We're going to find Duplo....

Xss and i are in the final stages of booking our flights and projects for our trip away. We have finalised it down to 3 projects we would like to do in South East Asia:

Work in a Zoo in Thailand- What better way to be allowed to do a job that you are completely unqualified for and would never be allowed to do in the UK, than to go to a developing country! Yippee. We love the idea of this one as we wont have to learn much local language, and it wont be very emotionally draining (sorry cute cuddly animals, we care about you really). Must remember not to make comments like- i'd like a pet Lorris monkey, to live in a rainforest lounge room i'd create so he can learn cool tricks, and generally be a novelty in my otherwise non-comment worthy existence. I'd call him Duplo. This project is also all really rather ironic as i had a huge rant at Lovely the other day about how it was silly to care about and help animals when there are so many deserving people in the world that also need out help.

Luckily, The other two projects are more meaningful:

Work teaching English in Cambodia- This would be with street children in a day centre and so would be more valuable a thing to do than the above, but only for a few hours a day and then free time to explore.

Work teaching staff at a small local tourist cafe in the middle of somewhere, English (in Cambodia as well).

So we need to decide between the bottom two. I am more keen on the bottom one as we are spending 3 months with street kids in Brazil, and will hopefully have spent so long making meaningful relationships (we are even taking Portuguese classes) and fitting in with the culture so intricately that it might be hard to throw ourselves into this environment again so quickly, especially for a shorter period.

The ones that didn't make the grade: Working in a tiger reserve in India- i am still keen to fit this in! Living on a commune in south India, working with Elephants in Cambodia, washing them feeding them etc, and working in a forest in Cambodia to stop poachers and track use etc.

Am excited to book soon. What an adventure. Why do we never think to so these things when we are working. I could totally have taken a month off work before to go to one of these projects, and most of them only cost local currency when you are there.

So far the country hit list goes as follows:
Brazil
Chile
Peru
USA
Japan
Thailand
Cambodia
Vietnam
Laos?
Hong Kong?
India

Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!