Happy couple and more happy news...
To kick off the weekend I thought I'd post another photo of me and my handsome man. This one was taken with my mum as we were seeing her and my stepdad off.
Unbeknown to me, Mum recently found my blog through her cousin (hi Jen!), and may or may not become a regular reader. I'm sure once she works out how to post comments we'll never get her out of here. :o) Hi Mum!!!
Mum had a rather eventful 4 days in Vanuatu. During her time with us she met our family and friends, bonded with Ben, did some hand washing education with the primary school kids at the school where Ben teaches, saw some of the pre-Independence Day celebrations, and still found time to break both her legs!
Yes, that's right kids, my mum fell in a hole on her first day in the country and it wasn't until ten days later, when she was back in Australia, that it was discovered that she fractured her left ankle and her right fibula!
My mum is one tough woman!
Here are some photos from Mum's time in Vanuatu... I'll put more up over the course of the weekend. Mine will go up next week when they're developed.
Mum and Etrien (my little brother) washing their hands.
The kids watching Finding Nemo projected on to the wall of one of the classrooms.
Happy news #1: I am now celebrating 24 hours of being gastro free! Fingers crossed the unpleasant experience is all over.
Happy news # 2: Only 1 week to go until I move into my new home!! Yay!!! So it looks like much of this week will be spent sorting through my stuff, packing and moving. A huge job, but one that is well overdue for attention.
My shitty job...
I have the shittiest job on earth, both literally and figuratively.
On Saturday I went to work a morning shift at a private hospital up the road from my house. The nurses kindly allocated me 10 patients to assist, including one lady with gastroenteritis, but failed to give a complete handover, meaning that it wasn't until I asked why the patient had aprons and gloves right outside her room that someone told me that she'd had gastro.
The phrase "she'd had" implies that the gastro bout was over does it not. It doesn't indicate a current ongoing affliction.
Unfortunately for me, and for the sweet little lady, she had an "accident" and during the course of cleaning her up I got crapped on. Yes, that's right, some of her runny poo landed on me, and not just on my clothes!
Capping it all off is the fact that gastro is an airborne illness, so gloves and aprons weren't going to save me anyway.
The result of all this is that after 20 minutes spent in the bathroom, a shower and a drive on the porcelain bus, it is now 2:30am and I'm sitting in bed, blogging, because my stomach is doing the hokey pokey somewhere inside me. Hopefully my peppermint tea and some Stemetil will settle my sorry tummy so that I can get some sleep.
Once again I have returned from a holiday only to get sick, and I don't have my gorgeous man to nurse me. Sori long mi. :o( Below is another photo of my "nambawan assistant nurse blong Vanuatu".
My 200th Post!!!
So when better to reveal some of the biggest news of my life?!!
As mentioned in my previous post, Ben and I have had some big news brewing while I was in Vanuatu, and I think now is the perfect time to share not one, but two exciting developments with you guys.
Exciting development #1:
Should the Australian Immigration Deparment decide to bestow their benevolence upon us, Ben may be coming to live with me in Australia next year while I do my new graduate program.
We will be making visa applications and hopefully Ben will be able to come and live with me and work to earn some money to pay for his school fees when we return to Vanuatu in 2008, and improve his English language skills, which will put him in greater demand as a teacher in Vanuatu.
We are both extremely excited and know that while this path is going to be hard work, and it may be be long and convoluted, if it all comes together it will be worth it. It will also mean that we won't have to spend 12 months apart while I complete my new graduate program here in Sydney next year.
Exciting development #2:
We're engaged!!!
While my mum and stepdad were visiting us in Port Vila Ben took the opportunity to ask for their permission for him to marry me... or to use his exact phrase, to ask them if they'd let him have me. They said yes!
A week later, at the airport as I was preparing to board my flight back home, Ben asked me to marry him and be his wife. Of course I said yes!
So I am now officially off the market, and will be a married woman in the foreseeable future!!!
Unbeknown to me, Mum recently found my blog through her cousin (hi Jen!), and may or may not become a regular reader. I'm sure once she works out how to post comments we'll never get her out of here. :o) Hi Mum!!!
