“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.” I still remember this quote from my college graduation commencement. Since then, it has stuck in my head as a way to look at change, new experiences, and life in general. You can’t always plan things and even if you do, life has a funny way of screwing things up, usually for the better. When you think life is taking you one way, you blink and realize you’ve changed course. 
For us, a change in our plans has come our way, while we were planning for the couple years ahead…where we’d go for our next posting, life necessitated a complete change for us. Instead of planning our next posting, we began to plan our departure not in a year but in 2 months. And this is when the old adage of “don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today” came into play. 
So instead of daydreaming about weekends spent on the beach or swimming in the pool, we rang in the new year and then jumped on a plane headed to the season of scarves and snowmen in the US. But what a change it will be, close to family and friends, full of great opportunities, where we can again put down roots and stay for a bit. There is no doubt we will miss Abidjan but life has other plans for us now. To the city that initially intimidated me, I thank you for a year of self exploration, self improvement, and memories I will keep in my heart for years to come. It’s not goodbye forever, but goodbye for now…one day we will be back to say hello again…
A bientot Abidjan!
A Hint of Ginger 