by At the end of 2019 I was in a contract in Fiji for 15 months. The project came to an end and I was ready to return to Great Britain when Stef appeared and changed everything.
Working in international development, especially at remote locations, means that those in the sector tend to be interested in each other. Whenever a new personnel harvest appears, everyone meets. It was Stef’s third night on the island when we all got into a local curry house in Suva to welcome you and the other volunteers. I arrived directly from work in a rather picked Sulu (Fijian Sarong) and sandals. I was sitting next to Stef and Funken flew immediately. It was clearly super bright, very funny and fitted me to stack large quantities of chicken -ikka butter -masala (it’s one thing and it’s very good). We planned to meet the next day and quickly started spending a lot of time together.
We found that we both loved hiking – which is excellent in Fiji – and not long after I met Stef, a group hike was planned. First, I was on a remote island for a week.
After seven days outside the telephone area on a distant island, I came to the designated meeting point for the aircraft with a bucket of fresh lobster that was gifted to find out that everyone was pulled out except Stef. When she knew that I was untouchable, she decided to take a five-hour bus, navigated over the main island, navigating two breakdowns and four transfers to ensure that I was not down. She even appeared with the remaining chicken palau. As a British, I am not always able to record the subtle evidence of romanticism, but an Australian Stef is not backwards when it goes forward. The effort she had done to meet me when everyone else was not, was a sign of affection, even I was able to read. Everything about the hike flowed slightly and we hardly stopped chatting all weekend. While I saw the stars together that first evening, I had the pronounced impression that this was this It.
This time together made it clear that our connection was much more than just an AID world fly. We hiked into the wilderness on Friday and appeared as a couple on Sunday. Until the New Year’s Eve I told her how I felt.
When Covid eliminated borders and Nipf contracts, we were both sent back to our home countries a few weeks later. We were separated for almost nine months. Our pandemic experiences were very different; Stef worked three jobs in the outbreak reaction in New South Wales, while in Great Britain my main responsibility through the wine, which was bought for my sister’s covid commissioned, drank the way.
We spent hours on the phone and when the borders were reopened, it was a child’s play that we would find a way to be back together. By the end of the year we were reunited in Papua -New Guinea and spent the next two and a half years in Port Moresby. Last year we got married in Great Britain and thought we would try in a “populated” life in Melbourne, but it didn’t take long for our feet to itch.
We have recently moved to the Republic of the Congo, where we will continue to spend the next few years to reaffirm our love for each other, cricket and local curries.
