One moment at work

Ahh... Received this nice kandid picture of myself today from our customer photoshoot. Definitely one of the perks of the job :) I rarely like my own pics (although I am getting better at this) but I just seemed so relaxed in this one😍.

our life in Tanzania

I know it seems too nice sometimes, especially from the Facebook pictures. But our life is very normal here, it’s just that sun shines - a lot. Which I have noticed feels good and gives a lot of energy.

Our normal, is close to what normal was in Finland, but there are some differences. The little guys go to school instead of daycare. They go from 8 until 13. After that they either come home or go play at their grandparents place - Africa (as J calls it). We finally have domestic help. I survived the first year without any help - a rarity here, actually I didn’t know anyone else without help - even the help have their help... With growing workload and the kids starting school it made sense. So in the mornings when I drop off the kids, our Nanny/Housemaid cleans the apartment, does laundry and prepares lunch. I like to pick up kids and finish my workday at home. So at least I’m around, but there is a second pair of eyes and hands too. It’s nice. I get the cuddles, someone else deals with dishes and cleaning up their mess ;). Interestingly it was a real inner battle to me.. I'm a Finnish woman, I can do everything!!! But does it make sense to push so hard in everything that you feel too exhausted to sleep?? In the end it didn't. House has to be cleaned daily here, open windows and dust just make it necessary. Laundry is done by hand. I say enoguh of being the superwoman. Now I have more energy for work and to actually be with my kids because I don't have to be doing everything constantly.

On Wednesdays we have Suomi-koulu, so we head out of the door, and do a merry-go-round with the Karani kids. Drop off J, pick up their youngest, when I finish their class, they bring J and their older kids, grab the miniz and then in 90 mins pick up the group, while I finish the classes with the actual school age kids. And rush to grab my boys before heading home. It’s what you would call “controlled chaos”.

On Thursdays I go coach for two hours, Fridays four hours, and Saturdays 5 hours. They stay home with baba and the dada (swahili word for sister, used commonly for maid/nanny). Or sometimes tag along for the Sat class. Sundays are home days and I try to keep it empty - you know, not exit house at all. Recharge. Relax. The whole family together. <3

I've noticed though that I need to wake up and smell the flowers more. I want to transfer our mini balcony into a nice outdoor space. It is not that now, but still everytime I take even 10 minutes to sit outisde I feel better. My new way of dealing with three consecutive days of coaching is to work from home on Thursdays and sometimes even on Fridays. I feel extra productive and yet somehow the fact that I can have a slow morning, skip the shower and getting ready and just step outside and start working gives me enough strenght to handle the rest of the week. 

I'm having that perfect moment now. Just because it's Thursday, I love it. Radio Aalto keeping me smiling witht the newest Bruno Mars song "uptown funk" and crazy stories. My morning coffee. Birds are singing. Sun is still soft enough. Work is getting done like a breeze... Catch me on a Satuday afternoon when I'm dead exhausted and maybe they have switched off electricity and/or water..That part of my life I hate. But luckily you can always jump into a bajaji and go to Peninsula "bubble" (The highend area where most expacts live, and with rents starting from 1200 usd/month just not where we can stay) where things work and food tastes like home...

That's our life here..

Silence

Sorry sorry sorry for being so quiet!! Life has been hectic! 

My mom came to visit and that's always wonderful, especially the little guys were over the moon. We got to go and enjoy Zanzibar with them, and they spent so much time in the pool (under the watchful eye of mummu) that I was expecting them to leave the place as fishes. 

We got good food and good family time... What more could you ask for???

The only unfortunate thing about the visit was Our little J. His skin started reacting immediately...and the lungs were not far behind. I had already forgotten the problems he has, that's how good his health is here. Now just a visit triggers his health issues, so how will we ever survive a visit or life in Finland???? 

Moving forward

I have a dream.

Do you know the feeling when you finally figure something out? Something that you have been trying to conquer, trying to solve and you finally after years, yes YEARS, of thinking and wondering you just have it. And it has been there the whole time. You were just too busy worth other stuff to realize.

I have been racking my brain over about "who do I want to be when I grow up". I know, I'm 32 years old, I should be all grown up already but even though I've gotten my dream husband and gorgeous sons, my own ambitions have not been geared towards anything special. I've enjoyed my working life but not to the extent of calling it a passion or feeling anxious over the weekend wanting to get back to work. And I wanted that. I've always wanted that. But I have never put it to the top of my to do list.

Along the way I've realized three things:

1) just because you are good at something, doesn't mean you should be doing that. applies also to just because your mom/dad/boyfriend/neighbor/teacher thinks you could be something doesn't mean you should..

2) we end up working around 100 000 hours of our lives. This is more time than we spend on sleeping, eating or having fun. We should enjoy what we do. Because why the hell not???

3) you might not get all your boxes ticked from the same source. If you can't pinpoint your dream job it might not exist.  Create it or a combination of your likes that makes you feel satisfied all around in the end.

I can't say that my parents sat us down and told us life wisdoms when we were kids, but something that my dad told me over 10 years ago has hounted my thoughts for a very long time. I say hounted because I just didn't know how to apply it to my life. "If your job is about something you love, your hobby or a passion, is there anything better than that?"

My dream is not finalized, nor do I have a clear roadmap to how to reach it, but now, finally, I have a blurry water color of it which means I can start refining it. And I can have fun along the way...

So what is that you actually do there???

Lately my conversations/emails/whatsApps/Skype calls have been going a bit like this:

- I heard you are working now?

- yes, I work for Expression

- so what do you actually do?

- social media management and live brand experiences

- umm what?

....

So here goes. What we do is manage customer's social media accounts, create fun content that people actually are interested in, and plan and execute promotional events for them.

So it can be a day at the office, doing computer work, or having idea sessions over Skype with our team in Finland, or a full day photoshoot or an event for our customers.

This is what it looks like in practice:

Every day different, every day new.

ÁMATE

Love yourself.

I read a book yesterday: Jennifer Lopez book. I know. How very shallow of me. But what I thought would be just an easy read, full of gossip and fun stuff actually touched me very deeply. What started out as a world tour picture book for her turned into a more indepth self search. I choose to believe that her words were genuine (I'm not that jaded yet) and it took me also on an interesting thought process.

I've been wondering why exactly is it that I feel so much more at peace here than in my home country. On paper I have so much less here than I had in Finland but I feel more confident, empowered, strong and in touch with myself than I did before. Now, I'm not saying it is the country and I would not have felt this way  back home but it (the move) certainly acted as a catalyst to change. I feel very strongly that paring down earthly possessions allowed me to look inside. 

Reading Jennifer's book though made me realize that I am not done yet. The years of self doubt has left marks that take a long time to heal, but I'm doing so much better already! Finding my strength also helps me to think and figure out what do I want. What do I really want. Well actually more what I don't want at this point but I'm sure it'll turn into wants too..

I don't want to live my life the way others want me to live it.

I don't want to posses things just because it's the hottest hot or expected.

I don't want to wake up 80 one day and regret missed opportunities or skipped opportunities because of fear. 

I want to take time for me and my family to really be together and I want to learn to love myself. My failings and flaws and shortcomings and all that that in the western society are excellent at hiding. I believe that very simple sentence that guided me in gymnastics "no pain, no gain" years ago, applies to my life too. Just breezing through years without actually taking the time to learn or even really live would in the end cause even more pain, than taking some risks and chances along the way.

Oh I must be getting old... But hey isn't that what life is really about???