I signed a contract extension today.
For another year!
At this point though, I'm only intending to stay another six months.
Six months isn't enough time to really achieve anything in South Sudan, and I feel like I've really only just begun. I came in halfway through a project too, and it took me a while to get my head around everything, so I've still got plenty of energy to devote to this work. I really like the teams I work with and enjoy the work I'm doing. So I'm going back. Bring it on.
The rainy season, and being less able to get out in the field, may also drive me a little bit bonkers. But I want to be able to help plan our activities for next year, so that when the rainy season finishes, we can get out there and implement things. And I want to reward our staff for their hard work through capacity building and training during the downtime.
Seeing South Sudan in its beautiful green glory will also be great. I'm looking forward to wandering through the compound in the evening, probably in my wellies, frogs scattering as I walk, and be able to fall asleep to the cacophany of frogs in the huge puddles that the roads become at this time of year.
I also feel that staying beyond six months might not be so good is that my two best buddies in Rumbek, Rachel and Ollie, will be gone by then. One of the main reasons that I enjoy working in South Sudan is that I have my two fellow musketeers around for fun adventures. While I do enjoy spending time with others in South Sudan, both local and ex-pat, life in Rumbek without them just won't be the same. And then there's that point about going bonkers; without them, my pals who greatly assist me to avoid reaching this mental situation, it may just happen. Still, who knows who I might meet and who might come along to fill that void? But the turnover of people in the humanitarian world is high, and it's difficult to really make lots of good friends. I definitely have two right here at the moment, but they won't be around for long.
But only time will tell. Maybe I'll meet an amazingly beautiful man that will keep me in South Sudan. Ha!
Interestingly, my role may soon be different. There is talk of changing my job description (well, inventing one!) to Public Health Promotion Co-ordinator, instead of Advisor - which will give me direct staff management responsibility (which I do already) plus require me to be more involved in national-level taskforces and cluster meetings in Juba.
Signing on for another year with the same conditions (including salary) when I'll probably be doing more work and spending more time in Juba (less in the field, boo!), instead of waiting to see whether this happens, may have been a bit premature. But I figured what the hell, it secures my position, and I can (hopefully) negotiate it when I get back.
Oh - did I mention I'm just about to jet off home for a month of leave? Woohoo! One good thing about negotiating a contract extension is that I managed to convince HR to give me some time off. Throw in a week's R&R that I haven't yet taken, all of my 6-months-worth of leave in advance, plus 2 days of training, and I've got almost a month of paid holiday. The rest will be unpaid, and I won't have any leave to play with, but meh, it'll be worth it. R&R will tide me over for that time anyway.
So I'm really looking forward to going home. And I leave on Saturday. Yay!
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