The Agrinautica

   In last year's year-in-review post, I talked about how the year had been epic, but ended with a fizzle, unemployed after they abruptly demobilized all of us on the varroa-eradication efforts, and with no prospects on the horizon, and with possibly another year until Cristina's visa to come here would be granted we were nearing despair. Indeed, midnight NYE found me standing alone on a dock in Geelong. I was cautiously optimistic though: "There are no particular jobs or projects on the horizon, but assuming this upcoming year will be like last it seems plausible that great things will come along. In the immediate term I'm just going to try to get any decently paying job (maybe the local icecream factory)."

   And indeed, the story of what was to follow is told perhaps most eloquently from the perspective of my bank account balance minus credit card debt:



   There's a free-fall until I did indeed pick up that job at the icecream factory, but it didn't pay enough that I wasn't still trending deeper into debt every week. Then, relatively out-of-nowhere the job as the editor of Australia's beekeeping magazine suddenly fell on my lap. They only pay for 10 hours a week but that was enough that I think my finances were trending slowly positive again. I put in more like 20 hours a week for the magazine but that's okay because I found I really enjoyed the work and found it very fulfilling.
   About the factory in general, I didn't really mind it too much, it was very stress-free. I actually really liked the evening or night shift because I felt like I got a whole bonus day to do my other work during the day -- working a job during normal hours and trying to do a second job in the evening (that requires thinking) I find more difficult these days (than when I was young and for example in university pretty much did all my paper writing in the evening). The weirdest thing I found in the factory was people with no ambition. In beekeeping, where I've worked most of my life now, every worker aspires to have their own beehives and grow it into their own business -- and before that I had worked in law a bit and I don't need to tell you about ambition there. People who voluntarily worked a low paying job they complained about regularly and didn't appear to have any intention to change their situation boggled my mind. Some of them even complained specifically that during night shift they just spent their daytime hours bored waiting to go to work. Really bizarre for me to meet people living literally meaningless lives, but I digress. (and not to offend anyone working there that may read this, there were some lovely people there who absolutely do have hopes and aspirations). Also like 99% of the line workers smoked, which I thought was a weird (self selecting?) thing considering these days only apparently 10.6% of Australians smoke (2022 stats).

   Anyway, and then another dream job did suddenly materialize, as a Varroa Development [Extension] Officer. Actually funny story, I saw the posting, applied, next I heard was the email saying they apologize but I have not been selected for an interview. Normally that would be the end of that, but on this particular occasion I just had to send them an email saying, in essence (but much more diplomaticaly) "excuse me, what?"
   I then got a phone call and it transpired that I learned my phone number had been wrong on my CV. Probably because I had made that CV when I first got to Australia and hadn't at that time known my phone number well. How many missed opportunities have there been because of that wrong number??
   They had already completed their interviews for the position... but hastily made arrangements to interview me remotely and offered me one of the two positions as Senior Varroa Development Officer! I was able to remain the magazine editor, but quickly gave my two weeks notice to the icecream factory, and henceforth financially was well on the road to recovery!

Cristina, Visas
   And meanwhile there was good news very early in the year, with Cristina's visa being granted January 17th. I remember I was sitting on the couch under the heater drinking my morning coffee when my phone made an email notification noise. For the previous two years I've been jumping every time I get an email notification hoping it was notification of her visa approval, and though I was despairing by this point, I still immediately grabbed my phone. It was from our visa agent/lawyer! Good, but still I'd become deeply accustomed to bad news. Anxiously clicked on it and scanned the several paragraphs of text, and fortunately they had put in bold the words that appeared in the second paragraph "visa is approved." With trembling fingers I texted Cristina to ask her if she was free for a call.
   It would be another 7 months until she finally arrived, on August 28th. Probably for the best because winter is cold dark and depressing here. We got married in the Redwoods on November 25th, and are now anxiously awaiting arrival of the official marriage certificate needed as proof, so we can file for her continuation visa before this one runs out on January 17th of this year. It's a bit stressful because the department confirmed they had received the filing from the officiant on Dec 10th, and the processing time is supposed to be 28 days, but that would put it at January 7, just ten days before her current visa ends, but with the holidays falling in the middle of this period it might take much longer. I had called someone at the department and he had initially said "oh don't worry it should be sorted by February" and when I mentioned I really needed it by January 17th he just switched gears to saying "oh don't worry it should be sorted by then." Sooo long story short I'm going to be very stressed until we get that back, the new (type 820) visa filed, and official notification that we are on the bridging visa for that. (and once that visa is finally approved then we still need to file for one more visa, the 801, it's endless I swear).



   This year I didn't actually get out of the country, but that's not for lack of opportunities, there were several projects in south-east Africa (Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar), which I'd have loved to go to but couldn't spare the time off yet at that time from my new extensionist job I had just begun. I hope the organization (which isn't one I've worked for before) will keep me in mind for 2025 projects. And not traveling this year will be very handy because I should apply for Australian citizenship and, while I haven't even gotten so far as to looking into it closely, I am informed one needs to have been in Australia for the previous 12 months. Since most years I like to travel, I better take advantage of this opportunity before I travel again.
   So the travel indicated on the above map is to Tasmania and Perth to attend beekeeping conferences for my editor job, and I've had the opportunity to travel around the state a fair bit with my state government job.

