Stressed out in Gabz-City... (J2)

Poor, poor guys.

Main man is writing a big fat airport EIS all by his lonesome.

I promised him I'd write introductions, methodologies, overviews, conclusions, etc., etc., for him. But he still has a lot on his plate to bring it all together into a big whopping hundred-page bound THING. Fun fun stuff.

I'm doing what I can from over here, but I just realized that the due date for the "final" draft of the assessment to be submitted to Mr. Client is at the end of August. (!!!!)

Things were going ok... we had the Air assessment in from the AIR guy, the Bird assessment in from the BIRD guy, the noise assessment in from the NOISE guy... but public consultation still hadn't been finished yet. And then, this just in:

<> The "only snag so far" is to get a report back from Ratang. She actually lost her baby in the 24 hours after it was born. Her inputs could get us a head start. I should just proceed with the rest of the report, but unsure if I should inform Mark. He only met her once. My main concern now is I am the only one left doing stakeholder consultation, and its still ongoing. I will keep you informed as that unfolds. Here in Botswana, everything is measured along the social spheres, so that's one thing I picked up from Richard W.- never underestimate a good talk-to the right people.

Yes, boss man writes kinda cryptically, but basically: Tradgedy has struck our SOCIO-gal, and now he's on his own to do the consultations. :(

I would write some more but I have to review the Air, Noise, and Bird stuff. And then make up some kind of Intro & Key Points spiel for the overall document. Oh yeah and the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) and contractor’s code of conduct for same is due on August 15th.

In the meantime I'll sign off with this:

Weirdness Is: Asking your DAD, 5,000 miles away, for a copy of his latest airport-related impact assessment. So you can "add it to your own private EIA stash". WHA....?!!!!??!?!

sunshine in Ireland (by J1)

The weather has been incredible this week, better then I ever remember it to be in Ireland, around 27 degrees Celsius, even passed the 30 for a while on Tuesday. Beautiful summer weather, I am absolutely loving it (except for that I still have to go to work). There is only one downside: the stupid Irish are complaining all day about it being so hot. They manage to complain all year long about the rain, one would expect they would be all happy as soon as we get a week of summer weather and sunshine, but oh no, it is too hot now. This is one of the reasons I am so happy to move on, this depressed attitude by the locals here, never happy. It is important to be surrounded by happy people I think.

Besides this a few things happened this week. First of all I hurts my wrist playing soccer during the weekend, which made it difficult to do a blog entry earlier this week. Typing still hurts a little, but I am ok now. No news from the company who is supposed to transport our dogs. This is getting really annoying now. Also, the first real estate agent came by to value our house.Everyone always recommends to have 3 valuations, so I have two more coming next week. This was the guy who we bought the house from, I don't particularly like him, don't think we will put it on the market with him. The value was as we expected, pretty good.

Also, yesterday I found a job online that I would love to do, and would be totally qualified for. It is for an American aid organization, overseeing and planning storage, purchasing and logistics for TB and aids help. Conforming to FDA (Federal drugs administration) which I am dealing with all the time with the new pharmaceutical projects now. It would be a 2 years contract, after which I would certainly hope our own venture would be good enough for me to join in as well.

Our little company is struggling with the workload at the moment, stuff for the brewery need to be finalized, and we are also involved in the EIA (Environmental Impact assessment) for the runway extention of the Gaborone airport, deadline is coming up soon. This is a high profile job, and The Guys are getting a little nervous. Construction is planned to finish for this in 2009, ready for the Worldcup in 2010 in South Africa. J2 has been doing some work on this over the past week, and is trying to do as much as possible here, also because T is still involved in a few small design jobs. And these jobs, as J2 mentioned, are relatively simple, don't drag on for months / years and pay up quick. I am sure we can get loads more of this type work when we get there, just need to keep ears and eyes open about ongoing and upcoming construction, and make sure no South African landscape architects get involved. This seems to happen to often on the big projects at the moment. I think I will be able to change this, I am usually pretty good in talking myself into places and teams.

that's all for now, I am going back to enjoy the sunshine....

I'm Already Gone...

The hardest thing about this move so far, is sticking to my guns at my "real" job here in Cork. In my mind I'm already far away. With less than 5 months left of this terrible balancing act, I find my mind wandering more and more with every day. I need that extra cup of coffee in the morning just to concentrate on some lame-o report I'm writing for _whatever_wastewater treatment plant, or BlahBlah new highway alignment off in the bogs of County Whatever. I have exceedingly little patience for dealing with .... It's all just the distraction of the greener pastures over on the other side of January. AGH! jobs down in Gabz are so much more interesting. We really just need to focus.

