Working as a foreigner means welcoming new people and farewelling old ones. For some reason I am feeling that there are more farewells than welcomes right now. May be an attitude that you make friends once you come here, and after a while you are not so eager to meeting new people any more, and you end up with a situation that all or many of your friends have left, and there are not many you know any more and you start look forwarding your own farewell.

In our case the Finnish community, who has made us to feel here like home, is decreasing dramatically. There are more than 10 Finns leaving between June and September, and not that many arriving. One of the reasons is that Finland does not seem to send so many people to UN any more, as if I have understood, Vietnam will not much longer be a priority country in the development policy as estimated that reaches the status of middle income country in 2010.

So, the time before and afted is farewells. Many of them remains as friends and we will have reunions once back at home. It is also interesting to follow where people end up. Some of them stay in the development work, but quite a few return home, even to same jobs which they once left. I guess we belong to that group, although in my case there is no job yet. There are too many risky factors to leave one´s permanent job and go from a short term assignment to another. Continuous job hunting and marketing that would mean. I prefer at least assignments in 2 years cycles so that I can be sure that I can get bread next month, too. Difficult decisions, of course.

Vietnam is gettin hot. Last 2 weeks have been something like 30-40 degrees. Air conditions are turning, and we are sweating. The nights are the worst. Last night we woke up for a picnic with Toivo, or he did, and I joined. Luckily it was only 10 minute picnic between 3 and 4 pm. May be I should just call in the office in the morning and tell them that I am not coming to work as I am TIRED. So do my Vietnamese colleagues do, too. May be we have something to learn from them???

Have a nice end of the week.