   Parents arrived Nov 13th and departed Dec 9th after nearly a month here. That was lovely. Usually we go on some big trip somewhere with them, but other than dragging them along to some of the places I had to go for work it was enough entertainment putting on the wedding (which was only a small thing, but still involved a surprising amount of running around).


The Year Ahead
   As mentioned, in the immediate future we've got a stressful quick turnaround time for the next visa. Then, we're looking to move into the nearby city of Geelong -- currently we live about 50 minutes out of town and it will be a lot easier for Cristina to get a job and do things without living like a hermit in the forest like I've been happy to do these last nine years.
   We're also applying for a US tourist visa for Cristina. The hope is that will be granted and this upcoming winter (April?) we can travel to California so she can meet more of my relatives and see my homeland, and then she can continue on from there to visit Venezuela, which is a much much closer trip than how she got here (Venezuela to Istanbul to Singapore to here, three days of travel!), and reverso back to here (depending on the conditions they put on her Australian bridging visa we might ALSO need to file yet another visa filing to allow her to leave and re-enter the country).
   And then in September the world beekeeping conference is in Denmark and I really want to go. Maybe just for a week, which surprised my boss when I asked her for that time off (already) but I hope to also, if I can swing it between that and visiting California, also do a project in Africa again! One can't have everything, but all the options are looking good anyway.
   And then this current full time job with the government ends in December 2025. Already vaguely pondering what I'll do after that.. (and aiming to fill the coffers with savings against another period between dream jobs!)

   But yeah, so, right now I have two jobs I find very fulfilling. I can work from home for both. I get to have lunch every day with my beautiful wife. Compared to dragging oneself out the door every day to a job one might barely tolerate I can't believe how lucky I am fervently pray life will ever after be as good as it is now.

   After two years of having no flights at all to show for the year, I finally got moving again this year! Two trips to Sydney and then the big trip to West Africa in July-August. 26,930 miles!

   This map shows the project sites this year (red pins), as well as project sites from previous years that fall in the map area (the orange pins). Dotted line is travel by air this year, red solid line is travel by car. As you can see we went on a bit of a road trip round about Guinea.

The Predictions
   Let us begin by looking back at our predictions for 2022 made in the 2021 year in review post: "It will probably be yet another year of nothing particularly exciting." Well! I think we actually exceeded that expectation! The other expectation was, "if the international travel is feasible" to travel to a beekeeping conference in Russia. Well! Yeahhhh no that certainly fell through!



The Year in Review
   This year I've worked full time for Edmonds Honey all year (having only become full time something like September of 2021). At the beginning of the year covid was still a thing (that seems so long ago now!) and I think we were still regularly masking, and then in April or so we at work pretty much all got it all at once.

   On February 24th of this year of course Russia invaded Ukraine. This, well, obviously affected a lot of people a lot more than it affected me. I feel like ever since the 90s Russia has been taken to be more or less another western democracy with its Soviet past well behind it, albeit with Putin's reign increasingly suspiciously long, and then this year they just pulled the mask off and nope it turns out Russia is just as much a brutal antidemocratic oppressive regime as the Soviet Union ever was. Very much like the Simpsons episode where in the UN the Russian representative pushes a button and cackles as the "Russia" placard flips to become USSR. Yet another Simpsons prediction come true.
   But the unexpected effect on me was that after my close friends got tired of my updates on the war, I started posting them to facebook, and soon had over a hundred people I don't know who were following me on facebook just for my updates. That started to feel like a burden after awhile since when I didn't post people would clamor for an update.
   It also got me into twitter for the first time. I'd had an account since 2008 but could never figure out how to get any value out of twitter. I had followed a bunch of beekeeping related organizations and friends and none of them posted anything very interesting. But I discovered there were a bunch of accounts posting reliable information on the Ukraine war and that it was a better source than trying to reload actual news organization's pages. And then the recommendation algorithms somehow figured out I was into history stuff and started recommending other interesting accounts. I spent most of the year looking at twitter whenever I had a moment to see what was new in the world.
   Then of course Elong Musk bought twitter and immediate broke the algorithms. Ever since then I haven't been seeing enough Ukraine news posts but I am seeing every got damn post by El Musk and Don Jr and other ogres. Though it has been somewhat a source of enjoyment watching his stocks tank and people giving him lots of rightly deserved shit for his terrible editorial decisions.
   Also Twitter has given us a really heartwarming end of the year story -- the twitter news these last 48 hours has been that some "alpha male" douche posted some deranged monologue about how he has 33 cars and asking Greta Thornburg for her personal email address (for some reason??), and she wrote back that it was "smalldickenergy@getalife.com" which the whole twittersphere agreed was a sick burn but that was only the beginning! Incensed, he apparently posted a response video I didn't see but in it there was a prominently featured pizza box. Next thing, that guy has been arrested in Romania for sex trafficking! The initial story was that the pizza box tipped off the police to where he was ... that aspect has since been debunked but we the collective internet are still having a good laugh about it even so.