Re: jobs down in Gabz. They spoke to the M. Brewery Boss Alois yesterday, about a landscape design for the factory site. This would be the Brewery for which we've just finished submitting an Environmental Impact scoping study. (Did I mention it's actually a sorghum brewery?) He wants a quote from us asap. Basically the project will be very similar in complexity to the landscaping of a small industrial estate. The design will also need to be brought to a level of detail so that it can be priced and go out to tender to the landscape contractors.

At least at a brewery, they will have (semi treated) water and we can opt for a bit of lawn! Rare enough in BW.

It's these small landscape design jobs that we love to get, but are semi-difficult to come by, for a variety of reasons. (Maybe Mr. Logistics (J1) can explain why at some stage?) They always seem to sneak up on us where/when we're least expecting. Which is great. It's our forté, and it's good money for little work. It's what's going to allow us to actually keep him on staff once we get down there... assuming the little jobs become a bit more regular. Getting the Environmental gigs is like shooting fish in a bucket. But the design stuff... we have to push a lot and often do a lot of waiting.

Otherwise, things are going suspiciously well. As the Mr. posted last, our only friends who've heard our big news so far, took it amazingly well-- and if nothing else I think they'll maybe even get a little more inspiration for their own potential overseas (USA) move, from us leaving.

We found papayas for sale at Tesco the other day. Couldn't wait to eat one, reminding us so much of africa. But at the same time, NOT helping with the low-concentration factor!!! (--J2)

Anxious to move (by J1)

If nothing else, this blog has certainly accomplished one thing. Since we started it I have been feeling more and more like I would not mind moving tomorrow. Not that I was not looking forward to it before, but it always still felt kind of far away. Now talking about it so much, and actually realizing it is getting pretty close, makes me want to get it over with as soon as possible, and get started organizing things over there. It is certainly making it very difficult getting and being motivated for work here in Ireland. The good thing is that we will have loads of visitors in the coming months in Ireland, which is something to look forward to.

Everything on the house is finished now, as far as I am concerned it is ready for sale. I will therefore make some phonecalls later this week to get things organized. We have decided we will only sell if we get the (high) price that we want, otherwise we will keep it and rent it for a while. It would be silly to look for all sorts of investment opportunities while the best investment might just be keeping the house for a few years. The neighborhood is still being upgraded like crazy, it can only get better.

The import of our dogs is my main concern at the moment. As we mentioned, we have the import permit already. The only thing is that we applied to early, so we need to get it renewed. This is really half of the battle. The other half is trying to organize a company / carrier to take them over safely. This proofs to be difficult. I finally spoke to the company in Belfast, which we were hoping to use, last week. He had done some work, told me we will need to fly them to Johannesburg, and from there either collect ourselves, or get a company to take them to Botswana. This means we also need permits for south Africa. He was going to email all details. Now here is the problem: no email so far, a little annoying.

Other things worth mentioning this week: we broke the news to the first people in Ireland, our friends S & L. They made it very easy though, after them telling us they might move to USA soon, and then asking how long we were going to last in Ireland. I am very glad we have told them.

Residence permit Botswana: apparently the work permit is all we will get until we get there. This is not very comforting, but it seems to be the normal procedure, so not much we can do about it.

In general everything seems to be very much organized and under control though, the main reason for taking over a year to move was to have it this way, but whilst walking the dogs one morning this week we both agreed it feels pretty easy. Lets hope we can keep it this way

J1

The Big Delivery (j2)

This week I had my first bout with the pre-leaving eebie-jeebies...

A week ago today we had a big barbeque out in the backyard, with about 15 friends. Here are a few of the guilty parties involved:







It was a great time. Probably one of the most fun nights we've had in Ireland this summer. But it did sorta succeed in registering with us that we'll be leaving some good friends behind. Even though we often say that we won't. (What was once a true statement has gradually turned into a defence mechanism.)

"5 months".... now, when those words come out of our mouths, it isn't so much of a case of "ah sure, that's a LONG time!" Rather there's something about the number 5 which is small-- Small enough to bring the more tougher things about moving, to the surface. Strangely enough, these are things that didn't even register in our thoughts when the countdown was still at a whopping "6 months".

It's interesting that after having re-located 9 times in 12 years, I know the routine so well. I know how it works with missing people, I know how the good byes can really suck, and I also know (fortunately? unfortunately?) as early as now, whom I will and won't be in touch with from this place 5 years from now. It isn't clairvoyance, it's literally just experience.

Well, at least we're prepared for it.

