Shoestrings Still Cost Money!

By -
    With the economic crisis still raging and unemployment still rising, the prospect of getting a job was looking pretty bleak. Add to that my lack of work experience, no driving licence and poor spoken Swedish and you've got next to no job prospects. Nevertheless I've been applying for jobs, mostly online, for a couple of months.

       Right in the beginning of my searching, through some family connections I got some peacework at a building site. Well it was more like an oversized jigsaw puzzle actually - it was a 200 odd year old log house that someone had taken down up north, labelling all the pieces, to be reassembled pretty close to where I live. So my job was basically to run around the site carrying log 14A here and a sack of moss over there - the bottom of the rung work (not that I'm complaining, well my back did a bit but anyway I'm grateful for the work!).

 "Wait. A sack of moss?" I hear you ask. Yes moss, the same moss you're thinking of.. the kind that doesn't gather on a rolling stone... the guy in charge wanted everything to be original and old school so between each log a copious amount of moss was stuffed. And yes, everything was "original", even the odd nail that we needed to whack in.

Anyway we eventually got the roof on and that job came to an end, leaving me financially about half way to the target I'd set. What now?

Well since then I've been applying online like crazy, registered myself at a job centre, went to a ski resort job fair and even put up 'peacework wanted' flyers up. And what is the result of all of this job hunting? I raked up the leaves in some old lady's garden.

**Not Me.... Yet**
Oh well I thought, let me try and re-evaluate the amount of cash I'll need for this trip. Maybe my original figure was way off. I just plucked it out of the air anyway! So, using the lonely planet's online guide for Kenya (using their minimum daily budget - 13USD a day), I worked out how far I'd reach. Well I was far off my original guess. I think I'm about halfway through Mozambique when I run out of money.


 "Don't worry" my dad says to me, "That's when the real adventure begins!"

To which I replied, "no dad, that's when starvation and a life of crime begins! I'll probably start using drugs and be forced to live in a cardboard box"

"Well what's your definition of an adventure!?"

Comments

  1. JanelleDecember 1, 2009 at 6:35 PM

    hey kane...janelle in tz here! great blog. and look forward to meeting you in jan when you walk past arusha...always a bed and place to stay here in arusha eh? x j

    ReplyDelete
  2. bwana_shmaneDecember 2, 2009 at 8:15 PM

    Hi Janelle
    thanks for the place to stay! ye i can't wait to get on the road. I dunno exactly when i'll be down in Arusha but atm i'm planning about 1 month per country so maybe mid feb...
    kane

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Late Posts: Farewell to Mozambique

By -
Image
To anyone with that much free time (to stumble across a blog that hasn't been updated since May), I just thought I should assure you that my journey did come to a safe conclusion (I'm not still stuck in the bowels of Mozambique with only half of one leg left thanks to stumbling over an old landmine). I'll try and pick up where I left off and skim through the next few months of the trip. Having already been to Ilha de Mocambique, I opted to carry on to Nacala (which is famous for being full of "banditos"!), while Viktor (the Swede) checked out the island. Nacala was ugly and boring despite every opportunity offered by its location to be otherwise. My journey there was, in hindsight, a disaster! The cheapest place I could find was well over my total days budget - meaning I could afford no place with tables, or even chairs!  Because I arrived on Sunday however, everything was closed which was very annoying because it meant I had to stay an extra day there - it wa...
Read more

The Untamed North

By -
Image
After a bit more that the usual amount of arguing with the bus conductor and driver (and entire village that appeared from the woodworks to put their two cents in!) we got to Pemba town.   Unwilling to pay the extravagant taxi fee to the backpackers place, and being in serious need of some exercise, we decided to walk most of the way, and then hitch if necessary. As it turns out that the guy who gave us directions wasn’t fully accurate in his description of the distance. He said “it is faaaar, when it should in fact behave been: “eish, it is faaaaaar! Thankfully we didn’t get all that far before a Chapa (a truck in this case) picked us up and dropped us at Wimbe Beach only faaar from the lodge!). We stumbled into “Russell’s Place” only wheezing slightly and I promptly set up my tent (after haggling the price down a bit) at the far end of a nice lawn (what seemed like an ideal spot at the time, but later proved to be flawed in one very serious way…). Pim, eager as ever to catch u...
Read more

5th (and final!?) Island Paradise?

By -
After the utter serenity of Lamu, the classic picturesqueness of Zanzibar and the isolation and beauty of Chizumulu and Likoma islands, Ilha de Mozambique had a lot to live up to simply because it fell into the category "island". The chapa from Nampula dropped us off 50m from Casa de Luis, a nice homely sort oif place with camping (either in the courtyard, or on the wooden deck above the dorm room.) Relatively speaking, camping was cheap and since the upper deck had a thatched roof, there was no danger of getting drenched! After dropping off our things and setting up our tents, I went out to explore while Pim (the Belgian guy) took a nap. Turns out that he was more in touch with the local habits than I - the whole island was sprawled out, fast asleep on mats and mattresses on the streets! Only a few old men were (half) awake, playing some strange board game.  I immediately liked the town, though it was way too hot to see the whole thing; so I got back to the Casa and j...
Read more