   Made substatial writing progress this year. At the beginning of the year only the first chapter (~6,000 words) of my travel memoir book was written, now I've got about 45,000 words written, which I think should be about a quarter of the total.

   Turned 40 in May. "Celebrated" by having pancakes alone.

   First project in Ghana, July 3rd - 22nd. This was epic and fun! Three project locations, marathon pace, with old aquantance (now good friend!) Arne, and an awesome local crew who I now also consider friends and look forward to seeing next year.
   Fourth project in Guinea, July 23rd - August 8th. Good to be back! As mentioned, a bit of a roadtrip around Guinea which was fun. A particular highlight was going back to the village I'd been to eight years ago and seeing how improved it is now.

   Other news, I have a housemate now, Trent. And I got granted German citizenship! Wooo! (in a German accent).

   Feel like I have hardly gone out on any fire brigade deployments, but this year I did the training for breathing apparatus gear so I can go into a burning building wearing the darth vader mask. Deployed for two nights to monitor pumps in a flooded town (flooding has been bad for months down here, it was a really really wet winter). And in actual fact just today (Dec 31st for 13 more minutes at this moment!) I deployed in the morning to a grass fire.

   Two rather upsetting things at the end of the year. Hit a cow on the road at night last month. Car totalled but driveable. Farmer initially sounded all about taking responsibility for it but I ran into the girl who should have put the cow away, at the pub the other day, and her attitude was accusatory and unpleasant so now I'm more concerned. The other bad news is $700 were spent out of my bank account by a scammer and, whereas in the past the banks have reversed things like that with no problem, in this case they've "launched an investigation" and I keep calling them and it "could take up to 40 days." I'm really rather upset about this. I have absolutely zilch nada zero nothing to do with the vendors the purchases were made from or whomever made the purchases. It's annoying me greatly that the bank is dragging their feet on this so long with their investigation.

   Also this year has brought a steady stream of good news about Trump actually being held accountable, so that has been nice.



Plans & Anticipations for 2023
   So now we're 12 months in to the "28-36 months" the partner visa for Cristina is estimated to take, so it still isn't predicted to come through even this upcoming year, but we can hope!!

   Cristina and I have talked about going to Spain together in April. And as well the world beekeeping conference will be in Chile in September and I'm hoping she can come hang out with me while I'm there as well. Additionally, my boss John Edmonds is definitely planning on attending that conference, as is probably my friend Doug, and Steph sounds really keen for it too, so it might be a lot of fun with a lot of friends.

   There's definitely a planned return to Ghana for another three weeks. I'm really looking forward to working once again with that great team. As of the present moment there aren't any other projects on the board -- there had been one I really really wanted to do in Solomon Islands but they wanted someone earlier than I was available (April) and found someone. I really wish I'd been able to do it it sounds really fun (the Scope of Work specifically specified must be willing to work in remote locations only accessible by boat. Yassss sign me up!).

   My parents are visiting in February, I haven't seen any family members in over three years now so it will be nice to finally see them again.

   And hopefully I get at least another quarter of this book done, if not significantly more!

   As is tradition let us begin with the map of where I've traveled in the past year:


   Though this would seem to imply I've been to the Melbourne airport, which, I have not, but you have to input at least one airport code to make it make a map.





   In fact I never left the state (indeed for much of the year we legally could not. Counting just these furthest trips this year I traveled 969 miles, which compares to my mileage and my comment about my mileage last year: "23,695 miles this year, a fraction of any previous year since 2012."


   Anyway, so, this year! I'm pretty sure this will be a year we'll all remember for the rest of our lives. [Interruption for the celebration of new years. Okay all writing after this is in 2021!]


Cases in this state

   In January Australia was on fire. Literally a seventh of this state was on fire. Its funny I think I recall in the first week it looekd like Trump was going to start a war with Iran, Australia was on fire, and I forget what all else but we were all like "whoa 2020 slow down." Little did we know. Little did we know.

   In February my parents made their annual visit. One of dad's friends happened to be on an around-the-world cruise that happened to be stopping in to Melbourne while they were here so we met up with them and went on a walking tour of Melbourne. Needless to say, their cruise never made it around the world (they were actually left wandering the sea for awhile with nowhere willing to allow a cruise ship to dock, which was a bit silly since having been at sea for over two weeks it clearly wasn't aboard)



   March: by the beginning of March the pandemic was definitely on our radar but we had nooo ideaa what we were in for. On March 5th I booked the flights for Cristina and I to fly to the Bahamas to get married April 20th... woo yeah woo! .... that was $3,000 I may as well have flushed down the toilet as the airlines refused to refund any of it, though United agreed to give us the equivalent maount in credit that will expire after a year. I'll definitely start harassing them again to at the very very very least get an extension on it's usability.
   Anyway things quickly exploded from for example 28 new cases on March 12th to 537 on March 22nd (the height of the first wave it turned out), and the state went into lockdown on March 25th. What we initially thought was going to be a two or three week lockdown turned out to be a 112 day lockdown. In what became known as the "ring of steel" Melbourne residents couldn't leave Melbourne except for work, and the state borders were also locked for all but a small handful of very narrowly defined reasons. During the height of the lockdown one could only leave the house to work an essential job or go on one grocery shopping run a week (I think?) and an hour a day of exercise within 5km of their house. This didn't effect my day to day much at all really.