Speaking of friends, the time is coming. Again something that the number "5" does to you which 6 months didn't really: This whole need to tell those we really care about...It is slowly bubbling up to the surface. Scott and Linda, for example. We can't shake this feeling that we're "cheating" on them. We're going up to their house tonight, so we'll see if we get the cojónes to let them in on our little secret. I just worry that they won't understand our reasoning behind keeping it under wraps for what, over a year now? In a not-so-comfortable way I feel like we're handing in our 2-weeks' notice or something.

Anyway, I got this idea that I'd practice the big delivery a little, in a bit of a warm-up for the upcoming blows we're going to have to start giving people. So at lunch yesterday I kinda casually mentioned in a somewhat "uh, can you pass the salt"-sort of way(to Stephen and Kevin - whom I know can keep their mouths shut), that we might be getting itchy feet and considering our next move. Foreign travel was the topic of our conversation, and it just somewhat slid in there nice and naturally. They both reacted to whatever it was that I actually said in somewhat of a "OK, and do you want fries with that" -sort of way, asking semi-interestedly "when?" So I decided to bump the conversation up a level by saying "oh I don't know, maybe January". To which they both simultaneously nearly choked on their noodles, which didn't help my uneasiness much. I was hoping it would be more of a half-expected sort of reaction but apparently it really IS as soon as I get the feeling it is, now.

I'm sure this sounds like it's tragic and sad, but it's not... it's just the way things happen. You go through some hard things in the build up to making the break, but then the reward is tenfold. And naturally, the real quality things (read: "people") from each different stage/place/life will stay in your life as long as you want, or for as long as you put the effort into maintaining them. Surprisingly enough to both of us, we may actually leave Ireland with some hangers-on to add to our collection of extended friends. Who ever would've thought!?!

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see what happens tonight with S & L. Good thing they'll be serving margaritas.


"Nothing is permanent:
The sun and the moon rise and
then set,
The bright clear day is followed
by the deep, dark night.
From hour to hour, everything
changes"

-Kalu Rinpoche

July has started (by J1)

My original plan was to have the house on the market on the first of July. Is usually takes around 2 months to finalize paperwork once a sale has been agreed, that would leave around 4 months to sell.
It is now the beginning of July and we have not even invited and estate agents to give a valuation. Reason is that there are still bits and pieces to be finished. We are getting blinds fitted in the bedrooms on Friday, I hope to finish all other small bits on Saturday. July is usually a slow month for real estate, so I guess it does not really matter. Hopefully we can get these valuations done next week.

Our company is doing pretty well at the moment, I realize we have not written much about this yet, and this is what offered the opportunity to go over in the first place. We are official owners of the company for a year and a few months now. The start up period was pretty difficult, especially financially. Before you get to a point of invoicing work takes a few months, then before getting paid might take another few. In the meantime we have to pay salaries, office rent and other expenses such as traveling to site. But our men ‘on the ground’ called T. has done a pretty good job so far, supported by his lovely wife. Now we are finally in a position where we have a number of very interesting projects going on. We are designing the landscape of a college, are involved in a big golf resort project, a new brewery, various small town /suburb expansions and two big airport projects. This also means there is a pretty constant flow of money, which means no longer big loans from our private account, so we can save a little to be in a financial healthy situation before the move.

While writing this I am also working on a job application for a vacancy for process engineers at a big mining company in Botswana. Definitely worth a try I think. They were trying to recruit people in Australia for this.

Besides this there are not huge developments, we have discovered we might only be able to get our residents permit once we move there. The important thing is that the work permit has been given, so apparently no need to worry about this. The company from Belfast I was hoping to use to ship our puppies seems to have dropped from the planet, no response to emails and messages anymore, which is very annoying. The good thing is that we have options from the UK, some companies have already forwarded details + an estimate price.

Back to my job application now, more next week

J1

Work: breweries (J2)

So I suppose one of the things we should put in here is information about the kind of jobs we're doing.

Well, at the moment we're doing a lot of Environmental Impact Assessment for various developments around BW. Today, for example, they just sent in a rough draft of a scoping study for a local brewery. As our methodology goes: ".... aim to provide practical recommendations to the proponent in order to minimise waste production (including managing by-products) and all potential impacts caused by the proposed activity."

interesting, no?

So now, what I'll do is review the compilation that he sent me, add or edit what's needed, send it back, and then he'll submit it to the client for review, and then on to the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA).

Probably the most exciting gig we're up for at the moment (hope to hear back soon as to whether we got it or not), is the landscape design for a new Lion Park outside of town. Fingers crossed.

more later...

worldcup sadness (by J1)

Hello,

A very sad day today, my country thrown out of this worldcup with an awful game against Portugal last night. Not really interested in watching soccer tonight, so a good time to leave something here.

