Travel Plans and Work Plans

With less time remaining in my contract than the time that has already passed, I've begun planning out the travel I'd like to do before heading home to Toronto in February. Having not left Naga since arriving in July, save for a 36 hour beach getaway, I'm feeling pretty ripe for a change of scene. I have to confess that I'm becoming a bit of fatigued by the quietness of life in Naga. Naga is really a lovely small city and I'm grateful for the relatively high quality of life here (I will take my 10 minute walk to work over my colleagues' 2 hour commute in Manila any day of the week), but I'm beginning to feel a little restless. 

Luckily for me, several changes of scene are on the horizon, starting in less than two weeks from now. I'll be away from Naga for the last couple of weeks of October, first for a work trip to Bohol, which will double as a visit with a Canadian colleague who is based there, and then I'm heading to Hong Kong for a long weekend to see family and to stock on essentials, such as earplugs (there is NO upside to living next door to a time-confused rooster). Plans are also coming together for two weeks in Malaysia and Singapore over Christmas, and then once I've wrapped up in Naga in mid-January, I'll take two more weeks to get my fill of diving, boating, beaching and hiking in the PH before heading back to Hong Kong to spend Chinese New Year with my grandmother and hopping on a Toronto-bound flight (via Vancouver for a few days to hang out with my brother) in February. It feels a little odd to already be thinking about the end of my time here, as it still feels like I'm just starting out in the PH, and having travel plans in place between now and then somehow seems to shorten the time even more. 

In terms of work, it's only been in the last couple of weeks that things have begun to gel and my projects are beginning to transform from amorphous conceptual blobs towards something more tangible. The CIDA-supported organization I'm working with will cease operations in Naga City in March 2014, adding a layer of urgency to complete these projects before I go (or at least get them as far along as possible), and to leave a sustainability plan in place for the local organizations that will carry on once CIDA has exited the stage.