Category: choices

Home Sweet Home – Lena and Brian

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What do you do when you move to a new country, spend a week locked in hotel quarantine, and are suddenly set free to begin your new life? You move in with your boss.

Once we were released from quarantine, we had no place to go. Our options were to continue staying in the hotel but move to a different floor or move into a hypothetical house that we hadn’t actually found yet. Luckily, our principal graciously stepped in and invited the Wandering Thomsper Circus into her home. You know you are at the house of someone who loves messy inquiry when, within five minutes of arriving, she asks your kids if they’d like to dump a bucket of water in her garden to make mud. The perfect welcome for young kids who hadn’t stepped outdoors for a week.

In Uzbekistan, the law allows you three days to register at your new address. We had three days to find a house…except one day was a holiday, so it was actually two. House hunting began with a strategic packing of snacks and entertainment for the kids and a creative installation of their car seats into a well-loved Russian-made passenger van. Support staff from school arranged so many houses that we eventually abandoned photos and note-taking and went completely on instinct. Due to numerous logistical factors, we did not move around the city in any type of order but rather zigzagged back and forth until we were thoroughly confused and had no idea which neighborhood or <mahallah> we were in.

The first day was overwhelming and a bit disappointing. The designs and quirks of homes in every country vary, and it takes time to adjust expectations and decide what matters and what doesn’t. Can you live in a well-situated house with three types of faux Versailles-esque wallpaper in each room, or will that be overstimulating and prohibit any opportunity for personalizing the space? What matters most to us – commute, walkability to conveniences, size of garden, proximity to other colleagues, sunlight, subdued design that allows us to add our own style.

Thankfully, day two started much better as houses had bigger gardens, less overwhelming aesthetics, cozy spaces, and quiet but well-situated neighborhoods. We had hoped to be walking distance to our school but hadn’t seen anything in that area that worked for us. We had also looked in the faraway district where embassy families lived but knew the commute would kill us. So we were focusing on an area about 15 minutes driving from school with pockets of quiet residential areas nestled between massive Soviet-style boulevards lined with shops and cafes. 

As soon as we turned onto the quiet leafy street and walked in the front gate, we knew we found our home. Enough grass for the kids, fenced pool, outdoor dining space, hardwood floors, extremely plain white wallpaper, monochromatic curtains, dishwasher, water purification system in the kitchen, and soft sunlight. It also had a grand piano, formal dining room, massive finished basement, and five bedrooms. As international teachers, we have never and will never again live in something this spacious. We canceled the rest of the viewings and arranged our move-in for two days later. We have moved by Vietnamese motorbike, Mozambican pick-up truck, Chinese rickshaw, Mexican golf cart, and now Uzbek school bus.

Normally, when new teachers arrive at a school there is an orientation period that includes getting to know the school and city, going out to dinner with various people, meeting returning staff, and taking care of bureaucratic paperwork like opening bank accounts, setting up internet, phones, etc. It can be quite the whirlwind. Especially with jetlag and pushed up against starting a new school year. Entering as a new cohort this year was very different. First, we all arrived at different times due to travel restrictions around the world. Second, the school year had already started virtually. Third, most restaurants were closed and staff were still distancing. And finally, the administration was completely swamped with the intricate plans of preparing to safely opening our school in midst of the pandemic. Despite all this, it was actually one of the smoothest and most welcoming transition we had ever experienced. 

In addition to our personal welcome while staying with our principal, returning staff at every level have continuously reached out to take us shopping, have playdates, give us a lift somewhere, or simply stop by to say hello. We have been a bit hesitant to interact because of COVID, but even just the offers helped ease the isolation and uncertainty of relocating to a new country. Thankfully, everyone has seemed to be in agreement about masks, sanitizing, and maintaining distance. Beyond showing us where to find groceries, random house stuff, pizza, coffee, and decent beer and wine, we are so grateful for the outreach and most definitely look forward to growing friendships. It has been a long journey to find a home, school and community that fit us so well. Now we can breathe and unpack.

I Just Want To Go Home – Lena and Brian

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“I just want to go home!” Bug sobbed recently as we cuddled his sad little body. We looked at each other over his head, not knowing how to respond. Which home did he mean? Was it China, Mexico, the US, or perhaps even Mozambique?

It had been a difficult decision to return to the US and leave our new life in Sayulita once the pandemic finally reached Mexico. We were just starting to deepen connections and melt into the contours of our lives. However, the truth is the life we loved ended with the quarantine. Before official mandates in Mexico, we chose to social-distance alongside our families in California and Arizona, so the kids had not been to school or played with friends for many weeks. We weren’t going to restaurants or running into friends around town.

