A year ago today

Need to learn to ride to be accepted

This time last year was when I missed my regular paycheck and nothing was to be forthcoming afterwards.  I just left my job then and was busy preparing

WHO card - good for 10 years

Send-off by my sons' friends

Selling my corporate wardrobe

for my trip to Africa - polishing my biking skills, attending motorbike lessons, getting all the inoculations, writing instructions for the household, preparing for Mia's schooling in Scotland, packing and re-packing, announcing my eclipse.  I remember braving the aftermath of a typhoon to pick-up my World Health Organization yellow fever card - a requirement for one entering Africa.   Now I am wearing a different  pin and carrying an   identification card whose logo  was to change a year later (quite coincidental because in my last job, the logo was also changed as I was leaving).  My lifestyle now as a volunteer is the first step in the life-changing decision that I made.   As can be found

ID that opens no electronic doors

Made by women with HIV/AIDS

in its website, most people join VSO because they want to give something back and find they get much more in return - a wealth of memories and a whole new perspective of life.  In 1985, I was excited to travel around Europe using Frommer's Europe on a $25 a day.  Twenty five years later today, I am excited to live in Uganda, East Africa on a $7 a day - excluding rent.  This is an institutional standard (with some exceptions) as volunteers are in places where we can more than get by with the allowance.

Both are equivalent to about USD 50 cents

When I told my boss that I'd be getting some USD300 as a volunteer, he said it was not bad. But when I said that it was per month, I sensed his newly calibrated heart blinked and he blushed.

Have yet to ride around on this; till the roads get paved