Postscript | The Last Post (on Future Life)

Those of you who have been following this journey of mine from the very beginning may recall that a number of things happened early on to have me identifying strongly with Abram (a central character in the sacred text common to Jews, Christians & Muslims).

Abram set out from a place that had been a source of security & comfort to him for many years, knowing that the Spirit of God had prompted his departure, but not knowing where it was he next destined for. He was to be led to paradise, where he would become a blessing to all the peoples of the world. His journey concluded in Palestine where he became the founding father of Israel.

Similarly, I left New Zealand knowing that I was being encouraged from above to move on and seek out my own personal paradise - that being a place where I could make a significant contribution t0 meeting the needs of others. While traveling the world I expected to find multiple places to which I could return as a development worker, especially while volunteering throughout the Caribbean & Central America. But I only found a few places to consider returning to, and as I looked into these opportunities, I found that they held less and less attraction for me, as they didn't seem to offer the support and/or experience I was hoping for in the sort of time frame I had in mind.

So one fateful night on the northern coast of Tasmania, during my first stint of professional work in Australia, I lost my rag and let God know in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t happy with how few good options I had for the rest of my life. I even stooped so low as to threaten to return to commercial optometry, that’s how mad I was. The next day I received an email in my inbox that led me back to the positions vacant page on the International Centre for Eyecare Education (ICEE) website. Between that day and the last time I had looked a new position had been posted which was described in the following way: ‘Optometrist to join the Northern Territory Eye Team’.

As some of you know, my long term plan for a few years now has been to return to Australia so as to attempt to get involved in offering health services to the Aboriginal people. My desire to seek out development work overseas was really born out of two thoughts: one, I might learn some new tricks serving in an exotic location where unique opportunities abound; and two, the experience gained in such activities would make me a better candidate for a public health position in Aboriginal affairs when I finally returned to Australia to live. The job description on the ICEE website read like my dream position, the one that I hoped to find when it was time to resettle in Australia, reading it actually caused me to wonder if someone had been reading my mind.

With little to lose and much to gain, I set about preparing my curriculum vitae (for the first time in my life) so as to submit an application for the position. I knew that I didn’t have all the qualifications and experience that they hoped to find in the successful candidate, but I also knew that there probably wasn’t many optometrists in Australia with those skills who were not already employed in such work. Three interviews later I was awarded the position.

My paradise turned out to be Australia (I probably should have guessed that); Darwin to be specific (I never would have guessed that). In being granted this job I have effectively stepped over my short term plan (which was to work abroad for a few years) and into my long-term one (working amongst the Aboriginal people in Australia).

I don’t think I would have the job now if it wasn’t for the volunteering I did last year. Much of the volunteering I did last year was with ICEE. I was therefore somewhat of a known entity around the organisation, especially as some of the key managers had been reading the reports that I was periodically issuing throughout 2009. I also had the ICEE coordinator for the Latin American region as one of my key referees. Furthermore, I am sure that the experience I gained working in cross cultural settings last year strengthened my application and proved my commitment to development work. In these ways, the journey that I have been on since leaving New Zealand has both prepared me for and led me to the next phase of my life.

There are actually a number of parallels - some intriguing and others trivial - between how I got the job that took me to Dunedin (for nine of the greatest years of my life) and this one which is moving me to Darwin:

• I was made aware of both positions by an email that arrived the day after I had a big yell at God for not taking care of me (not my proudest moments, but strangely effective on both occasions).

• Both sets of interviews involved a video conferencing call that allowed me to pull ‘the pantless newsreader’ stunt (see the photographs of both occasions, separated by ten years (as evidenced by the computer technology), below).

• I didn’t really know anyone in either town at the time that I was awarded each position.

• Both towns start with D and are roughly the same size (~125,000, which is my preferred size).

I start in June. My official title will be “Project Development Officer (Northern Territory)”. My duties will include:

• Providing optometry services to the Aboriginal people in Central Australia (both in a permanent clinic in Darwin & also in clinics that are temporarily set up in Aboriginal communities all throughout the Northern Territory).

• Helping to coordinate the program that brings optometrists from all over Australia (& potentially elsewhere) into the Northern Territory in order to examine eyes in the abovementioned temporary clinics.

• Assisting in implementing the optometry services in other areas of Australia, and adapting the delivery model to suit the local setting.

• Preparing and delivering education sessions for Aboriginal Health/Social Workers on eye related topics.

• Gathering statistics and generating reports in order to refine the service delivery model, apply for grants, and influence public policy.