Although Sayulita did not officially have any COVID19 cases at that time and the Mexican government was slow to implement social distancing measures, our town was thankfully locked down by The Gavilanes Vigilantes, a group of local citizens who somewhat officially maintain the peace. Energy was positive but uncertain. We were helping to feed families in need and financially support local businesses. We bonded with other isolated expat families through WhatsApp groups. And we escaped to the jungle for magical hikes to secluded beaches. However, the reality of the pandemic began to feel more real as beaches were closed, state checkpoints were set up between Nayarit and Jalisco, international borders closed, and flights were canceled. We started to become concerned about how and when we would be able to get home and onward to Uzbekistan. When the virus first appeared, we watched our international teaching friends get stranded in Asia. With the long game in mind, we knew we could not get stuck in Mexico. We’d already lost one job this year and couldn’t afford to lose another.

Our original plan had been to drive home because we had accumulated stuff and needed a car in the US. But both the states of Nayarit and Sinaloa had closed hotels, and we were concerned about safety. Although we wanted to avoid flying – especially because the airport in Puerto Vallarta had recently been flooded with tourists and expats rushing to get home before travel restrictions – we were running out of time. Within a week, we sold our car, golf cart, kitchen appliances, camping gear, and donated tons of toys and clothes. It was a mad dash to pack and catch the only remaining flight to Phoenix (which was canceled the following week). 

Masked and doused in hand sanitizer, we boarded a nearly empty flight. Including the four of us, there was a grand total of 9 passengers on the plane. We were nervous about entering the US after all the hype, but there were no lines at Customs, no questions, no temperature checks, no interview about quarantine. The airport was dark and deserted, and we wandered around a bit looking for the parking garage where Brian’s mom had left us her car. Due to health concerns in Brian’s family, there really wasn’t any point staying in Phoenix because we couldn’t interact with anyone even after our initial quarantine. Since his family wouldn’t be leaving their homes any time in the near future, they very generously lent us a car. 

Upon finding the car and hidden key, we had our first wardrobe change and began the Tetris game of cramming our stuff – including two huge carseats – into the tiny vehicle. It took an hour. Then we found the SIM cards Mimi had left for us and spent twenty minutes on the phone with T-Mobile so we could be in communication and access maps while driving to San Francisco. When it was finally time to get on the road, Bug and Noodle were extremely unpleased with us. It only slightly had something to do with us breaking Noodle’s toy guitar during the luggage transition. Thankfully, Mimi had packed us a kit, so we pumped the kids full of peanut butter sandwiches and gold fish. Welcome to America. 

Despite the risk of staying in a hotel, we knew the kids couldn’t do the drive in one push. We decided to break up the twelve hours to San Francisco with a stopover in Palm Springs. Not the fashionable getaway one might imagine. A very short stay limited to the car and the hotel room. So after another wardrobe change, we brandished Bug and Noodle with disinfectant wipes (thanks again to Mimi’s kit) and set them loose. Of course Lena was right behind double wiping door knobs, toilet handles and remote controls. But we couldn’t wipe the sheets or the couch. Everything we touched felt like a potential exposure and we were on edge.

Driving through the Sierras the next morning was a special reprieve as they were covered in colorful swaths of wildflowers and capped with snow. Although far away on peaks, the kids were excited to to see snow for the first time and inundated us with questions about the “snow gear” they would need to climb to the summits. Little did they know that their parents had been fantasizing about a long term plan to section hike the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail, a through hike from Mexico to Canada that paralleled some of our driving route) as a family someday. Similar to those hiking in the mountains alongside us, we survived the road trip on junk food and stopped occasionally to run around in fields and attend to nature calls outside the confines of public toilets. As the roads were empty except for trucks fulfilling the frenzy of online orders (which we would shortly contribute to), we made excellent time.

Our next stop on the Thomsper Displaced Tour of 2019-2020 was Lena’s sister’s house in San Francisco. She was not there as her clan was riding out the shelter-in-place restrictions in the isolated winter wonderland of Montana. This meant we had their house to ourselves for a month. The space was kid-friendly, well-stocked and full of natural light. It was also wonderful to just leave the back door open for the kids to run free in the fenced backyard while we were strictly quarantining for our first 14 days back. Socially distanced stoop visits worked well for Lena and Bug’s birthday parties, as we sat at the top of the stairs and guests stayed at the bottom. And we regularly took advantage of urban hikes and open green spaces throughout the city. 

Sadly, we had to relocate again when Tía and family returned. It was decided that two families with four toddlers and one on the way (not ours!) was just a tad too much. It was bittersweet to move 45 minutes away from family and our stoop visits, but we are quickly adjusting to dreamy suburban life in Marin County. After some adjustments to make the space more kid-friendly and copious cuddles as the boys acclimated to yet another home that wasn’t theirs, they have grown to love deer sightings in the large backyard, bike riding on the quiet streets, and hiking through the magical forests that surround us. Treks into town for gelato are also a plus.

This year has been quite the ride. Failed move to Moscow. Scrambling to figure out where we were going to spend our year on not off. Locking down and relocating internationally during a global pandemic. Staying in two different houses once we returned to the US. And waiting to find out when we will be able to get to Uzbekistan. We have learned and relearned about the importance of resilience and focusing on the blessings in the present. But we have also realized how desperately our children are needing a place to call “home.” This is the endless dilemma of the expat life.

