The Beginning - Part 2

So December is again time to renew contracts in the world of international schools which means everyone has been spending the last months making big life decisions about the next year and whether to stay or take a leap into the unknown. I don't think we've ever posted about how this whole process works so here's the basic idea.

Schools in the US usually make their employment decisions in the spring/summer for the following year. Contracts are signed around April or May and job listings are posted around June and sometimes as late as September, within days of school starting. To find a job, you contact specific schools, do a couple interviews and see what comes of it.

In the international system things work quite differently. You have to decide whether to renew contracts somewhere between November and January (about 6 months before the end of school). For us, it was Dec 1. If you decide not to sign again then you have to go through this very stressful period of unknown employment purgatory where you have no idea what you will be doing when school is out. Depending on the situation you then have to wait for all the other schools to renew their contracts so you can see what jobs are available and then begin the hunt. You sign up with an employment service of some kind. There are about 4 or 5 major ones out there, we used Search Associates again (same as we used the first time).

So you pay a bunch of money to register yourself with these companies and then get ready for the job fairs. They begin in Bangkok the first week of January and move west across the globe until all the jobs are filled by the final fair sometime later February in the western US. Depending on which organization you signed up with, you have the choice of going to 4 or 5 different fairs based on where you are from, what type of schools you are looking for, and how early/late in the game you want to get in. There is a big push to get into the Bangkok fair as it is the first one and the chance to get your first shot at the fresh openings.

The tough part is the time between when you commit to leaving in December and the job fair in January. This month is filled with emailing schools, Skype interviews and trying your best to get a foot in the door somewhere so you don't have to spend the travel money and the risk of going to a huge job fair. This can result in many situations where some schools are offering you a job while others haven't even figured out their openings yet. Decisions have to be made quickly and major life choices are made with a very limited amount of information and the hope that you don't accept one offer only to find your dream job open up the next week. It's a crazy process, not only for the insecurity of the job search but also the fact that your dealing with international jobs which means shifting your family to a whole new part of the world which adds a whole other level of things to consider.

Most contracts at international schools are for 2 years with the option of renewing a year at a time. We completed our first two years and went through these conversations last December and decided to stay for a third year. Now, Elizabeth has finished her Master's degree to become a librarian and she is ready to start on a new career path which meant that we had some tough decisions to make this December. We love ASB and really did not want to leave but unfortunately, they didn't have any options for Elizabeth as a librarian so we had to start the search process and start dipping our toes in the water. This started in October as we signed up with Search Associates again and started looking for the early openings.

This is actually a great year for a math/library combo as there were a lot of really great schools that had positions for both of us. On the other hand, because these are all really great schools, the applicant pools are huge and competition is fierce. But at least there were options, and they were all places we had been and knew we would love to live. Nearly all the top schools we've come to know and respect in Asia had openings as well as a couple unfamiliar ones in Europe and South America. We did a lot of research on all the schools that had openings and ended up in a position where we would gladly move to any of these places with no reservations. So we sent out some resumes and played the waiting game for a while, deciding whether to risk giving up our spots at ASB to go for some of these other schools.

We got a couple "thanks for sending your materials, you have been added to the pool" type of emails but started talking a bit more with a small school in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The more we researched the school and communicated with the director the more we came to really love it and felt that it would be a great fit for both us and the school. We interviewed with the director and were lucky enough to get a job offer on the evening before our December 1 deadline at ASB. This is extremely rare to have a job in hand before the deadline so we are very blessed that we don't have to go through that unknown period (or pay expensive hotel and flight costs to go to a job fair).

So we are officially reaching an end to our time in India and are off to Brazil next year! We will be working at the Pan American School of Porto Alegre which is a tiny school of about 300 students (half of ASB) of which 80% are Brazilian students. It runs an "American" curriculum and is all taught in English (just like ASB). It is a private school and caters to a similar population of diplomats, foreign businessmen and women, etc. only with a larger portion of local Brazilians looking for an international school system. Check out the school profile here.