First of all time to look forward of course. In 4 years the worldcup will be on our doorstep, in South Africa. Lets just hope that USA and Oranje both qualify, which means we could have loads of fun. I can already picture having a whole bunch of friends over, barbecuing and following the soccer, our garden all orange and stuff. Keep this in mind for your holiday plans in 4 years from now.

As for our moving plans, we have received the forms from the Botswana vet office for bringing our dogs, it all seems very simple compared to bringing dogs to the UK or Ireland. Just wish this one shipping company in Ireland would get back to us (this would be much easier then UK company).

Also: I got my first reply back on a job application. Unfortunately no vacancies at the moment, but this does not really bother me too much. At least they are getting there, and people actually read them and take the time to reply. This good be a very good sign.

I am really feeling ready for this whole thing, am losing my motivation to do much work for my current job, am annoyed about many things, but can not be bothered changing them anymore, because 'it will last my time'. And then I feel bad having such an attitude. Maybe it is just the setback from the worldcup.

J1

First Real Entry. (by J1 & J2)

Hello friends and family.

We're not really sure how to start this, so we're just going to dive right in.

Here we are, sitting at our computer on a rainy Saturday in summer, in Ireland. 6 and a half months away from D-day. Or rather, our "intended D-day". We thought this would be as good a time to start, as any. Since J2 types faster, she's in charge of typing. But since this is our first entry, we're doing sort of a dual-post -thing.

Last week when we were in Romania, a strange thing happened. Dan (J2's friend from the South Africa days, whose wedding we had traveled there to witness) made some outrageous claim about never having heard of our plans for Botswana. Ever! Now, we all know this was just bogus, and must have been the stress of the wedding which had given him temporary amnesia. Because surely we told DAN of all people. But it made us realize, that yes, sometimes we are bad at updating/explaining/translating/informing the people we care about. Actually that would be pretty typical for us. We have 10000 friends and family, and we're not really that good at emailing them ALL. Much less remembering who knows what, to what extent, and at what time they were last updated! So, what better way to avoid situations like this, than have somewhere where we can write things down, and then these alledgedly uninformed people can take it upon themselves to check in every once in awhile, and everyone wins!

The way we're hoping to do this, is that both of us will write stuff about our impending move, and how we're going about it, and what we're doing. Obviously since there's an issue with language, we've included links on the right-hand-side of this blog, for translations. Nederlanders can click one, and Anglophiles can click the other, whenever there's an entry you find yourself unable to understand.

So how do things stand so far? Let's start with the updates.

We had a big milestone last month, when J2 received her work permit from the Botswanan authorities. Residents permits are still being processed, but will be ready for us when we get there.

The way the work permits operate, is they keep giving you 3-to-6-month permits over and over and over again, which you renew over and over and over again. Eventually you will get a permanent permit, or in our case, permanent residency. Eventually. It isn't something to worry about.

What else? Well, here are some things we've done so far. Our "To-Do" list.... preparing for evacuation:

1. Contact with Botswanan State Vet Office for import papers for Reggie, Reilly, and Billy. (Obviously we're not leaving them behind!) Done.
2. Contact with various companies who organize shipping of our stuff. (and puppies). Getting quotes, talking about time periods, international ports, door-to-door vs. Ireland to Durban (South Africa), etc. Work in Progress.
3. Job applications for J1. We try to do a few of these each weekend. Cover letters and resumes.... good times. Work in Progress.
4. Getting our house ready for sale. It was painted this week. Renovations which we've chosen as being worthy of doing before sale, such as the bathroom, are all winding down. Nearly there. Soon the real estate agents will be coming through, talking about good prices we should be asking. Work in Progress.
5. Selling cars--- later.
6. Booking tickets--- later.
7. Quitting jobs--- later.
8. Trying to see as much of Europe before we leave. . . Work in Progress.

Well, it's nearly 1 am now and we can't really decide what else to write at present, so we'll leave it now and post again later. Thinking of writing a little more about the business next time. Lots of people seem to have lots of questions about just exactly what it is we'll be doing.

After all this whole blog thing is just one big work-in-progress, so there's plenty of time to explain all.

There's some handy links on the right side, about Botswana, and about Gaborone, so maybe everyone can learn something? We've even put our own photo site there, just for fun. We want to save our life in pictures for posterity, of course. After all, our time in Ireland won't ever happen again, so why not at least keep a photographic record that we can always have at our fingertips with one click!?

Right, so here we go. Enjoy, and we'll try not to bore you with the lame details.... no wait, maybe we will.... it always seems to be the lame details that we get accused of not sharing with people! :-)

J&J