emotions…

The weeks are flying by… it’s almost June, almost half way through the year even! I have now been staying here in the bush for four months or 121 days – not that I’m counting as such – and it’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience, also throughout the isolation weeks.

There have naturally been a few low moments along the way – which is part of life – but the thing which makes me feel the most sadness or anxiety is the same as for many people, I suspect; the uncertainty.

When will I see my family? When will I return to work in Tanzania again? Will my business survive? When will I be able to hug and pop to the pub with my friends in London and in other parts of the world for that matter? Where is my next income coming from? When will I be back here at Singita to continue to work with my group of middle managers? And when will I see all the other people who are special to me here in Tanzania?

The frustration of not being able to know or plan for this has taken its toll this week. I have felt quite emotional about things that would not normally affect me. Identifying the things that give me energy and try to do more of that, has helped. And so has recognising the things that drain me so I do less of those things.

It has also given me a more personal reason to delve deeper into some of the emotional intelligence content that I use for my workshops and coaching relationships and I have purposefully been identifying my emotions. I’ve been trying to identify the situation that trigger these emotions and what my behaviours would and should be in these circumstances… The Dalia Lama talks about this as constructive and destructive emotions… i.e. what emotions will build you up and which will destroy you.

I am using this ‘feelings wheel’ to be able to be more specific about these emotions – you can Google it to get a large version, if any of you would like to try this type of activity 🙂 

Other news from here… 

I’m still busy with a few hours of training and coaching every week… but there’s also time for some fun activities like swimming, bread-making, game drives, scrabble games and puzzling! Oh and I had my hair cut, too!

And here are my two favourite wildlife sightings from the past couple of weeks. It’s been a long time since I have seen such a wonderful leopard. This is a female cub, not even a year old yet – so cute! And the hippos… they were particularly noisy and quite active last Sunday – it was such a special experience.

Corona update…

People ask me about the Covid situation in Tanzania but it is difficult to explain because nobody knows really. There’s not any testing going on and a lockdown is just not possible for a country like Tanzania, so who knows how much it is spreading!

But the government just announced that Tanzania is now Covid free and encouraged a nationwide celebration this past weekend with mass gatherings… [insert your own rolling eyes emoji here] They are welcoming tourists again so the borders and airports are opening again on 1st June.

It’s a weird situation and it’s hard for me to understand this ‘obvious lies approach’ but at the same time, what can they do?!? Tourism is a big chunk of the Tanzanian GDP, crime rates are increasing as people are losing their jobs, the healthcare would not be able to cope with testing and the impact thereof, people who are living hand to mouth every day would not survive lock down, the livelihoods of so many people are destroyed and there are no ‘care packages’ here! It’s heartbreaking to think about. BUT through various experiences as I’ve travelled to and lived in different parts of this country, I have learnt that Tanzanians are very resilient people… so I have to believe that they will get through this also!

And finally…

…the latest on my personal short term plan. I am provisionally planning a flight to Copenhagen for mid-late June, just going to wait and see how these first weeks of flights will go and then finalise everything as soon as possible. I feel ready to leave ‘my’ beautiful Africa behind for a little while, but also cannot wait to return again later in the year… oh, how I hope and wish that it will be possible to continue living my dream – and I guess that is my biggest concern of all… what if I can’t?!