Elizabeth will be the K-12 librarian and I will be the HS math teacher. Yes, THE math teacher. As in one. There are about 50 students in the high school so I will teach them all. One section each of Algebra 2, Geometry, Pre-Calc, and Calculus. It is a tiny school with a lot going on and headed in a great direction so we are very excited to be a part of everything they are doing. They have recently started some programs and taken on some projects that ASB has been doing for a few years now so we can provide some great insight to help them along the way. They have an aggressive tech plan and although they are not a 1-1 laptop school like ASB, they do have smart boards in every class and we are making new additions every year. We are excited to help them build with our experience coming from the best and longest running 1-1 school laptop program in the world.

It's a great job opportunity for both of us and Porto Alegre sounds like a fantastic place and a welcomed change from the craziness and dirtiness of India. Plus we are excited and ready to explore a new culture and a whole other part of the world in South America.

So big news! We are off to a new adventure next year and are super excited! It's bitter sweet though as we really do love ASB and are sad that we are leaving such a fantastic school. We still have another 6 months to enjoy it though and are trying to work out a plan to get a couple more stops in India before we go.

For now we are finishing up the last week before winter break and will be heading to Seattle on Friday to spend Christmas at home. We might even be bringing Suri with us if things work out...more to come on that process. Hopefully we will get to see a bunch of people during break and can't wait to be back home again!

See everyone soon!

Curta que a vida é curta.

K&E

A Nepali Diwali

We're back to work after a Week Without Walls trip and a week vacation in Nepal. This year I got to travel with the 8th graders to Sajan and Dabhosa for WWW which was a new trip and a neat chance to see yet another side of India. Located a few hours out of Mumbai, Sajan is in the middle of village life, surrounded by some beautiful Indian country side.

We stay in large tents in an adventure complex where students learn and practice some outdoor skills like: orienteering, rappelling, raft building, kayaking, etc. After a few days, we drive a couple more hours up to Dabhosa where we do a full day expedition through the villages, wheat fields, rivers, and waterfalls of the country side.

It was a great trip aside from some student frustrations here and there. But we did have some great adventures including visiting a village school to build a brick bathroom building and rappelling down the face of a waterfall.

We also had a lot of chances to work on leadership and share some fun and cultural experiences. We had a visit from a number of Warli villagers who performed a traditional Warli dance. We also had a talent show where some students sang and our principal juggled some fire. All in all, lots of good memories and another fun WWW trip.

The day after getting back we hopped on a short 2 hour flight up to Kathmandu, Nepal for our week long Diwali vacation. It was a very spur of the moment decision to go to Nepal. We wanted to do some exploring in north India and see some plantations and get into the Himalayas but all the Indian cities up north take quite a bit of flight hopping and driving to get to so a 2 hr direct flight to Nepal made the decision for us.

We really knew nothing about Nepal before going except for the trekking/mountaineering type of tourism. After going there and learning more about it though, I would not hesitate for a second to go back. The cities are pretty impoverished, dirty, and lacking infrastructure just like India, yet there is a completely different feel to it. First of all, Nepalis are some of the nicest people we've met. They make the list right along side Egyptians and Cubans as the friendliest people on Earth (according to our personal experiences). That alone makes a country so much more fun to travel in when you know you are welcomed and can let down your guard a little bit.

Beyond the general kindness and overall tourist-friendly atmosphere, I never expected to see so many cool and beautiful things in Nepal. The culture of the country is an interesting blend of Tibetan Buddhist, Indian Hindu, and indigenous tribal and village life. Even though it lies between two massive countries, it still has it's own identity which makes for some really interesting food, art, architecture, and cultural values. (We should note here that we bought more stuff in Nepal than a few of our other trips combined...oops!)

What makes the Kathmandu valley so interesting and unique is that it was not settled by Indians, nor Chinese, but the Newa people who created a unique combination of both. There are pagodas and temples that hint of Chinese architecture yet they are side by side with innately carved stone Hindu temples. My favorite architectural and artistic piece was the detailed wood carvings that were used all throughout the cities and villages. Nearly all buildings are made of brick (as opposed to the ugly cement towers of India) and they frame in beautiful pieces of wood to make windows and door frames.