   On March 30th the beloved tallship Pilgrim sank at her dock, which was heartbreaking for those of us who have spent countless hours aboard her.



   April I started to notice it was severely impacting my sales, cutting my income to a meagre trickle, and unlike all my neighbors I don't have the support of the numerous Australian programs that supported people with lost income. Also coronavirus was hitting Venezuela and Cristina and her coworkers had no PPE, leaving them feeling doomed like little coloured chickens, and it was freaking me out.
   And again, Cristina and I had been going to get married on April 20th. I then could have added her to my existing visa, she could hae joined me within months, and been no my Permanent Residency visa application. Instead I need to wait till the PR hopefully gets approved and then start a separate $13,000 14 month visa to get her here, so not being able to get married in April _really_ set us back.

   June after about two months of low double digits of monthly cases it felt like we had this Covid thing mostly behind us and lockdowns were starting to ease up. My friend even had a party and all got together! Not like huge bumpin 30 person party but there were like a dozen of us. In one indoor location! Meanwhile in the states Trump was encouraging ominous displays of police force against protestors. It's funny I suppose for many of you reading this that was summer but for me that was mid winter and literal dark days. My memory of this whole period is of one continuous night actually.



   July - On July 3rd my grandfather Roger collapsed and died, he was 93. He's fortunate I suppose, there was no lingering away in a hospital, he was up on his feet, had just gone to the hardware store, and then he suffered heart failure. I never posted about it earlier because how do you begin to do justice to an amazing man who lived such a multifaceted remarkable life? Also I hate it when people say "I'm sorry for your loss" to me. I do feel like I should make a post about him though. Obviously I was unable to travel to his funeral, which I would have under normal circumstances, but then again, no one was able to. There was a nice ceremony in August via zoom attended by dozens of people recalling how he had impacted their lives. Later later in October there was an "inurnment" in which his ashed were placed in the grave beside his wife my grandmother, which hadn't been intended to be a ceremony but a dozen plus people ended up attending, and as well since he was a veteran the military sent a bugler to play taps.
   In July the "second wave" hit us here, this time it was almost exclusively in Melbourne. It apparently had somehow gotten out from the quarantine hotels. There was a pervasive rumor, apparently started by a tabloid making up a story whole cloth, that it was because a security guard had had relations with a quarantinee, but I believe that turned out to be baseless. On July 21st, masks began appearing around here. Which is amazingly late in the game looking back on it. On that date there were 359 new cases in the state and rising vast, and I estimated about 1 in 8 people out on sidewalks was wearing a mask and about 40-60% of the people in the grocery store. Also around this time Cristina and I succeeded in getting her PPE.

   In August having successfully figured out how to get money to Cristina and source PPE there I decided to start a gofundme for her coworkers, which raised $2080 in 48 hours! Also some time around here I discovered that a group of volunteers here in the little village of Birregurra get together every Tuesday to do landcare around the township, weeding, planting native plants, cutting out blackberry brambles, etc. I found this very enjoyable and a way to be more involved with the community.

   In September I signed up for classes at two community colleges in California, since everything is offered remotely now! So that was the one up side to this year. I took two biology classes and a writing class, finishing with a 98% average. (: Also in September I was increasingly panicked since my 457 visa was due to run out Oct 4th and I had to chase down a lot of paperwork from my boss and jump through some other hoops (it looked for awhile like I'd have trouble proving I speak English but that turned out to be unnecessary in the end).

   November I took the train out East (the Easternmost route on the above map) to go hiking with my friend Billie, whom I hadn't caught up with in over a year. Most people I met out there in Eastern Victoria were excitedly hoping for a Trump win in the election that was then days away. Yikes. And then there was the election!



   December a beekeeping friend invited me to their family's place in Warnambool for Christmas dinner, thus making the westernmost extremity of my travels for the year. In the United States and Great Britain people began to receive vaccination shots for covid which is exciting. Here in Australia a new outbreak began in Sydney mid month (20-30 cases a day since then), and, after 60 days with not a single new locally acquired case here in Victoria we had 3 locally-acquired-from-unknown-source cases yesterday and six today. With undetermined local cases and people generally thinking its over and attending multi-hundred-persno NYE parties tonight, I fear we may be in for a third wave.