Life and Death Decisions – Lena and Brian

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On the way to Playa Los Muertos in Sayulita

A major motivation for moving to Sayulita was access to amazing beaches. Our favorite and the quietest is called Playa de Los Muertos, which translates to {Beach of the Dead}. This has nothing to do with anything bad happening at the beach itself, but rather that the entrance is located adjacent to a cemetery. At four years old, death is a concept Bug is beginning to contemplate. The first time we walked to the beach, he burst into tears after learning that dead people laid within the elevated concrete graves. He now loves riding in the golf cart over the jungle dirt track, but he’s still is a little unsure about the interred neighbors we pass on the way to the playa. We have offered to stop and explore the colorfully decorated site, but both boys are hesitant. Bug verbalizes his fears of death. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to live to be 100. He is afraid of shadows that could be ghosts. But he does want to walk like a skeleton someday. I wonder if this has anything to do with Héctor in the movie Coco?

Charro {cowboy} on a dancing horse in the Día De Los Muertos parade.

Celebrating Día De Los Muertos showed the kids a different approach to death. Leading up to the three day festival, we did watch Coco again (it was too scary this summer) and found many similarities in Sayulita. They loved all the skeleton statues and painted faces. They loved the alebrije {spirit animal} crouched on top of an ambulance in the parade. And the dancing horses (except when mommy dropped a piece of candy that got squished by a hoof. Oops.) They loved the marigold-covered tunnel in the plaza that represented crossing over, which was shown as a bridge in the movie. They loved the curlicues on charro costumes, booming tubas and engraved guitars. They loved the street food and energetic playmates zipping around the mayhem.

Joining in the magic of the festival.

Reactions to death vary greatly across cultures – from stark, solemn funerals in the US to the celebratory Famadihana {turning the bones} in Madagascar where ancestors remains are exhumed. In Mexico, Día De Los Muertos is a multi-day festival for remembering and celebrating deceased loves ones. Although adjacent to Halloween, it is fundamentally very different. We encountered devoutly Catholic Mexicans who were offended by the ghoulishness and dark tone of Halloween. Outside religion, many villagers in Sayulita rightfully defend the indigenous cultural roots and sacredness of Día de Los Muertos. Nonetheless, scary costumes and trick-or-treating have seeped into Mexico and skulls have become quite kitsch in the U.S. as a result of global popular culture and transmigration across the northern border. The international school in Sayulita is very careful to honor both traditions.

Our own cultural tradition for Halloween with a twist – pumpkins carved as a vampire, spider, alien, and cyclops.

As a hub for expat culture, the biggest Halloween event is at the school. This was the first year our kids really understood Halloween and the whole costume thing. We spent time leading up to the event discussing all the pretending. They practiced wearing costumes and needed reassurance that friendly faces hid behind scary masks. We watched videos of face painting to see how people could look like monsters. We were proud of Bug that he agreed to wear a costume this year because last year he completely refused. Brian was even able to take them through the haunted house put on by the secondary students, although they still talk about how frightening it was. After ample treats and games, the party ended in time to head to the plaza to launch the Día de Los Muertos Festival. Along the way, children stopped at local businesses to trick-or-treat, but it was very low key (fine with us, less candy). Also, instead of spiderwebs, witches and bats, Sayulita was decorated in colorful Ojos de Dios {Eyes of God}, papel picado {colorful flags}, and elaborate alters called ofrendas. The only shared decoration was skeletons. But even the skeletons in Mexico have more personality with distinctive shapes, elaborate outfits, and detailed biographies.

The tunnel leading spirits to the ofrendas and examples of La Catrina, the quintessential feminine skeleton.

A key aspect of the festival was the ofrendas built around the plaza, at businesses and in private homes. The tiered shrines displayed photos, clothes and favorite foods of the deceased, and they were decorated with Catholic symbols, marigolds, skulls, and candles. The children’s school built one for a teacher who died several year ago. It was a moving experience to participate in that, even in our very small way of placing marigolds.

Friends and family tend to the smallest details of the ofrendas that honor their loved ones and invite them to return.

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react.”

Charles R. Swindoll

Mexicans choose celebration. Of course they are devastated when their loved ones die. All humans feel that. But they choose not to make it taboo. The choose to remember. They choose to let the dead live again through laughter and memories. They remember people in their entirety, which includes and surpasses the moment of death. It was an honor to share in that experience this year.

Blending of indigenous and Catholic belies, as a priest offered blessings at the end of the symbolic tunnel.

For us and our current situation, losing a job is so small. But the lesson is the same. Do we choose to mourn the broken dream? Or do we choose to celebrate everything we’ve gained along this journey? The bigger picture needs time to reveal itself, but we are working on putting the pieces together in a new way and moving forward. The humor and cheekiness of this holiday speaks to our dry sarcasm. Death is painful? Dress up as a skeleton. Life sucks? Go to the beach.