The International Centre for Eyecare Education (www.icee.org) is an Australian based not-for-profit organisation. Its' primary aim is to eliminate the preventable blindness that is caused by refractive error. Once again it seems I have scored a public health position with plenty of variety to help keep tedium far far away.

The only things left to be said are that I am extremely grateful to my Creator for the wonderful life that continues to be gifted to me, and that I will not be continuing to blog my future experiences here as this little story has reached its' end and given birth to a new one. So it’s back to getting news about me from me using the old fashioned invasive techniques like email & phone calls. (No. I am not going to join F’book. It’s too cheap, & too easy, & too many other things I want to protect myself from.)

So then, from sea-2-see it's farewell, tam biet, ma'as salaama, shalom, elveda, athio sas, ciao, adiöh, & babay … adios amigos.

Peace be with you all …

big love …

lucas

The Final Act | Conclusions & Summary Statements

Travelling a bit later in life has many advantages, a savings account (to complement and underwrite the credit card) & sensibilities (in the relative sense) immediately spring to mind, but probably the best of all the benefits is the extra contacts you have the world over.

I owe everyone I met last year – both those who planned to meet me and those for whom I was a surprise - a huge bunch of thanks.

Your generosity - which I experienced in so many places and in so many forms – has made my last twelve months simply incredible; You all made my travelling experience so memorable (and doable).

So now, as I prepare to return to a more settled and productive life, I am reflecting on all that has happened while on ‘the long way home,’ (having left my old life in Dunedin (NZ) in order to search out a new life somewhere), and I am finding that even by way of summary, I have a lot to write about …

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About the Goodbyes

I have said way too many goodbyes this past year. If there was a downside to travelling the world over at the pace that I chose to, it was the consistency with which I had to say goodbye to good people who’s company had not nearly grown tired of.

I would dearly love to pluck all the great people I met last year from the places you now occupy and gather you all my current location, so that I could introduce you to each other. Ideally we would then grow very old together, traversing life's highs and lows as a big extended family, while simultaneously doing all we could to be a positive force for the cause of Good in our world.

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About the Favour

As I began to say above, I met with so much unexpected and undeserved favour while on the road last year. Thank you so much to all those who took me in as a stranger, a friend, or simply a friend-of-a-friend, and proceeded to treat me like royalty. I am full of cherished experiences and memories because of the kindness & charity you extended to me. Spending so much time in other peoples scenes can be exhausting, I am both grateful to those who shared their space with me, and who did so much to make me as comfortable as I could be.

I could not have had the good times that I did have, nor the opportunities to be refreshed through the familiarity that come from family homes and friendly faces, had I not been connected to so many social networks (personal, professional & spiritual). The hospitality you showed me through opening up your homes to me and playing tour guide for your local areas greatly enhanced by travels. It also helped enormously in keeping my costs down. Thank you for being so kind and generous.

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About the Money

Travelling for a year without engaging in paid work is expensive – especially in lost earnings. As stated above, the trip was made much more affordable by the generosity of the many kind folk who took me in while I was voluntarily homeless.

I need to also publicly thank the New Zealand Dollar, which, through the course of 2009, managed to shirk both the struggles it was having in the first quarter & the dire predictions of worse to come, and climb back to being around 75 US cents by the time I reached the Americas. (My first exchange into US Dollars was made at a rate below 50 US cents, so effectly, the bounceback performance of the NZD saved me a stack of space-bucks, for which I am now expressing thanks.)

Since returning to Australia and engaging in paid work again, I have sat down and tallied up (working in my preferred currency) the total cost of my travels in terms of the money I needed to out lay. As such I can now reveal that I spent just under half-a-billion đồng on my year abroad, which was only slightly more than I had set aside.

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About the Blogging

Thank you to all those who pestered me to the point at which I promised to produce this travel blog before setting off. I am really glad that I did take the time to record my experiences in this way.

I found that needing to think about how to tell the story of each little epoch of my year – usually several weeks after the events – really helped to enrich the experiences of each country at the time that I was present, and to remind me what an amazing year I was in the middle of as returned to the experiences to create and upload the (belated) blog post that described them.

So much happened that is so easily forgotten. Now, because I was pestered, I have this electronic journal to remember the highlights of a whole year of travel, and a way to easily share these events with others.

Below are a couple of images (created using the website www.wordle.net) that contain the words I used most often in composing this travel blog (excluding the common words that carry no meaning). The bigger the word, the more oft it was used.

(Of course, for the sake of accuracy, all the words above & below should be within parentheses.)

