A way of life or vacation?
It’s official, Rasa and I are going to work in Honduras for Pure Water for the World ! We will leave Kuala Lumpur on the 26th for NY, spend 5 nights there and then on to Tegucigalpa.
It seems our lifestyle has become intertwined with our careers. For myself, I have not worked a 9-5 office job since 1999 and my daily routine/career has become what many would consider a holiday. But by having pursued this type of lifestyle/work abroad we have been able to continue living how we do. Some people have asked if I am worried or scared about the future, which I take to mean my loss of job skills, retirement or savings. The answer would have to be no, I’m not the least bit worried about our future.
We have met both individuals and families who have made a very stable and successful life of living and working abroad in similar circumstances as to ours. So being mobile and versatile is the career path we have decided to pursue. Mix in a little hard skills with that, like anthropology, engineering or turkey wrangling (my latest occupation for Thailand’s immigration), and you have yourself a highly desirable employee who is willing to go anywhere. So far this has opened up a world of opportunities for us.
And this is how we have found ourselves commuting from the Philippines to Honduras via Vietnam. Not to much different from getting in the car every morning and driving to work via Starbucks. Well, maybe the coffee in Vietnam is a little better and a lot stronger. But what we are striving for is a meaningful career, and crack coffee. So about our typical day, be it Manila, KL, Bangkok, Hanoi or NYC, it’s only another interesting place that has great food and friendly locals. And while we are there we are going to throw ourselves into it’s culture as deep as possible to see what we can learn.
For our typical day in KL, we bought tickets, tried on Indian saris, went to Chinatown and visited the mosque. Not so different than in Kuching, but there we visited the headhunters instead of the mosque. We usually don’t have an agenda when we show up, except for eating and shopping. So we meander aimlessly looking for any little alleyway of interest. Sometimes we find something worthwhile, sometimes we spend hours walking in circles looking for the Northwest ticketing agent. Most of the time we are just enjoying our time together, and today we were able to share a typical day of our lives with my mom.
Here was our hotel in KL to look up in Google Earth: 3° 8’44.34″N,101°42’24.73″E
In Chiang Mai, Thailand now. Will be here for two more nights. Still waiting for Rasa to update her website…
–
Robert J Kent Jr
Wat/San/Health Engineering Consultant