“Todos somos calaveras.” {We are all skeletons.}

José Guadalupe Posada

Celebrating Halloween and then Dia De Los Muertos validated so much about being expats and raising third culture kids (TCKs). We value the traditions that belong to our own culture – the small ways of understanding what it means to be “American” (which is a contentious term in Latin America anyhow because members of both continents consider themselves American) – while simultaneously embracing our identity as global citizens. We immerse ourselves in other cultures to develop empathy, connect with people who appear different but fundamentally aren’t, and ultimately learn more deeply about who we are and why. There are so many perspectives and exploring them truly enriches our lives.

Job Search…Soul Search – Lena and Brian

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Apologies that our fledgeling blog has been neglected. Aside from unreliable internet, we have completely lost ourselves in the job search for next year. This involves hours of searching on databases, strategizing for job fairs, researching about schools and locations, revising cover letters to address the specifics of each school, completing detailed applications on individual school websites, maintaining communication with former colleagues and potential employers. Taking breaks to mop the floor, do laundry, organize the pantry. And parent. Oh, and Brian is now a longterm substitute at the American School of Puerto Vallarta (woohoo!). And I am supporting a family in beginning the journey of homeschooling (yay!).

Our #YearOnNotOff just got a little more ON. We’ve hardly recovered from the intensity of last year’s job search and were looking forward to not doing one for a long time. There’s also unease after putting forth so much effort and watching the results slip through our fingers. But we love what we do and are very eager to dive back in.

Reflecting on our job search experience last year, we think our ultimate success was due to in-person interviews at a job fair. No doubt, we also bombed a few. But overall, we felt that face-to-face conversations brought our CVs to life (quite literally). Where we struggle is standing out on paper. Each school receives thousands of applications for one position. And most applicants have equal years experience, share our pedagogies, and feel the same passion.

How do we set ourselves apart? After revamping our CVs last year with an updated look, the new message we are now receiving is that they should be basic for software scanning. Additionally, we are vacillating about how to handle this big gap at the top. Do we mention being hired and released at no-fault? Do we add our current short term positions? We’ve decided that the cover letter is where we can tell our story about truly making this year count. We hope that our positivity and creativity in response to this detour demonstrate why we would be great employees. But we also need to paint a more vivid picture of ourselves as experienced educators.

Researching how to refine our message led to Kerri Twigg’s website which is full of nuggets on “using your story to find your strengths.” We felt that reflecting on her ten prompts could help us get past “being passionate” and better define which skills and assets we actually offer.

We’ve decided to post the questions and our answers for multiple reasons. First, we do offer links to our social media outlets to help recruiters get to know us beyond the bullets on our CVs or the two paragraphs each in our joint cover letter. Second, the portrayal of teachers in the media and by politicians is often negative and flat, so we hope this more positively and deeply illustrates our professional identity. And finally, our friends and family from home don’t actually know much about our lives as international educators. They know we live far away. Hopefully this post will explain more about why.

Brian

1. What are three things you get complimented on?

  • Building connections with disengaged students
  • Efficiently managing my time and keeping meetings on track
  • Staying calm and unflustered amidst hyper students, report deadlines, concerned parents, etc.

2. What do you get asked to be a part of?

  • I’m the go-to guy for planning and leading nature activities, science experiments, or field trips.

3. What do you end up doing in any role regardless of the sector?

  • In my “past life” I was a researcher for the US Forest Service and then an environmental educator at national parks, which ultimately led to teaching. The skills that tie all these roles together include:
    • Taking a systematic approach to identifying and addressing challenges in the environment (tree illness, inclement weather, student behavior challenges)
    • Collecting, sorting, and analyzing data (tree measurements, animal tracking, assessment outcomes)
    • Utilizing a variety of environments to keep learning stimulating

4. What work feels effortless?

  • I love guiding students in identifying, planning and implementing projects that address authentic problems in their lives. I’m energized when my work has deeper purpose.

5. What work comes easily to you, but others struggle with?

  • I think some teachers feel overwhelmed by the details of organizing and leading field trips, but this actually allows me to combine my calm nature, organization skills, and pedagogy framed around experiential learning. 

6. What do you research all the time?

  • I am always looking up random facts, usually in relation to a nonfiction book or article I’ve been reading. 

7. What action needs to be part of the work you do?

  • My work needs to be connected to the reality of our classroom, the school, local community, or current events in the world – and it needs to have a positive impact on one or more of those places. I need students to realize how important they are for the future of our world.

8. What makes you feel alive?

  • I am happiest when I am outside, in the woods or at least accessing natural elements of wherever we are living. In urban environments, this can even be a patch of grass or a cluster of trees.

9. What are you the proudest of doing in your career?

  • In a grade four unit that inquired into goods and services, the students designed and implemented businesses on campus. Once they began earning profits, we researched and selected female entrepreneurs within our local community and provided microloans through Kiva. 

10. What are you most introduced as having done?

  • Colleagues tend to talk with me most about the projects I am currently involved in, which could be service initiatives involving teachers or some type of creation that my students are making.

