A BELATED CELEBRATION FOR SOCIAL WORKERS

From March 16th

“Happy International Social Work Day to all of the Social, Community and other humanitarian workers in my world.

What does it mean to be a Social Worker?

It means to give a sh*t when most people have long disbanded

It means to test your own sanity over and over, while holding and reinforcing others

It means seeing through a lot of what happens in the world, and to still know that you won’t ever see the full picture

It means to listen to things that you never imagined possible and deal with things that you never knew that you were capable of

It means to question over and over and over again and know that there will likely never be an answer

It means to create “resources” out of thin air and to make the impossible happen on a daily basis

And it means to hold humanity at a standard that most never contemplate

...... And a million other things

This years theme is:

Ubuntu: I am B...

Where has she been?

I am conscious that this is something that a couple of people previously connected to me may be wondering.

Well, let me tell you a story that involves a one way world adventure that began at the end of January 2020 and took me not much further than Bali, where I have been based for all but two weeks of the time between then and now.

I left Bali after five weeks to attend a wedding in Penang and then flew to Hoi An in Vietnam, where I intended to begin my travels. I wanted to travel the Southern route of the Silk Road, however I didn’t have a plan for how this would unfold. A week later I watched the world and town around me shut down. Family at home raised concerns about my plans and I made a swift decision to book the next flight back to Bali, to move in with a Balinese family that I had came to know over the five weeks and I arrived by the end of the day.

On the Monday morning I attended the immigration office to have my visa extended, and on the s...