   Tonight as I mentioned, I was working on this very entry when I took a break to videocall Cristina to ring in the new year with her. After midnight I went outside to see if anyone was firing fireworks or anything, but things seemed pretty low key here. The moon was bright like a floodlight, and when I looked up at it whispy clouds were scudding past in front of it ... but they were going the opposite direction they usually do. I've only ever seen the wind blow west-to-east here. To see clouds flitting east-to-west across the moon felt downright eerie. I hope this isn't some kind of omen for the year.




All in all 83.7 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with coronavirus this year, and 1,824,053 people have confirmably died of it. This is almost the population of Latvia, and certainly greater if one ccould include undiagnosed deaths. There are about 30 countries with populations smaller than the 2020 death toll from coronavirus.


Plans for 2021
   They don't expect to open up international travel for the year so probably no traveling. If at all possible I very badly want to see Cristina as one could imagine but it's not looking likely. I tihnk my PR should be approved sometime between April and July, which will be a huge relief and make life easier. Other than that it's hard to make plans in this uncertain world!


See also: all posts tagged with "coronavirus"

   It's time for the yearly year-in-review!! I had to look back on my past entries and photos to remember way back to summer (January-March that is!) 2018, it seems so long ago!

Summer 2018 - In addition to at least one camping trip with my friend Billie, I had discovered the Field Naturalist Club of Victoria and went on a few overnight adventures that involved fauna surveys and things! That was a lot of fun. It was my first season as a trained up member of the local fire brigade and I turned out to several grassfires and spent one 12 hours shift on a really big wildfire near here, that was really quite an experience! In February my parents visited and we went to see where the penguins come out of the sea on the other side of the bay here and then traveled around the west coast of Tasmania.


23,695 miles this year, a fraction of any previous year since 2012

   As Summer faded into Autumn it became alarmingly clear that there would be no development projects this year. I blame Trump, though ostensibly its just that all the USAID projects ended their five year mandate this year and had used their budgets up already. Seems weird I don't know. As the nights became longer and the days became colder I contemplated what I would do instead. I was kind of inclined to go to Nairobi since I hadn't been there since 2015, which I'm sure you'll agree is far too long not to be in Nairobi. My dear friend Claire was getting married and I quite wanted to attend (incidentally, I had met her on tinder originally, just goes to show despite what they say you CAN make friends there and later be invited to their weddings). I also had my uncle's wedding in California on that exact same date though. I felt like having been to California twice in 2017 I shouldn't return but somehow felt myself being called back to the Americas. Had an enjoyable roadtrip up to the wedding and back and the wedding itself, seeing all the family. I do quite love seeing all the relatives at weddings. Also had a generally very enjoyable "summer" in the middle of "winter," spending about a month in California helping my friend sell honey at the fairgrounds.

   Aaaand of course the single most momentous thing to happen to me this year. I had actually bought my flights to the Dominican Republic to meet Cristina before I even arrived in California, thought I pretended to my parents (whom I was staying with) that I was still playing with the idea of going there (though I hasten to point out that I did this without actually uttering any untruths, since I do not believe in even "white lies"). At the time they seemed to think it would be a frivolous use of money, and I hoped they'd come around to approving the idea before I went but they didn't quite come around (dad is very Mr Financial Responsibility) but finally it was time to seemingly suddenly fly off to the DR, which caught most of my friends quite by surprise. I'm pretty sure my parents have since come around to seeing the value in it though ;)
   And that trip of course went extremely well <3 <3 <3 <3 As I said to my friend Joe once when he asked how things were going with Cristina, "well, I must warn you, I can't really say anything about that without it becoming extremely extremely mushy." She has been a very fundamental part of my year and she and I are greatly looking forward to the future.



Spring 2018 - Spring? What Spring? I felt like its still been pretty cold up until recently and the bees haven't produced nearly as much honey as I'd have liked. We finally formed a beekeeping group in Birregurra town here and its been really fun getting to know some more people around town and getting more involved in things around here.
   Also my friend Doug visited for some three weeks. I had originally met him in Nigeria, then we traveled around East Africa together in 2014, and I visited him at his place in Washington state last year. So it was fun seeing him again over here this time.
   Also I got a lot more involved in local art stuff. I submitted a photograph to a local art show, got a story published in the local Geelong anthology, and started drawing again a lot more seriously than before, so that's all been fun!

   My car has seemed on the verge of complete breakdown since early this spring which has resulted in less driving far-and-wide and as we go into summer will probably result in less adventures than last year. ):


Meanwhile in the news: For reference looking back from some future date, I should note that this year wouldn't be this year if it hadn't been President Trump's second year in office, with the constant fiascos that has entailed. It would take an entry longer than this one to recount all the shenanigans but as of the present moment he's losing the last two sane heads on his cabinet who could have kept him in relative check, General Kelly and General Mattis, the government is presently shut down while he basically holds the country hostage for his wall, and he contrived to commit such a huge diplomatic faux pas on his recent visit to Iraq that they are demanding we remove the several thousand troops most of us are surprised to learn we had there.