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About the English (&/or My Lack of Foreign Languages)

Another big shout out must be sent to all those wonderful people I travelled alongside who:

chose to speak English (it not being their primary language) in my presence so as to include me in the conversations;

&/or,

translated my desires & ponderings from English into the language of the predominant culture for me.

Thank you to these same people for so sitting patiently through my long-winded explanation as to why secondary languages are so scarce in the Australian population (which on reflection was just a really lengthy excuse for being as ignorant and self-absorbed as we actually are).

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About the Deep & Meaningfuls

Thanks to all those who shared their hearts and minds with me. These exchanges, none of which I posted for the world to read about on this website, were actually the most wonderful things that I encountered last year, and as such, I really want to thank you for your openness and the honestly with which you spoke.

One of the hopes I had expressed when setting out on this journey was to engage in such conversations; I am deeply grateful to those who helped realise this hope. CS Lewis (creator of the Narnia children stories and great Christian thinker) once wrote these true words: “you don’t know your own theology until you can explain it in plain language’. By sharing your ideas and your life with me, and allowing me to share with you, I have come much closer to being able to explain the faith that I have in Jesus, which was significantly bolstered and deepened during the four years that I recently spent studying theology, such that I can express aspects of it in ordinary English.

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About the Music

Listed below is the music I chose to form the soundtrack to various legs of my journey:

Crooked Fingers, Forfeit/Fortune (Album) Turkey/Greece

The Killers, Day & Age (Album) Guernsey

U2, No Line on the Horizon (Album) New York City

Bloc Party, Intimacy (Album) Cuba

Nick Lovell, Imaginary Boy (Album) St Lucia

Fanfarlo, Reservoir (Album) Nicaragua

Athlete, Black Swan (Album) El Salvador

Depeche Mode, Playing The Angel (Album) Guatemala/Mexico

Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago (Album) Australia

Bon Iver, Blood Bank (EP) Australia

Kina Grannis, Stairwells (Album) Australia

Jonsi, Go (Album) Australia

Art vs. Science, Art vs. Science (EP) Australia

Listed below are the tunes that chose me:

Cold Play, Viva La Vida (Single) NZ/Australia

Mystery Jets Young Love (Single) NZ/Australia

Black Eyed Peas, I Got a Feeling (Single) Cuba

Aventura, Por un Segundo (Single) Cuba/Central America

Makano, Te Amo (Single) Cuba/Central America

Makano, Dejame Entrar (Single) Cuba/Central America

Mana, Manda una Senal (Single) Cuba/Central America

Russell Leonce, Culture of Love (Album) Saint Vincent

I very intentionally chose to listened to one album per location, systematically moving from one to another as I crossed international borders, in the hope of creating musical memory prompts for some of the places I visited last year. I must say the early results of this little brain experiment are very encouraging, listening to the albums again this year has caused me to recall the feel & mood of the places I learned to love those tunes in. I think it's a really powerful way of encapsulating and preserving memories that you don't wish to lose with the passing of time.

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About the Flavour [Food]

Thinking back through the various cuisines in which I partook while travelling has resulted in the compilation of the following menu, which is entitled “The 2009 Perfect Eating Day”:

Breakfast

Spicy Noodle Soup (Vietnam)

Vietnamese Coffee – Iced or White (Vietnam)

Morning Tea

Arabic Coffee (Palestine)

Swiss Chocolate (Switzerland)

Lunch

Fresh Bread and Hummus (Palestine)

Caribbean Passion Jamba Juice (California)

Afternoon Treat

A Fresh Coconut (Jamaica)

Gelato (Rome)

Pre-Dinner Drink

Michelada (El Salvador)

Cuba Libre (Cuba)

Dinner

Ceviche (Citrus Raw Fish Dish – Peru)

Tõna Beer (Nicaragua)

Dessert

Chilli & Tamarind Ice Block (El Salvador)

Night Cap

Aged Rum (Guatemala/Nicaragua)

Cuban Cigar (Cuba)

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About my Favourite Accommodations

These be the favoutite places I used to rest my weary head when the sunshine had run short and the adventure of the day had wound down:

Traveller's Cave Pension (Goreme, Turkey).

Colors (Rome, Italy).

"The Schlössli" Le Rüdli [YWAM base] (Einigen, Switzerland).

Hostal Los Volcanes (Guatemala City, Guatemala).

Rocking J's (Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica).

