What to do la. #1 Breathe

“What to do la” is one of my favourite expressions. I heard it often in Bhutan when I worked there in the early part of this century.
It can be meant as a question, “What to do la?” But in Bhutan I rarely sensed a question mark at the end of this phrase signaling a desire for advice from me. Nor a comma or an exclamation mark.

It was more just a full stop. “What to do la.” And in some of the more remote areas perhaps three dots … “What to do la …” suggesting an understanding or acceptance of things beyond our immediate control? In New Zealand farmers often say “she’ll be right” (referring to things such as a tractor, a co-worker or the weather doing what they do) which I think has a similar meaning?

For those of us who have or are facing retirement or separation from UNICEF and who aren’t fully imbued with Bhutanese Gross National Happiness, “What to do la?” might seem most relevant. As UNICEF people we are concerned with doing, changing, improving things. That’s our mission, our passion. So what to do now that we can’t do what we have been doing for a good part of our lives.

I left UNICEF five years ago at my family’s urging. My partner wanted to work in her chosen field after being a trailing spouse for more than 25 years. My two teenage daughters wanted to attend high school in New Zealand, spend time with cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Me, to be honest, I wanted to move to a new duty station with UNICEF, but after 25 years it was my turn to follow my family – to be the “trailing spouse”.

And now after five years of “trailing” and, given that a lot of people seem to be leaving UNICEF these days, I thought it might be interesting, entertaining, wry smile inducing (but more realistically probably slightly boring) if I shared some thoughts on what I have and haven’t done and experienced since leaving UNICEF five years ago.

So what to do - #1 Breathe.

I left UNICEF Sri Lanka in March 2021. While I had been in Sri Lanka (a wonderful, but often unlucky country), we had endured the Easter bombings in 2019, economic collapse, the onset of Covid, further economic collapse and then some very fraught Presidential and Parliamentary elections. Nothing much compared to the preceding 30-year civil war or the devastating Boxing Day Tsunami, but there was still a lot happening and while the work was energizing, I was pretty exhausted by the time I left.

Colleagues asked me what I was going to do and told them I was going home to make compost. Not by me myself becoming “worm food”, I meant compost for the garden. But what I really meant was I didn’t want to do anything, I hadn’t thought of life beyond UNICEF. I just wanted to have time and space to breathe.

Great Choice. I got back to New Zealand and started with two weeks of forced idleness in a hotel room under the Managed Isolation Programme for Covid control. Once released I told anyone who asked that I wasn’t going to do anything or even think about doing anything for a year. And that’s what I did.

Not exactly nothing, I was busy setting up a new house, finding my feet in a community and country that I didn’t really know having not lived there for 25 years, figuring out how to work various household appliances, how to vacuum so the carpet looks like a cricket pitch, how to provide support for kids at school and their rapidly expanding social circles, and a spouse working fulltime.

There was lots to do, but not so much of it related to what had been a big part of my identity for the previous 25 years, indeed almost no one was interested in what I had been doing with UNICEF for the last 25 years.

I am not offering advice, just some musings on what worked (and what often hasn’t worked) for me. Leaving UNICEF meant I needed to rethink or reorder my identity. UNICEF was so much of what I did, how I lived and who I was. So taking a metaphorical breath (for a year or so) when I left UNICEF was for the me (and I hope my family) one of the very best decisions I have made.

More musings to come so please look out for - What to do la. #2 Uber.

And if you would like to contribute your experience or musings on life after UNICEF, please do! It's easy - Send as an email to: xunicef.news.views.submit@blogger.com and also to xunicef.news.views@gmail.com . (Note the "submit" in the first email address)