Lena

1. What are three things you get complimented on?

  • Displays of visible thinking and students’ learning in progress
  • When students I work with are building confidence and showing improvements in other classes
  • Contributions I offer during collaborative planning meetings

2. What do you get asked to be a part of?

  • I often get asked to attend curriculum development and unit planning meetings to ensure that differentiation (especially for language) is being addressed. In this bigger picture, I want to look at content, process and product and ensure that both content and language objectives are defined and accounted for throughout the learning journey.

3. What do you end up doing in any role regardless of the sector?

  • I’ve had some interesting jobs! I’ve worked in sales at a wine store and for a company selling boutique doggie wear (my puppy came to work with me). I’ve served gourmet meals at fine dining restaurants. I was a project manager for nonprofit that researched ethical culture in the workplace. And I’ve taught everything from preschool summer camp in the woods to adult English classes in the West Bank. The unifying factor in all of these is that I truly believed in what I was selling (cute dog collars, delicious wine and food, improving work environments, joy of learning), and I was able to convince people why. These jobs also required setting goals, maintaining timelines with lots of moving parts, taking pride in presentation, communicating effectively, and managing a wide variety of expectations. 

4. What work feels effortless?

  • Building relationships with students is everything to me. When a student is struggling, my immediate thoughts are, “What need isn’t being met to cause this behavior? What can I do to meet that need?”

5. What work comes easily to you, but others struggle with?

  • I love breaking down the big picture of a unit or lesson to anticipate challenges (especially for language learners) and then planning/creating scaffolds to make the learning experiences more accessible.

6. What do you research all the time?

7. What action needs to be part of the work you do?

  • I need to see systems and best practices that demonstrate equity; students and teachers need to be given a voice and they need to be supported and celebrated as works-in-progress. I need to see collective effort to bring out the best in colleagues and students, and I need to hear CAN DO language.

8. What makes you feel alive?

  • I am most alive watching children (my own and students) engrossed in meaningful play and sharing excitedly about their discoveries.

9. What are you the proudest of doing in your career?

  • I am most proud of the shift toward inclusion that I initiated at my last school. It was challenging to change meeting agendas, classroom practices, and deep-seeded beliefs about language learners. I led the EAL team in advocating for, planning and implementing these changes at many levels. Although this will remain a longterm project for the department – and we learned as much from our mistakes as our successes – I believe my contribution was significant in shifting the essential culture of the school toward a more inclusive mindset.

10. What are you most introduced as having done?

  • Colleagues often stop by to see my classroom because it is such a flexible environment filled with visible learning. I’m also known as an advocate for language learners because I am constantly asking questions about how we can improve our practice to better meet their needs.

The Art of Starting Over – Lena and Brian

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As international educators, we are well-versed in moving to new countries and starting a life from scratch. The idea of packing our bags and flying off into the unknown is nothing new. In truth, we were once addicted to it. However, it takes a huge physical and emotional toll to transition, and we were looking forward to putting down roots until the kids finished elementary school.

Moving to Mexico has been a dream of Lena’s for decades. But this was bittersweet. It wasn’t a move we had planned. We weren’t heading to new jobs. No one was waiting for us. No principal picking us up from the airport or new colleagues checking to see if we needed anything. No welcome picnic or tour of our new city. And certainly no settling in allowance. 

We arrived in Sayulita in an emotional fog with some vague expectations and a lot of questions. Where would we live? Would we be able to enroll the kids in school? How would we get ourselves around town or into the city? When would we start making friends?

The nervousness of not having answers was tempered slightly by the fact that we are familiar with Mexico. Lena spent summers during university conducting anthropological research and backpacking around the country. We even got married down the highway in Puerto Vallarta. Our challenges were softened by her ability to speak (rusty) Spanish and, as she says, Brian’s willingness to “learn with enthusiasm.” With minimal language distance, positive feedback from native speakers, and the immediate need to set up our life – this felt way more surmountable than previous experiences learning to communicate (with varying degrees of effectiveness) in Arabic, Vietnamese or Mandarin. 

Essential needs were narrowed down to the top three: a house, a school, and transportation. Further down on the list were food and friends (true sustenance). Eating was not an issue, as we could buy amazing street food, tortillas hot off the press, and fresh fruits and veggies for unbelievably cheap prices. And we knew friendships would develop once we were more settled. 

First step: House 

During our furious 48 hours of research prior to moving to Mexico, we uncovered a fascinating subculture of nomad families who trek around the world with admirable success. But we were hesitant. First, we were still uncertain about our budget. And second, during previous moves, the kids struggled much more than we anticipated. We had been bouncing around the US for weeks, sleeping on family members’ couches and living out of suitcases. Although we wanted to explore this amazing country, we knew that establishing a “home” was important. 

Most international schools either provide housing or a stipend, and some even assist with the search. Therefore, our first independent challenge was finding a last minute, long term rental in a tourist-centered beach town. We arrived during the “off season” when many businesses were closed and home owners were away. Nor could we locate any actual community bulletin boards. Plenty of short term rentals could be found through websites like AirBnB and SayulitaLife, but renting one of those for a year would have been prohibitively expensive. 