Managua Backpackers Inn (Managua, Nicaragua)

Totoco Eco-Lodge (Ometepe, Nicaragua)

And all the homes of friends in which I was welcomed as a squatter for a while.

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About the Global Lost and Found Department

I got an incredible number of lost possessions back while travelling, often under pretty miraculous circumstances:

List of things I lost that came back:

Wallet

Bible

Backpack (containing a camera, computer, $1000 cash, passport, and other minor valuables).

Thongs

List of things I lost that didn’t come back:

Sunglasses

Cap (x2)

I learned not to panic until I was sure I was sure I was sure that there was no possible way to get my belongings back.

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About the Protection Plan

I must send out a large scale thank you to the Spirit of God who protected me, and led me to so many wonderful people and beautiful experiences, while out of the safety of my own environment. At no point did I find myself in real danger, and throughout the whole time I was on the road I experienced no more than a handful of minor health complaints, none of which prevented me from doing what I had planned for each day.

I was overwhelmed on more than one occasion by the goodness and nearness of my faithful Father God, who I know through Jesus the Christ. Truly there is no place on earth where you can escape His Spirit.

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About the Carbon Emissions

I'm avoiding all calculator for fear of learning that I may never be allowed to take another motorised mode of transportation for the rest of my life (on account of the number of flights, buses, boats & taxi’s I have now used). I reckon about a thousand people would have been responsible for steering me on my chosen course last year as I sat within their vehicles.

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About the Travel Bug

Travelling as I have done has proven once-and-for-all that I am not really a traveller; I got the urge to return to single location routine in familiar surrounds well before the end of my scheduled journey. And even with a normal life now just around the corner, I have little desire to get the backpack on my back again.

I confirmed what already suspected to be true of myself. My life is beautiful & fully satisfying when I have people to know and love (to be known by and loved) around me. Even in the midst of a stunning & exotic location, I found that if I didn't have anyone to share the experience with, the moment was often flat & sometimes unpleasant.

So then, in considering my social needs alongside my appreciation for beautiful places, what I desire most is:

1) people and place; followed by

2) people in no place; followed by

3) place with no people;

all of which is better than no people or place.

In other words, I am just as content & happy living in the one place in good relationships as I am on the road experiencing new things. The travel bug passed straight through my system.

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About the Consequences / Outcomes

I believe my last year of life has been somewhat inefficient in terms of making the world a better place (I believe you can achieve more by applying yourself to your local environment), but rich in producing stories that I will be telling for the rest of my life and, most importantly, that have brought about the change in my disposition that I knew I needed.

In my last setting I had become stale and dulled. This past year has been a success in that it has caused me shake loose the apathy that had a grip on my spirit thereby helping me to become motivated to make my life count again. Put simply, my interest in being constructively involved in the lives of other people has returned in full. I want to do the good that I can do, while I have the time and energy.

I also have a renewed zest for life. I have the desire to learn and contribute.

I want to learn new sports, how to dance, how to surf, another language, a musical instrument, and more. (Not in that order and certainly not all in the next few months, but over the duration of a well planned & lived life.)

I want my life to count again, and that for me means doing what I can to make the world the sort of place its' Creator always intended it to be: A place of justice, fairness, equality, acceptance & love. I believe this is what Jesus expected (& expects) his followers to pursue with their lives when he encouraged them to 'build for the Kingdom' that he himself established and reigns over as the King.

Travelling has been good for me; It has renewed my sense of purpose and love for life (both my own life and the lives of others).

Again, thanks to all those who tagged along with me.

Act 31 | Australia

It was the night before the night before Christmas and after travelling the world for ten months, the long route home had finally led me ... home.

Three of the most familiar faces in my life were at the airport to welcome me home (mum, dad & my eldest sister).

The following morning many more familiar faces were present for a familial feed.

It was truly great to be reunited with loved ones (& things) that I hadn't held for a year.

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I've never celebrated Christmas anywhere other than Australia or without my family - this year was no different.

Christmas day was celebrated around the Thong Tree in Melbourne .

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Mum booked the whole family into the Aussie Golf Ranch on Philip Island so that we could spend the last few days of the year together there.

We each assumed a food role to lighten Mum's work load and to ensure that no-one lost weight between the Christmas-New Year period.

Golf was the only loser that week.

And, as per usual, Little Sash was the centre of everyone's attention.

After celebrating New Year's Eve together (on a boat (which my father dragged through sludge - what a guy!)) with special guest star Ollie (the one-man-dial-a-party-machine), we posed for the annual Christmas family photo and headed back to Melbourne.

