey to becoming a volunteer working on one of the most densely populated islands in the poorest country in the South Pacific. So welcome aboard, I hope you enjoy the blog and my journey of self discovery.

The question is, where to start?

Why Volunteering?

I guess the obvious question that must be answered as we begin this journey is why volunteering? And that is the million dollar question! Altruism, a sense of adventure, wanting to change the world (hopefully for the better), to give a little back to the planet. All these are admirable reasons to choose the life as a volunteer working alongside the peoples of the Pacific and being able to offer one’s own skills and hopefully fill some gaps in their knowledge or skill base to add value to the people you are working with. But are these the reasons I chose to volunteer? Not sure really.

All I know is it something I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time and now I am in a position to do so, the time just felt right! Maybe it has something to do with turning the big FIVE OH, that’s right 50. Half a century. Yikes! Maybe I’m having a midlife crisis, time to throw in the job, grab a packpack and head off. But when you’ve a wife, kids, mortgages etc it’s not always that easy. In fact to get to this point has taken several years and has been something I've been wanting to do and workg towards for a long, long time. 

Volunteering is long been something I wanted to do, but only volunteering where I felt I was going to be able to make a difference in the community that is gracious enough to host me and my crazy arsed western ways! I think my interest in volunteering goes back to the early 1990s when I did a degree in Geography at the University of Canterbury in  Christchurch. I did a number of papers focused on developing countries in SE Asia as well as countries in the Pacific and in my honours year one of the papers I did was on the Pacific and problems and issues facing the countries of the region. So I think my interest in development and wish to volunteer, at some point down the track, stems from those years and the various geography lecturers I had at Canterbury.

After completing my honours degree I got married and Julie and I headed to Japan to teach English for three years, on the Japan Exchange and Teaching programme returning in late 1999 to start a family. However, while in Japan Julie and I took the opportunity to visit Guam, Saipan, Tinian, India and Nepal and  think it was visiting to latter two countries that really sparked my interest in development and doing more to help. India and Nepal were life changing experiences for us.

On returning to New Zealand I started a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Studies through Massey University and was intending going overseas and doing a masters then who knows maybe land a plum job in the UN where my skills could be utilised. Well, that didn’t quite work out. I spent a couple of years studying part time and got my Development Studies Post Graduate Diploma but with two very young kids, a mortgage etc it didn’t stack up financially to swan off overseas and do some study for a few months so I put that plan on hold. I intended to go back it… one day, but you know how life is. I got stuck into other things, mainly teaching English (which scratched my working with other cultures itch) and my career (if you can call it that) headed off in different direction.

Fast forward to 2017. I’d always planned to retire by the age of fifty, so as that milestone loomed I started thinking more and more about what next. I’ve a couple of friends who have plugged out of the corporate lifestyle and do their own thing (eh, Steve!) but most of my mates are still stuck in the 9-5 grind, going to work Monday to Friday to support their families and pay off that mortgage on their McMansion. Personally, I can’t think of anything worse so have always tried to follow a different path, one where working was something I did to make a bit of extra money, not something that ruled my life (work to live, not live to work!) The vehicle I decided on to financial independence was property investment. While overseas in Japan Julie and I went from being poor ex-students to in our terms being young, care free and loaded! So we saved as much money as we could while living in Japan and bought some investment properties in Timaru (where houses were about half the price of Christchurch, our home town). 

Returning to NZ we settled in Timaru and those properties have allowed us the financial freedom to work the hours WE wanted, not those dictated by a boss or a 40 hour work week. So when the kids were young we job shared an ESOL teaching role for a number of years and both got to enjoy those milestones that all too frequently one partner or the other in many, many families misses out on as they are at the office.

That being said, I did work for a few years fulltime until recently at the local polytech but resigned at the end of last year and have just been working 3 days per week at the local YMCA this year (or as I prefer to think of it, “easing back into retirement”). I enjoy my role at the YMCA, the staff are awesome and see the Y as really making a difference in the lives of the young people in our community. One day I decided to have a look at what volunteering positions were on offer at Volunteer Service Abroad (something I do every six months or so) and one popped up that piqued my interest so I fired off an application and now, a few weeks later, here we are beginning on that journey towards what will probably be one of the most challenging years I shall face.

Craig