Nearly there

It's the night before I leave. I don't quite think it's hit me yet. I do get a bit of the feeling that I'm leaving when I say goodbyes to my friends and family. They've all been so kind to wish me well.

I spent a week in Canberra doing the pre- departure training before being sent to Laos. The people that I met that are going to Laos are a fantastic bunch of people. They generally have a really good sense of humour and I'm really sure we'll have some great times there. In Canberra, I really got into the mindset of going to Laos, and that the group would be my main support group for a year. I actually think I missed them when I got back to Sydney! I identified some of my main concerns about going to Laos:

* That corruption is part of the culture- I'll have to play along
* That working with people living with disabilities and seeing poverty will be really confronting
* Accidentally offending people
* Riding a scooter, inexperienced, on the right hand side of the road with no insurance

Other preparations I have been doing include saying bye to friends on a trip up the coast. That was a fun one. I did the L's course on a scooter and bought some motorbike gear. The amount of stuff I bought I think I nearly have to be riding a motorbike when I come home to make buying it worthwhile. I would like go to have a go on the manual bike actually, just for the fun of it. I said bye to my gran today, she's old now!