Plans for 2019!
   Cristina just graduated medical school and will take a job either at the military hospital or (we're really crossing our fingers for this) the remote Roques Archipelago. If the latter I hope to spend as long a time as I can contrive visiting her there in my winter. If the military hospital, well, I suppose I'll still visit her in Caracas but it doesn't sound quite nearly as nice since crime is rampant in Caracas, I'd be a target as an American, and the Venezuelan government iteslf is extremely unfriendly to Americans. It would have been nice if I could take another project in the Caribbean / Central American area and she could join me but she's unlikely to have any vacation days herself by time time of my winter. I might take a project in the area though just because it would be conveniently near for me to see her before or after.

   A lot hinges on an unclarified visa issue. The first lawyer I talked to seemed to be of the opinion that I couldn't take more vacation leave than the three weeks I'm allotted or else I seriously endanger my visa, though he was looking into clarifying this. The second lawyer seemed very confident that any time in excess of paid vacation merely delayed my ability to apply for permanent residency by the amount of time I am gone, which is not bad at all. If the former case turns out to be true I may not take any development project at all this year and use all my vacation time to spend with Cristina. If the latter case is true I'll probably take at least one development project and in addition spend several weeks with Cristina.

   Additionally we're going to see if we can get her added to my current visa here which according to the most optimistic theories COULD be as early as this year but I hardly dare hope we could be so lucky.

   Additionally it looks like I'll be involved with a project in Papua New Guinea which I can conveniently conduct by zipping up there on long weekends and use a minimum of days off.


And everyone seems to be sharing these things

   Usually I get my Year In Review posts up within a few days of New Years. Well this is not one of those occasions. It's only... a quarter of the next year late? But tomorrow (March 20th) the sun will cross the equator somewhere over the Congo (ie it's the equinox), thus officially ending summer here, heralding the end of the beekeeping season and months of cold and wet and hopefully traveling, so maybe the equinox is actually a more appropriate time to review the year than the arbitrary "New Years Day."

   2016 is notable for being an entire calendar year in which I didn't set foot or come near the American continents. Having arrived in Australia on December 18th, I lived in Australia for the entirety of 2016 (interestingly, of the past six years, 2014 is the only year I spent no part of the year living in Australia!)

   Memories of those first few months here still have a golden dreamy quality ... in large part literally golden because the hills and fields were a golden yellow and the sun sets late in summer here in a drawn out warm golden twilight. Everything was so new and exciting and beautiful. I was enthralled to live in such beautiful countryside, and was immensely fortunate that I met many of the people who are still my best friends here today very early on.

   The first of many local adventures, in mid January, so only my third or fourth week here, my friend Billie and one of her twin sisters (they're triplets) went on an adventure down into the forest and coast, and her car, "Kermit," died in a particularly remote place and great adventures ensued as we tried to extricate ourselves and the car from the situation. What's funny looking back on all this is that the very same Kermit is now the car _I_ drive! Kermit has a lot of personality but other than the battery problem she had that one day she's a pretty dependable beast.



   Initially I lived in a nice caravan on the farm, that has been semi permanently anchored just beside the vegetable garden, with a room added that doubles its size. It was convenient to live on the farm, for the instant commute, to be able to nick inside for lunch, and for the epic views of the lake.
   But as Summer gave way to Autumn and Winter in March and April, and sideways freezing rain beame the new normal the insufficiency of the insulation of the caravan's walls became increasingly apparent to me, as I'd spend my evenings hovering within feet of the space heater. Additionally, living at work never truly allows one to "get away" and unspool. Consequently sometime around maybe May I moved to a cute little house near the tiny "town" of Moriac about ten minutes East, toward the city of Geelong. Here I lived in the country just outside of Moriac with one housemate, Susie, who mostly worked a lot. And by tiny town I mean it only had one shopfront, the general store.

   That was all good and well but eventually I yearned to have a place entirely to myself, and consequently in January 2017 I have moved to this totally delightful little house I adore in the town of Birregurra:



   From this adorable little house if I walk down my front steps and past a field with cows grazing in it to arrive about a minute later in "downtown Birregurra," where there's a well stocked general store, a pub, a provedore (which is a place that supplies fancy shmancy local food apparently?), and like three art galleries, because apparently this is artsy fartsy land.
   Only problem is that it IS like 45 minutes from here to Geelong town. 25 minutes to work, which is halfway so if I plan to go to town after work I just go straight from work which isn't bad ... but coming home from Tuesday trivia at the end of the evening is a bit of a trek.
   Now, it's 16 minutes drive from my front door to the centre of Colac town, but Colac is like the "shadowy place," Simba asks about in the Lion King ... we do not like to think about Colac. Okay it's not that bad but every time it is mentioned someone will pipe in that it's apparently officially the STD capitol of Australia... and really I prefer to keep my life oriented toward Geelong. Geelong, population nearly 200,000, is just big enough that there's things to do without being any bigger than is quite necessary. Though it does appear to be expanding into ugly new subdivisions that spring up around it's periphery like some kind of noxious mold.
   AND I don't often have any reason to travel to the local metropolis of Melbourne but Birregurra actually has a train station with several trains a day to Melbourne (about two hours away), so if I did want to go there I could literally walk to the train station.