Our two-pronged strategy involved word-of-mouth and Facebook. Every time we met someone new on the street, at a restaurant, or in the park, we mentioned that we were looking for a place. Also, we got some leads by posting a plea on the community Facebook page. Unfortunately, we soon realized that Sayulita was going to be way more expensive than we initially thought. After looking at some very small and dark apartments in our price range, we bumped up our budget and got lucky. A single family house with a verdant garden, mountain views, and most importantly air conditioning in the bedrooms. It is round with a thatched roof, which reminds us of places we stayed in southern Africa. And it even has a name! Although a bit of a fixer upper, we hadn’t seen anything nearly as spacious or bright.

Signing a year lease was slightly scary, but it also released so much stress about immediate plans. Our luck and choice were reaffirmed after meeting several other recently-arrived expat families who couldn’t find long term places and will have to move around throughout the year. The trauma of our recent packing-and-moving spectacles is too raw. If we hadn’t found our house, we probably would have scrapped Sayulita and settled somewhere else.

Second step: School

School was a huge factor in our decision-making. We looked at a few other expat-friendly locations (San Miguel de Allende and Merida) but were not impressed by the schools. We also stumbled into the idea of unschooling and world schooling during our research blitz. Very intriguing but perhaps not what our toddlers needed. Definitely a tabled discussion for a future adventure. Despite debates about the institution, we felt strongly that Bug and Noodle needed to be in an actual school. And it needed to be a school that we believed in.

We shelled out tons of money in China for them to attend school and weren’t about to let go of that principle now. Creating protégées is not the motivation. What drives our conviction is the importance of socialization and the power of play. The kids needed to interact with peers, develop social-emotional skills, and engage in a stimulating environment. Plus, they were desperate for a routine. And mommy and daddy were desperate for time to quietly sit in a restaurant, swim without stress, and actually get some work done. Essentially, we all just needed space and time to grow beyond our tight-knit unit.

Another blessing of this year ON not off is that we can explore a completely different type of school than is our norm. As mentioned previously, we were excited about Costa Verde International School. The very small, low-stress, highly active vibe is exactly what we need. Bug and Noodle have 9 students in their joint 3-4 year old class. Their teachers are wonderfully child-centered in their approach. We have no doubt that they truly know our children as individuals and strive to meet their social-emotional, psychological, intellectual and linguistic needs. Moreover, the curriculum and community population is inclusively bilingual and 40% of the students are locals on scholarship. This is a place that is deeply committed to its community in terms of culture, language, and the environment. The sustainability focus is so compelling because this is something we are consciously modeling and always improving on as teachers and parents.

Third step: Transportation

Summers in Sayulita are beyond hot and humid. We walked around town for the first few weeks, but finally hit our limit on shlepping withering children and sweating through three outfits each day. The most popular mode of transportation is golf cart. However, rental prices average around $50USD per day. Crazy expensive. After finding our house, which is located at the top of a steep hill, we decided to blow a huge portion of our annual budget buying a golf cart. We ended up finding an advertisement for Riviera Golf Carts, which builds custom carts meant to handle the hills and cobblestones here. While the price was steep, we ran the numbers and it worked out to less than half the weekly rental amount if we spread the cost over the year. And it’s electric, so we are proud to be environmentally friendly!

We were feeling confident in our decision until we needed to rent a car to get to Puerto Vallarta (golf carts can’t go on the highway). We found a highly rated, superbly honest rental company in nearby Bucerias called Gecko Car Rental. The owner, Adam, mentioned he was selling low mileage 2014 cars for the exact same price we just paid for the golf cart. We’ve come back to that missed opportunity while riding the local bus over potholes for 45 minutes into the city or cramming Costco loot into an expensive taxi. But a car in Sayulita, where spend the vast majority of our time, is not necessary. The town is tiny, parking is limited, and cleaning sand off golf cart vinyl is super easy.

The wrap up

The list was complete. We were officially Sayuleros. Easy peasy. Just don’t arrive in a New York state of mind. We have cut our teeth in countries where there is no urgency to get things done and communication is indirect at best. Inshallah {God Willing} was often heard in the Middle East and basically means that the deadline is loose. Vietnamese has many shades of yes, and yes can actually mean no. Amanhã {tomorrow} in Mozambique and the cognate mañana {tomorrow} in Mexico mean that something might happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. This as a fact we know intellectually. But it was a shock to the system after living in a massively entrepreneurial Chinese megacity that evolved at lightning speed. 

While trying to sort our lives in Sayulita, emails would dangle without response for days…or forever. When searching for a house or trying to get the kids into school, delays and evasive responses caused anxiety. We wanted to know what our life would be like, and we wanted to know now. Hot tip: phone calls, WhatsApp or showing up in person are most effective. It’s not that people don’t care. They do. Actually, many people have been extremely friendly and helpful. It’s just that the sense of time and the order of priorities are different. Families are more important than mobile phones. And people tend to trust that everything will work out in the end. Two lessons that have been very good for us to embrace.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts about the golf cart remodel, the joys of our charming house, making friends, and all the delicious food!

