Since this is the very first post on this brand new blog, I thought it would be worthwhile to share with you the why, the how, and the where of our story. Living abroad as educators is not for everyone.
Also, Keep in mind that every person or family who decides to take this leap into life abroad does so for different reasons, and likely takes a different path. This is ours.
It all started in 2009…
That’s right. About 10 years before we took the leap to live abroad as educators (we weren’t even married yet!), we started dreaming. Or rather, in a bout of radical honesty, I told my future husband, “I want to live abroad someday.” Luckily, he responded with, “I’m in.”
In the next few years, we forged ahead with our lives in northwestern Montana; we got married, I became a stepmom to two kids, we bought an ‘ours’ home, and added two baby girls to our family.
All this time, we were both working full time, me as a high school English teacher and Ted as a high school administrator. We had the bills, the cars, the beautiful home, and busy schedules that come with checking all of the boxes of a stable, successful family life in Montana.
Oh, and if you’re wondering, Montana is every bit as beautiful as you imagine it to be. (And every bit as cold in the winter!) I am 4th generation Montanan, my whole family lives there. This has never been about “getting away” from something, as many people assume. It’s about moving towards something different, something new.
Our two girls were born, and our lives continued to unfold until one day we took our little dream off the shelf, dusted it off, and seriously considered how to make it become a reality.
By then the two older kids were in high school; they were thriving: they lived in the same city as both of their parents, had good friends, and were navigating teenage-hood and all that comes with it (dating, driving, jobs, etc.). Uprooting them didn’t make any sense.
Then, as senior year approached for my stepdaughter, we decided: it was time to make it happen.
The Why
We had the American Dream firmly within our grasp. Why would we want to give it up?
Well, to be honest, while we loved our lives, something about the daily grind just didn’t feel fulfilling to us. We worked hard to pay for the life we lived, with barely enough leftover to do our favorite thing of all: travel. Taking a family trip every three years was all we could afford.
We felt like, maybe, all of those achievement markers didn’t fit our metrics for a happy, fulfilled life. The first step was redefining for ourselves what success and fulfillment and happiness were, and not having them defined for us.
The first step was redefining for ourselves what success and fulfillment and happiness were, and not having them defined for us.
I’ll go more into our ‘Why’ in future posts, but briefly, I can say that the American public education system that continues to add to educators’ plates while simultaneously paying them salaries that barely support a single person was part of it. So too were the constant “Active Shooter” drills and news every other week of yet another massacre of children and teachers.
But another big part was that we sought a different kind of balance: financial balance and work life balance. We also wanted to show this big, beautiful world to our quickly growing girls, and our lives needed a major overhaul in order to do it. Living abroad as educators as allowed us to do all of that.
We knew we didn’t want to wait until we were retired to realize our dream of traveling. We knew we wanted our girls to grow up with diversity, different languages, and many cultures. And we were fully aware that there was no way to really know how it would look until we just…did it.
I’m happy to report that we’ve done it. And it was hard, but we found that balance almost immediately and we are grateful for it every day.
Are there hard things about leaving the only home you’ve ever known and moving to a foreign country? You bet. Are there days when I want to buy a plane ticket “home”?
Uh, yes…like, all of Covid.
The How
The recipe for everyone is a little different, but these are the basic steps we followed:
- We opened accounts and uploaded resumes/CVs on international educator search sites like Search Associates and International Schools Services. There are many others, and there are privately operated corporations that have their own schools, like QSI, for example.
- We sat down and made a list of what we wanted in our post, and things that were dealbreakers. For example, safety and good air quality were (and still are) musts for us.
- My husband started interviewing, and interviewing, and interviewing. Because he is in administration, we decided to base where we went on his job. I would either stay home with our youngest at first, or a job would become available for me, too.
- Eventually, he was flown to the American School in Rabat, Morocco and, upon returning, was offered a job. We accepted, and that was that.
- Rather than ship our belongings to northwestern Africa, we decided to sell most of it and move with suitcases. I don’t regret that decision for a second. One thing Americans are good at is collecting stuff and we were no different.
One thing Americans are good at is collecting stuff and we were no different.
This really simplifies it. But each little step got us closer and closer. And I can honestly say that the hardest part of the ‘how’ for us was saying goodbye to friends and family. Some days, that still seems to be a piece were figuring out.
The Where
Obviously, our first ‘where’ was Rabat, Morocco.
It’s often assumed that international educators get to go wherever they want. We’re often asked “Where do you want to go after Morocco?” as though we can magically create job openings in any country we choose.
Realistically, living abroad as educators is like any other job–in part we choose it, and in part it chooses us. I can tell you that prior to 2018 I never (never!) imagined living in Morocco. And yet, it has been the most perfect place for us to be for the last four years.
Besides, anything I could have imagined would have been way off anyway. Living abroad as educators is different than anything a travel guide can prepare you for; that’s the beauty of it.
Here, we’ve found balance, we travel throughout the year, it’s sunny almost every day, it’s incredibly safe and welcoming, and we’re able to add to our savings in meaningful ways. I promise to write more about our day-to-day in a future post.
But for now, I can say that we’ve made our little dream a big reality. We’ve learned a lot along the way, and we can’t imagine our story without this beautiful place as part of it.