   In February I traveled to the Philippines for my friend Justin's wedding. It was lovely, I've never traveled in the direction of Asia at all before. Unfortunately, having barely been at my new job for two months I didn't feel I should take a heap of days off so I basically spent two days traveling to spend three days there! But the beaches on Boracay Island were really nice and I do hope to go again some time when I actually have more time.


( More (well all 13) pictures from the Philippines )

   In April I traveled to Kyrgyzstan for a project, which I was really excited about because I've long been interested in Central Asia as a oft-overlooked corner of the world. You hear more about the deepest parts of Africa than you do about Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tijikistan etc etc Mongolia. I found the region to be an intriguing mix of seemingly far flung influences: Asian looking people with Turkish culture and a Russian/Soviet political history. While in Australia the dreary wet coldness of Winter was just starting to set in, in Kyrgyzstan the first bright flowers of Spring were blossoming and Spring was in the air among the villages of thatched houses and green hills over which horseback shepherds constantly rode.


( More pictures from Kyrgyzstan )

   In July I went to Guinea in West Africa for the third time. Coming from Australia it was an ordeal getting there, and a huge ordeal getting back (it took six days from airport to airport!). Its also always a bit of a roadtrip getting in and out of the interior, but somewhere in there I actually did a training project. Other than transit nightmares this project was noteworthy in that I was working with a Peace Corps volunteer in their natural environment in the field. Having long thought about doing Peace Corps myself it was novel for me to actually be there with one in the field.

I shot myself in the foot posting all my best Guinea pictures the other day and not wanting to repost the same pictures, so here's a new one:

( All Guinea 2016 Pictures )


   And that was it for travel in 2016. I had a beekeeping conference I really wanted to attend in Kigali, Rwanda, in September (my friend was driving from Kampala, Uganda, I could have roadtripped with him across Uganda!), but Spring was supposed to Spring in September so I cleared my schedule and sat there twiddling my fingers ... Spring didn't Spring until the last three weeks of what should have been the Summer as it happens.
   My parents did visit in September and then I was pleasantly surprised to find they were ready to return again already this February (it was the addiction to tim-tam cookies I suspect). Both times they were shocked by how cold it was, especially since the second visit was ostensibly in the middle of Summer (feel my pain!!). I look forward to longer visits in the future since dad is retiring this year (and after all I have a three bedroom house to myself so have more than enough room for houseguests!)



   60,852 miles in 2016, continuing the upward trend (47,181 in 2012, 52,387 in 2013, didn't calculate 2014, and 58,649 in 2015).

   Travel plans for 2017 include visiting the States in June for my brother's wedding (will have gone 18 months without being back by then!), definitely another visit to Guinea, possibly a project in the Congo, and world beekeeping conference in Istanbul in September (I'm going to have to figure out which years I _haven't_ been to Istanbul).



   View from the farm last June, ie mid-winter. Not looking forward to 6+ months of coldness and darkness, but hopefully I'll get a bit of traveling in! In the mean time there were way more pictures I'd have liked to post than I was able to cram in here. I'll try to work them in subsequently (: But you can as always see all the pictures here.


See Also: This year had a quick mid-year review on the occasion of having lived in Australia six months.

Wait what? Yes the subject of this entry is 2014. Yes the current year is 2019. It's been bothering my OCD that I never did a review of 2014.

   So this will be a bit different from the usual review of a year just-past since I have the benefit of hindsight but moreover I barely remember what I did that year so I'm going to have to trawl through my LJ entries and rediscover it myself.



   Firstlyofall, here's the traditional yearly travel globe. Heck of a lot more travel than this year! 41,300 miles is not quite twice this year's but is substantially less than the years before and after.

   Starting with the 2013 Year in Review to see where we find ourselves at the end of the previous year, it's back in California, working for Bee Busters (bee removal and taking care of 100-200 hives for them) and "No idea as of yet what 2014 will have in store!" For context I had been in Australia for six months but came back to the states in May.

   Going through entries from January its just work and LJI entries mainly. First exciting thing of note, and it was really quite exciting I think was in May I assisted in a real life man overboard rescue at sea. Without a doubt one of the most dramatic things to happen to me in my life.



   In June I flew to Guinea in West Africa for the first time (that is first time in Guinea, not West Africa). This was ground zero of the then burgeoning "worst ebola outbreak in history" but heeey what's the worst that could happen? Oh, right, anyway lets hope we don't get sick hey. Got upgraded to first class on the flight over which I still fondly remember five years later. This was the first project in which I was housed in a local village instead of a hotel and I loved it and have requested such ever since. That first village has had a special spot on my heart ever since and on the two return trips to Guinea in subsequent years I always make sure to visit the village of San Piring. 24 hours before I was set to depart Guinea I developed an aching back and a cough and runny nose and ... oh look all the initial ebola symptoms.
   At first my only concern was getting out of the country, since being quarantined in Guinea seemed like a good way to wind up dead. It was only once I was sniffling on the plane that I began to worry "what if I'm patient zero now??"