Parenting Not Sharenting – Brian

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We have had serious discussions about the role our children would play in the evolution of this blog. Their very existence underpins all our decision-making, and this blog is essentially about the decisions we make as an expat family, so clearly they need to be acknowledged. Using pseudonyms was an easy agreement, and if you know our kids, Bug and Noodle are apt names. Yet we did not so easily agree on how to visually represent them. Photographs are integral to a blog, as the images capture readers’ attention and create an immediate stimulus to accompany text. If we are writing about our kids, we need to show them in some way. 

We ultimately decided not to show our children’s faces but were uncertain about exactly how and what impact it would have on the blog. Can mood be created without seeing their faces? How much emotion is lost? What if we blurred them? Would that be distracting? Is blurring enough protection? How about putting shapes over their faces?

But wait. This isn’t only about our amateur blogging aspirations. Our children’s identities will be impacted by having an online presence. Each time a photo is uploaded to the internet it leaves a digital footprint that can never be fully erased. How will this affect our toddlers? Or their future selves? What could happen to a photo once it is downloaded off our blog and we’ve have lost control of it? Consider the Tweet we shared about losing our jobs. It was seen by nearly 12,000 people and almost 1,500 did something with it. Do Bug or Noodle want that many people seeing a photo of them playing in the park? 

As veteran teachers, we have well-resourced “toolkits” to pull from when making parenting decisions. To tackle this challenge, we chose to lean on the International Baccalaureate Enhanced Primary Years Program, which centers learning around an agency framework of voice, choice and ownership.

They deserve ownership of their sense of self. It is important that we allow them to develop this identity outside the confines of a forced online one that they didn’t create. We want them to have the freedom to explore and experiment without worrying about how they appear to others. That is the innocence of childhood, and we don’t want to steal it. We do capture precious moments and occasionally share them on our closely controlled personal social media accounts, but that is not the intention of this blog.

We also want to give our children voice and choice about how they are portrayed to the world. It is unfair for us to make this decision for them, and they are too young to give informed consent, so we are including them in deciding which photos they are comfortable using. Although they may not fully understand the significance of the choice, they are learning that it is a choice that exists and we feel it is important. Hopefully this understanding will stay with them as they grow older.

The term sharenting has been coined to describe this act of posting children’s lives online as they grow up. With so many established parenting blogs and celebrity moms and dads with millions of followers posting constantly about their children, the phenomenon has now come to a head. Now-teens are expressing strong feelings about discovering the photos of themselves that their parents have been posting. To protect these children, France has actually passed laws allowing parents to be fined or jailed for posting pictures of their children online.

The immediate dangers go beyond disrespecting the kids’ ownership of and autonomy over their identities. There is also a very real risk of online role-playing and digital kidnapping, where photos are stolen from social media and used for other purposes, such as advertisements or on explicit websites. The Thomas family experienced this when they found their family photo being used for a local political campaign without their permission, which then led to them discovering its use in ad campaigns in many different countries. They have never consented to or received compensation for the photo’s use, and getting companies to take it down has been a nightmare. Even more concerning, the BBC warns that photos easily linked to an abundance of personal information could make our children vulnerable to future financial fraud. 

Research for this post made Lena and I realize that we needed to check out our own media footprints to ensure that geotags, contact information, and location-identifiers in photos were removed enough to keep the children safe. We started by self-Googling and were comfortable with the results. Except for one picture. We had originally opted to blur the kids’ faces, but seeing it appear in a Google image search gave us pause, so we decided to re-edit the photo and add shapes over their faces. Perhaps more distracting and detracting but better for our children. As an additional safety measure, we will also watermark the photos.

Not our favorite option for concealing faces

Parents make a million decisions every day in the best interest of their children. We try to be as informed and intentional as possible, but ultimately we go with instinct. Are we perfect parents? No way. Do we make mistakes? Most definitely. Are we comfortable with the level of anonymity that we’ve attempted to maintain for our children? We think so. 

We can’t prevent “right click, save,” but we can take measures to protect our images and the people within them. What decisions have you made regarding your own, your children’s or students’ digital footprints? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

From Heartbreak to Blessing – Lena

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One month ago, I was packing winter parkas and snow boots in anticipation of our move to northern Europe. The following week, I read the devastating email first, and Brian ran to my shouts of “No!” The children peered from behind him, frightened to see me crying on my knees. My gentle husband crouched down to hold me and tenderly lifted me up. Together we carried our toddlers to the couch and nestled them into our laps to explain that we would not be moving to Russia. We shared openly about our sadness and welcomed their litany of questions. They wanted to know if they could still build snowmen, when they would see their toys again, and why Bug couldn’t go to his new school. It was heartbreaking. The next few days went in slow motion as we held ourselves together for the boys, scrambled for jobs we didn’t want, and figured out the logistics of canceled contracts. Two weeks ago, we decided to halt the search and repack for Mexico. And last week, we stumbled into our new lives. 