There was still time for more family fun on the beach of our old traditional stomping grounds - Port Melbourne - before mum and dad put an end to the festive season by heading home.

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Along with the end of the festivities came the need for me to get my act together so as to earn some money again.

In a bid to appear slightly more professional I cut off the band that I had been gifted in Vietnam (the first country I visited) which had outlasted all my other "wrist-things" despite being held together by a flimsy woollen thread.

After travelling for ‘this long’ (see the above photo) the time had come to cut my hair for the first time since starting my travels. (I saw my mother's hair dresser and came home with my mother's hair style – an error that was amended a few days later.)

2010 looks like being the year I forfeit a number of life long boasts, such as never having owned a mobile phone. (This SIM card - my first, from the virgin mobile network - was necessary so as to be contactable by potential employers (& my family members who were sick & tired of not being able to contact me wherever/whenever).)

My family members (& their respective pets) were good enough to allow me to squat in their homes while I continued to sort myself out.

Settling back into life in Australia was proving to be a frustrating affair on account of the horrendous amount of paperwork that was apparently necessary to re-establish 'a presence' after ten years of absence; I was simultaneously finding the size of Melbourne quite intimidating as I periodically contemplated the thought/need of creating a new life within its bounds.

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Not knowing exactly where I wanted to live in Australia, or if I was going to be heading back overseas to take up a job in international aid somewhere in the near future, I decided to set myself up as a locum optometrist (working as a professional temp) so as to stay loose and maintain tight control over my working schedule.

The decision to avoid full-time work was in a large part made so that I could prioritise spending time with Sasha and her parents, who had announced at Christmas that they were planning on moving to the UK in March.

I was in therefore in town to help Sasha celebrated her first birthday with a party at the local Children’s Farm.

Avoiding a proper job meant that there was ample time to ...

... watch Australia demolish the West Indies at the MCG with Tai ...

... to cruise up to Ark Central to visit the olds with Amanda and Ushka.

… to play lawn bowls with my father (who has just retired from a lifetime of teaching in the local highschool and joined the local club).

… and to hang with Sash and her support crew, both in the Southern Highlands (where my parents live) and in Melbourne (where Sasha's parent live).

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Being prepared to work anywhere in Australia led to me earning my first professional Australian dollar in Burnie, Tasmania (some ten years after graduating).

Travelling around Australia for work allowed me to see some of my own country’s beautiful places (again), such as:

Cradle Mountain (Tasmania)

Stanley (Tasmania)

I got to fly over the spectacular red centre of Australia on my way to a week of work in the Northern Territory ...

... a trip which was completed by an adventurous drive down to where my skills where required.

Edith Falls (Northern Territory)

Australia is full of warning signs: crocodiles in the swimming holes & snakes on the golf courses.

I did two weeks of work in the Northern Territory which involved setting up temporary clinics in medical centres located in (or near) Aboriginal communities so as to provide them with eye care.

On one outing I was invited to spend a night on a central Australian cattle station - which oozed authenticity & Australiana.

The farmer on the station cooked up a great curry stew and spent the night telling me story after incredible story about things like catching & killing poisonous snakes, fooling backpackers into believing they had consumed Kangaroo eggs and milk, and (heaps of) local UFO sightings.

I didn't see any 'ming-ming' lights that night.

The Devil's Marbles (Northern Territory)

The travelling also gifted me another opportunity to connect with my brother on the edge of the Pacific ocean on the sands of a famous beach, this time it was Bondi Beach. (The waves were way better than at Venice Beach.)

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Having chosen to live the life of a drifter, my 2010 life turned out to be far more like my 2009 life than I had expected: As before I was never sleeping in the same bed for more than a week or a night, living out of suitcases, spending way too much time in airports and on public means of transportation, and working in makeshift eye clinics.

There was also the familiar face of a good friend I had made in 2009 in my present year; Nelson was in Australia for a series of work related meetings, which gave me the chance to return some favour & show him around my adolescent neighbourhood.

The only "must-see" feature in my local 'hood is 'the big potato' at Robertson.

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The time to say farewell to the Hodson's drew very close very quickly; It was their turn to leave the safely of the known in order to pursue foreign adventures & experiences abroad.

We were at the airport on the morning of their departure before we were ready for it.

Long last holds and hugs didn't last long enough (but they were never going to).

With one of my best reasons for delaying the establishment of a real life now gone; it has become high time for me to start organising myself out of 'detached drifter mode' and into a proper existence again: real work, my own place to live, a network of local friends, and a new church ... gulp.