   But first I was off to Sweden, where I volunteered for two weeks on the huge gorgeous sailing ship Gothenburg. It was really quite lovely, though I'd have enjoyed it more if I weren't, you know, feeling fairly unwell the whole time and possibly carrying a devastating disease.



   July - After two weeks in Sweden I proceeded to the center of France (Clermont Ferrand) to attend the wedding of the French guy I'd roomed with in Brisbane and the Brazilian girl who had taken over my half the room. The wedding was in a castle and being in the French countryside for the first time was really lovely, I loved the authentically delicious food the little hotel had for dinner like it wasn't no thing to just have a five course delicious meal for whomever happened by. Wedding was in a castle. I quite enjoyed it. It saddens me now that as far as I can tell from instagram they've since separated and she's still living it up in France hanging all over some guy with meticulous meticulous sculpted facial hair.

   From France I returned to the states, and though still exhibiting concerning symptoms of sickness I breezed right through the airports. This is in stark contrast to the following year when I had to undergo a medical evaluation in Atlanta (escorted to and from the examination area by someone dressed as if I had ebola!), and was then automatically quarantined for 20 days as a precaution. I asked what would have happened if the 2015 protocals had been in place when I came through in 2014 and was told they would have immediately taken me by ambulance to the high biosecurity isolation room (there's a reason they made Atlanta the required point of entry for passengers returning from Guinea). As exciting as that would have been it also sounds very tedious and this being America they'd probably leave me with a preposterously astronomical bill that would ruin my life.
   As it happens I had been getting better and felt fairly alright in France but my health suddenly got much worse shortly after I arrived in the states. I was kind of afraid to check in to an emergency room and start a panic by saying I was concerned I might have ebola. We called a family friend who is a doctor specializing in exotic diseases and after he questioned me a bit he declared in his opinion I did not have ebola.
   I was due to go sailing on the brig Pilgrim a few days after returning home and I went aboard even though I was feeling quite unwell. I keep missing the boat's yearly sail and this was the last time it would ever sail! Even though I felt very unwell I was enjoying being aboard and served my watches, did my duty, worked aloft, as we worked our way up the coast for a few days. But then in Santa Barbara one of the stuffy curmudgeonly big wigs of the organization came aboard and declared I had to go. ):
   After this I finally did go to the doctor to get certified ebola free. They didn't panic and it turned out I was indeed ebola free.



   Septamber - all this time LJ Idol is going on and I wrote many entries, some forgettable, some I rather liked, but I'd like to single out the story of Sir Helix as one of my all time favorites. (:



East Africa 2014
   In November I was off to Kenya for another exciting adventure! This would be my first trip to Africa organized by myself, and my first time in Kenya and Tanzania. The goal was to attend a beekeping conference in Arusha, northern Tanzania, and it was cheaper to fly in to Nairobi. My friend Doug (who recently (2018) visited me here in Australia) joined me on this trip. Booked my hotel on the way to the airport, traveling the way I like to, by the seat of my pants! Also, even though East Africa is as far from the ebola outbreak in West Africa as Los Angeles is from New York, because of the ebola outbreak everyone was afraid to travel to East Africa (::rolls eyes::) so the upshot of the ebola outbreak was all the hotels were super desperate and had really good rates!
   When I had looked up Tanzania on wikipedia after learning the conference was there, I noted that Zanzibar was in Tanzania and immediately resolved to go there based on the name alone. It could have been a dusty spot in the middle of nowhere (Timbuktu!) and I would have gone (I actually really want to go to Timbuktu but its really unsafe). So after a few days of seeing the sights in Kenya we flew to Zanzibar, which it turns out is a beautiful tropical island. There we enjoyed the white sand beaches, seeing monkeys in the tropical forests of the interior, and poking around the grand old labyrinthine streets of Stone Town.
   From there we flew to Arusha, Tanzania, where we attended the conference, went on a fun roadtrip / multi day "technical excursion" across the country and back, and met this nice guy Simon who invited us to the nearby town of Moshi. In Moshi we had many adventures as you'll find under that Moshi tag. Also of note we stayed in a cute little guesthouse and diminuitive Neema was our housekeeper.



   After Tanzania it had originally been my plan to return home but Doug was planning on going on to Ethiopia and I was easily talked into returning to Ethiopia myself, since I fondly remembered my last time there. A highlight of the many adventures in Ethiopia was a roadtrip with our friend Daniel's family from their home in Mek'elle to the ancient city of Axum for a religious festival at the site Ethiopians maintain they have the ark of the covenant.
   From there I continued on to Bahir Dar because I wanted to meet with people at the university there about potentially gonig there, which I did meet with them and they were enthusiastic about me joining their programme but ni the end nothing came of it.
   Then returned briefly to Addis, and then flew home and did utterly nothing noteworthy for the remainder of the year!




   Well I don't know about the rest of you but I greatly enjoyed going back through these old entries, so many memorable stories I'm still telling.