Where we landed in Sayulita. A lovely little apartment aptly called the “Heart House.”

Through this whirlwind of deep emotions and drastic changes, I am beginning to embrace the blessings of this unplanned detour. Although quite nervous about how the year will unfold, I actual feel content most of the time. In a very short time of winging it in Sayulita, I can feel that Mexico is shifting something within me. Ironically, prior to accepting teaching contracts in China, I had actually tried to take time off from work, but we had been unable to negotiate a contract for Brian and three dependents. Two years later when we accepted our jobs in Russia, I wasn’t even considering not working. Now, as the last hints of baby-ness linger on my children’s cherub faces, my lost wish has been granted.

I love teaching. As most working mothers do, I often struggle with balance and guilt. However, I believe in the long run that it is important for my sons to see me as a multifaceted woman with gifts that include and extend beyond motherhood. Nonetheless, each time I went back to work at 3 or 4 months postpartum, a deep angst rested in my soul about being separated from my babies too soon. And I know it’s cliche, but I was beyond exhausted. The quiet joy that new moms feel during late night feedings and early morning wake-ups became shrouded in anxiety about how few hours of sleep I got and how early the kids needed to be up for school. Those middle of the night moments comforting my babies are once again making my heart full. I can just hold them, caress them, smell them. There is no underlying dread. It’s simply an intimate moment to treasure. And at their ages, I know full well that these moments are fleeting.

Now I am excited to just be a parent at school. Not a teacher-parent. I can actually spend time engaging in my own children’s classrooms, connecting with their teachers, and getting to know classmates’ parents. I can pick them up from school on time. Take them to the park. Or meet up with new friends for a playdate. I don’t have afterschool meetings and unfinished work looming over me. Of course, Brian and I will need to navigate some online work and the creation of this blog, but one of us can and will be there for our children. This is such an unexpected relief.

We have been truly grateful for the love and support of amazing in-home childcare that we’ve afforded up to this point. In Mozambique, our nanny and housekeeper, Sonia and Julieta, not only steadied me as a new mom but enveloped my babies in meticulous care and genuine love. In China, Aliu brought the boys to and from school, cooked nutritious meals, arranged playdates, and contributed significantly to their upbringing. Not to mention washing dishes, doing laundry and mopping floors. These women were the glue that have allowed Brian and I to commit to our professional growth and given us peace that our boys have had a village raising them. Despite my gratitude, there is often a twinge of sadness about the special moments shared between nanny and child that do not include me. Yet this is the guilt I swallow in an attempt to balance motherhood and with intellectual fulfillment. 

  • Julieta and Sonia
  • Aliu joining us for a birthday party

I’ve always been a writer. And a night owl. As a teenager, my poetry flowed as my family slept. As a university student, my thesis was born through late nights in the library stacks (which dates me!) and around-the-clock writing binges sustained by microwave popcorn and instant coffee. Once I got a “real” job and became a mom, I said farewell to that impulsivity and the creativity that came with it. I occasionally reminisced but cringed at the potential exhaustion. Interestingly, since arriving in Sayulita, my old rhythms are resurfacing. Blog posts are flowing into the wee hours (including this one), and consequently Brian feeds the boys breakfast and plays with them while I sleep in a bit. I’m not consumed with guilt that he’s doing more than me (because we I have often been overly sensitive about having equally demarcated parenting responsibilities). I’m content and well rested, which makes me a more engaged mom and partner overall. And if I need a bit more sleep, I just siesta with the kids in the afternoon. I could never nap with the kids in my past life or else the evening would have fallen to pieces and a late night would have destroyed the morning and so forth. Now it just is what it is. 

After sitting alone and writing, I have been laying awake next to my sleeping husband each night, his rhythmic breathing stirring meditations about the distance in our marriage. Fundamentally, we are solid. We are co-parents. We are passionate teachers. We are a travel team. But we are often disconnected. In part, this is because I have often felt emotionally drained and literally over-touched by my babies, who rightfully cling to me like little monkeys and constantly engage in curious chatter. (They really are that adorable.) Need I mention the energy and patience needed to teach elementary school? I am ashamed to admit that I have actually recoiled at my husband’s touch. In defense, I was at the point where my stolen moments of seclusion were on the toilet – and even those were often intruded upon by toddlers. I truly hope that our break from teaching and experience co-writing this blog will facilitate a deeper understanding of how Brian and I arrived at this point in our marriage and how we can move forward with more intentionality and tenderness.

  • My beautiful monkeys
  • Our Mexican wedding in 2013

What I have come to realize is that this year is a miraculous opportunity to be fully present with my children, my husband, and myself.

Parenting and partnerships are always full of joy, contradictions, truths and uncertainty. One’s sense of self can be lost in the (often unrecognized) work of connecting to and sustaining the people we love. When we finally create spaces for solitude, they can be emotionally laden, rushed and unfulfilling. How are you striving to find balance? What are some self-sustaining practices you have learned along the way? Please share!