"Did you know...

that the skills and competencies gained from international volunteering - such as flexibility, strategic thinking, conflict resolution and resourcefulness - are the exact ones that Australian employers seek from their management and staff?" Winter Issue p3 AVI Magazine.
In this light, I wonder what I can say I will take back with me? Elsewhere I said this experience was as much about the subject as the object. In fact, from an objective perspective, I never regarded volunteering in PNG as an international experience. In my mind it was a neighbour experience - a place that is always there and which you will visit when you get around to it. International meant Africa, Middle East and some parts of Asia. International is a place you go to be flabbergasted. Flabbergasted describes the confusion created in the mind when one confronts an arsehole in an ordinary situation where arseholes are not expected to be. I was walking on the grass beside the road outside the flashy Madang Resort on Sunday. This Z car (government ute with wontoks on the back) headed straight for me at about 20kph. I thought he was just dodging potholes but he kept coming so I moved aside and he followed me and I moved more and he kept coming until he finally came to a stop under a tree. I just stood and stared. To see an arsehole driving a car! Now there is flabbergastion! I was flexible (I moved). I thought strategically (I'm still alive). I am still trying to resolve the confusion and conflict that an arsehole is able to get a driving licence. I was resourceful - I did not confront the arsehole as I know what comes out of it.