In our first few days of hanging around Kathmandu, we went out of the city to a couple of these Newari cities, Bhaktapur and Patan where we spend the day walking through the old medieval streets and grand Durbar Squares to enjoy the sights and experiences of historic Nepal. It was beautiful and culturally and historically interesting which makes for a great trip. Even our hotel had the same amazing architecture and art work all around which only added to the ambiance and overall experience in Kathmandu.

We also made our way to a number of Buddhist temples and sites to get a feel for the Tibetan influence. This included a hike up to the top of the monkey temple to see the judgmental and ever watching eyes of Buddha overlooking the city (and of course the monkeys that give it it's namesake) . A short drive away is also the Boudhanath which is one of the largest stupas in Nepal and the world.

An interesting place for sure. Not to mention the markets and food and, of course, the mountains that surround the whole valley. We could only see some white tips behind the hills in Kathmandu but a quick 20 minute ride to Pokhara put the massive peaks right in our back yard.

Pokhara is the second largest tourist spot in Nepal and lies between foothills on a lovely lake. This is a gorgeous spot and definitely makes it into my top list of favorite places. It's got that serene, hang out on the lake and relax atmosphere. It's got miles of restaurants and shops following the edge of the lake.

It's got hiking, mountain views, caves, waterfalls, and everything you need for a adventurous or relaxing vacation. We stayed at a really nice hotel that you had to boat across the tip of the lake to get to. We had a great time here, hiking up to the Peace Pagoda, hiking over to Devi's Falls, an underground waterfall and accompanying caves, and the pinnacle of our trip (literally) paragliding off the Sarangkot view station.

Pokhara is nested at the foot of the Annapurna range (not where Everest is...sorry) which holds several of the highest peaks in the world. Because of its close proximity, the views are stunning and virtually unobstructed.

The landmark peak is Machapuchare or the "Fish Tail" due to its very geometric triangular shape. While not the largest peak in the range, it is the closest to the city which makes it dominate the center of the range when seen from Pokhara. A short 20 minute drive up the side of the hill and you are in Sarangkot, a small village that has a perfect panorama of the valley and the Annapurna range.

This is of course the place to be at the beginning and end of every day to watch the sunrise or sunset over the mountains. We woke up early one morning and drove/hiked up to see the sunrise which was spectacular. Of course we were surrounded by other tourists and a line of professional photographers trying to get their perfect shot. The views were stunning and we stayed up there for a couple hours just enjoying the view and having some breakfast. And what better way to get back down the hill than to just jump off! So we booked a 30 minute tandem paragliding trip that hooked us up with a professional pilot who strapped us in and ran us off the edge of the mountain.

We floated around the Sarangkot ridge for a while just enjoying the mountains in the distance and the lake and terraced rice fields below. Amazing experience and a hobby that I wouldn't mind picking up. The pilots were great and explained how everything worked and even let me maneuver the controls for a little while. We floated out over the lake to a landing field back at the edge of town. We hopped in a van and were back to our hotel before lunch. Fantastic.

All in all, a surprisingly outstanding trip given the fact that we knew virtually nothing about where we were going prior to leaving. Somewhere I would not mind returning to some day.

Pictures are already up and ready on Picasa so have a look. I've got some video of the Warli dancers and a few other things from WWW that I'm working on getting up to YouTube as well so stay tuned!

For now, it's trying to keep pace with the blazing speed in which November is flying by and getting ready to head back state-side for some Christmas in the northwest (no singing...please). We'll be spending most of our time in Seattle but will make it out to Boise for new years as well (if the region doesn't get hit by another ice age like the last time we were home!!)

From now until December I need all of you to be salting the roads every day and get your hair dryers out and ready to clean off that runway cause we don't want to play airplane leap frog through the south west again!

See you all soon!

K&E

We're Baaaaack!

So I think we have fully established the point that we are not good at blogging. We got in a good year or more before we got too lazy...I mean, busy. But we're trying to get back into it now and we have a lot to talk about so hang on to your hats, seats, horses or whatever metaphorical object you are holding. Here goes....

When we last left our dashingly handsome and adventurous heroes they were bumming their way around India with a ragged group of explorers from the states and traveling through the jungles of South Africa in search of leopards and the French national teams' pride (still nowhere to be seen by the way).

