resilience…

“It takes courage to follow a dream and resilience to make it a reality.”

It has now been just over two years since I left London to live my dream in Tanzania. It has not really turned out as I had expected or planned… However, I feel that I have been building up resilience to keep going through these changes and any adversity both in my personal and professional life. And am trying to always keep in mind something my life coach said to me back in the day – ‘keep your toes in the now but your eyes on the horizon’.

I think that I’ve mentioned before that Tanzanians are very resilient people and so good at doing exactly what my life coach shared – and I really admire that. This year has really brought a lot of challenges to the local communities; one person losing their job, affects whole families and whole communities, so the financial strain is huge.

Unfortunately, it also seems that there are mental issues. We heard about a teenager committing suicide in the closest village to here – a child of one of the staff members. I am puzzled how this child even knew about how to hang himself, it is absolutely not something that I have seen as part of this culture before – sad, sad story.

And there have also been many emotions around the general election which took place yesterday. Many of the people I have talked to mentioned that they would not bother to vote, cause it is all very corrupt and it is sure that the incumbent will continue for another term… I, of course, have no opinion on this, but it does seem to be inevitable – all social media platforms have been blocked for the past couple of days for example, not the actions of a fair and democratic state.

In spite of all these challenges, people have such hope and a really positive attitude – they just keep going and try the best they can!

So yeah, that also inspires my own resilience efforts and experiences. Even though my professional plans have had to change – several times, I have really tried to focus on the positive things that change can bring. I have for example started a life coaching qualification, which is super interesting and will help enhance my skills and services in the future. I am grateful that I still get to work with my amazing students here in Tanzania and loving being able to enjoy the wonderful nature.

The uncertainty of the future has however caused me to procrastinate quite a lot more that usual. Making the final commitment to Tanzania in terms of work & resident permits and finding a place to live etc. has naturally been on hold this year, but at some point I know that I have to go all in, to really be courageous to try to make my dream happen!

So, towards the end of November I will head to Zanzibar to speak to my lawyer, discuss the options with him – things might change with the elections, so it’ll be useful just to do a temperature check… oh and to spend some time on the beach of course!