Christmas and Beyond

On December 22 we will be heading to China for our 2 week christmas break. We are going to Shanghai for the first half, and then to Beijing. They don't really celebrate Christmas there either, but at least the weather will be warmer. Right now here its minus 13 degrees and in Shanghai its 55 degrees! That sounds just right to me. We can't wait. It will be great to do some sightseeing and eat western food for a while. And sleep in a comfy hotel bed, and have hot water whenever we want it (for the past 2 or 3 weeks here our hot water has become a scarce resource).

So, many of you are on our christmas list. We weren't able to find a cheap way to send things home from here, so we are bringing your gifts to china with us and will ship them from there, where it will be much faster and cheaper. This means you should be expecting something in January.

Our one year anniversary for living in Mongolia has come and gone, and now we have only 6 months left until our new contracts expire. We are now in the exciting process of planning out where we head to next. There is an internship possibility for Clayt at Mercy Corps which would keep us here through most of the summer, but we have no idea whether or not that will happen. We have been contacting people we know to help find us some work in Central or South America. One of Clayt's contacts (a man who was the translator for his group when he was doing research in the Dominican Republic) works at a school there now and said if we sent my resume to him he would pass it along with a high recommendation. So we did that, and hopefully we will hear something soon. It would be great to get things squared away early so we can plan out everything else. We are hoping to be home for a few months to visit everyone, regardless of which jobs we end up taking.

Now people here (our bosses and coworkers) have been asking whether we will be staying here, and when we say no, they want to know why. Oh, the list of reasons is very VERY long, but we tell them just the main reason. Clayton doesn't want to be a teacher. He has enjoyed it, but its time to move on to a place where he can continue working toward a career he is interested in. This means getting international experience working for an NGO or other development organization, and becoming fluent in a second language. He has to get his hands dirty in his field of work before he can be sure of getting a good job back home. And who knows? If we find a place we really love, we may become expats indefinitely!