good news – Mary Mandefield

Seriously. What happened?

penguins just cuddling and stuff

2016 was one of those rare years that dragged on and on. In terms of politics, terrorism, celebrity deaths and the rest of it – the year was pretty awful.

But some good stuff happened, I promise.

See here, here and here for great news from all over to make you feel all warm and fuzzy. Now I’mma be self centred for a sec and reflect on all the cool shizz I’ve done in the past 12 months.

Rocked my braids like the true Jamaican Queen that I am.
Dragged my sorry self to our VSO post volunteer round up weekend thing to learn more about development (would’ve been cool to learn this all before we went to Kenya for 3 months but whatever)
Saw my big sis perform in Austria. She deserves all the praise because she’s a showgirl these days. Her costumes are a solid 10/10 and she gives all the cheese which warms my cold soul
Stopped buying clothes! Yas. I watched The True Cost at work and omg I felt all the feels. The fashion industry scares me a lot and if everyone saw the way our clothes are made and the conditions that people work in to provide us with cheap, fast fashion, maybe we’d settle down and stop buying so much sh*t in H&M.
Stopped eating meat. Ok I do this most years to some extent but I was full pesci from April until October. (In October I moved to a farm. sorrrrrrrry). Meat free is fab and of course this year I’ll be turning to the veg again
Was a big brave gal and went to the barbers loads to shape up my unloved undercut. Barbers are a scary world for a wimp like myself, especially in foreign countries. But you know what, I braved it. And had alcohol slapped on the back of my head with zero warning.
Got a real life adult job and moved into a proper adult house with other adults and we adulted together. Nah, but for real, my housemates kept me sane (Vasantha I’m mainly speaking to you hun) and my job made me so happy. Oxford was sweet (hella pricey) and my friends there are 100% baes.
Spoke in parliament about how it’s kinda unfair that girls in developing countries are denied the right to go to school. Whether is because of their culture, family’s opinions or health problems. It’s not on. So yeah I shimmyed up to the House of Commons and spoke alongside real life adult women who also thought it wasn’t ok.
Campaigned A LOT.
Went to a lot of festivals. Ok this isn’t an achievement at all but maybe it’s worth noting that I pitched my fair share of tents this summer. As well as coming up with innovative and creative solutions to carrying in alcohol.
Sent adorable letters, presents and postcards to my pals. It’s taken me a while to realise that the majority of my closest friends live in different cities, counties and countries to myself. Instead of being as lazy as I am usually, I actually made to effort to send cute stuff to my faves. And I got a lot of cute stuff back so yayy
Ran a marathon in a country where the weather is comparable to THE SUN.
Learnt to just follow my heart a lil (I’m saying it as if I never used to do that before. Who am I kidding) and take my unemployed self to Namibia for 2 months. And it was so worth it.
Showed Chloe the amazingness of Otjikondo. And we realised how friggin cool the rest of Namibia is. (yaaaaas we climbed the worlds highest sand dune, big up)
Showed J the absolute BEAUTY of a city which we like to call Cape Town. And had the best time discovering new places and asking him to take multiple candid photos of me just casually walking down a cute street or chilling on the beach

So yeah. I haven’t blogged much at all this year. And maybe some of y’all think I’ve just been staying quiet and not getting on with much. But I can honestly say I’ve been pretty busy (and not having the patience to deal with slow wifi to upload posts) and had a fab year. Filled with weird moments, new buddies, drunken regrets, empty bank accounts, dodgey outfits and a whole lotta love. How was your year?

peace up, a town.

Maz