I have already travelled a long way on the journey, and I’ve not even left yet!  VSO are certainly keen to send you out as prepared as possible for what may lie ahead, with the proviso to expect the unexpected.  The training sessions have been informative, not least in the people that you meet, people with whom you have so much in common, partly because you are driven by similar desires, partly because many are from a similar background and I suspect partly down to the people that VSO select for volunteering.

Even though I have done it before, packing up a life is never easy and I seem to have quite a collection of items, some of which I am not sure what to do with (I am not sure my parent’s have realised quite how much I have put in their loft- until now anyway). Deciding what to take with me will certainly be a challenge a life doesn’t fit into a luggage allowance after all.  That having been said this is a chance for a new life and a new perspective and I wonder how many of those things that now seem so necessary I will learn to live without?

There are a number of hoops still to jump through before I can get on that plane to Addis Ababa (preferably one that doesn’t catch fire) – not least the acquisition of visas, work permits, and flight details.  For the most part these factors depend very much on when VSO want me to go and until they give me these I can wait patiently for the next stage in the Ethiopian Adventure.