Since then, our adventures have taken us back to the exotic nether-regions of Syracuse and now back to our home camp in Mumbai. For those who were paying creepily close attention to our posts, you may have noticed something fishy. How curious that we went from December to June so quickly without making a stop over for 10 days in April. Well guess what? We went to Thailand and apparently didn't even bother going through the pictures or mentioning it on our blog.

But now is the time for forgiveness and redemption so if you would kindly look to your right you will see a bucket load of new pictures dating back to our India trip with the Johnson crew, our spring break in Thailand, and all (yes all) of our stops in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup.



We're just going to skip the post for Thailand all together, but the pictures are there, so enjoy. We went to another NESA educators conference in Bangkok for 4 days in which we did all the regular stops - temples, markets, river rides, megamalls, red shirt political uprising, etc. We then headed south to the beach at Krabi where we relaxed and soaked up the sun while doing some swimming, eating, island hopping, and our favorite activity of the trip, a kayak tour through a mangrove forest and caves. Very cool.

You may also notice as you are perusing the list of new photos that we have another India trip already under our belt this year. We had our first three day weekend of the year and traveled several hours out of the city to visit some ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples carved from the side of mountains. We flew into the city of Aurangabad which took about an hour, then visited two famous sites: Ellora and Ajanta.

The Ajanta caves are about 90km outside of the Aurangabad, are carved out of the face of a cliff and are known for their elaborate paintings found inside. This was the home of a Buddhist colony about 2000 years ago and the caves consist of large open spaces with high ceilings and shrines for gathering and worshiping as well as smaller rooms where daily life and meditations would have occurred. The caves and temples were also plastered and painted in some areas and there are some amazing, thousand year old paintings to admire.

As Buddhism began to decline in the area, they began to move back south toward the city where they created an even more spectacular set of stone temples at the site of Ellora. What is so brilliant about these temples is that they were not built stone by stone, but rather carved with a chisel out of the side of the hills. All of it, the whole thing.....chisel. There are amazing multi-story temples and plazas all carved straight out of the stone with all of it being one giant continuous piece of rock. Totally amazing.


We traveled with our new friends Reid and Rachel and had a great time getting to know them and enjoying the sights together. We crammed quite a bit into a short weekend including a trip up to the top of an abandoned fort overlooking the city and a stop by the Mini Taj Majal, a near exact replica of the Taj created by the son of the last Mughal leader in Aurangabad. It was planned to be built with the same materials and outline but daddy pulled the rug out from under the project part way through to save money resulting in pieces that are made of beautiful marble and craftsmanship and the rest made from limestone which definitely does not look as nice.


It was a great weekend and even though it was exhausting from all the hiking, it was great to spend time with friends, get some fresh air, and enjoy such an outstanding piece of history. It was also a good warmup for all the hiking we are about to take on over our next vacation. In a couple weeks we have our Week Without Walls trip followed by our Diwali break. For WWW this year, I will be with the 8th grade team which means instead of Matheran again, I will be heading somewhere new, to Sajan/Dabhosa which should be a great time. Then, for Diwali, we will be heading to Nepal to explore the north a little bit and get our first real taste of the Himalayas. So stay tuned for some amazing shots of us summiting Mt Everest....it's going to be epic!! (and by summit I mean taking pictures from the bottom, probably several miles away)

Enjoy all the pictures! More to come soon!

K&E

South Africa Here We Come!!!

We are off to South Africa in a couple days and we have set up some different forms of communication to keep track of the myriad experiences and stories we will have to tell.

We have created a separate site through OnTheRoad.to which allows us to capture media and short descriptions of events via our cellphones and post them directly to the web in a neat little travel-log format. The homepage for this travel journal/mini-blog is

http://indiake.ontheroad.to/worldcup

The feed is also posted at the top of this page so you can follow the links directly from this blog if you would like.  If everything works out to plan, we should be sending many little snippets of pictures and comments throughout the trip via our cellphones through this OnTheRoad app.  We will also write some longer posts here when we can.

We have finished year 2 in Mumbai and it's been a crazy one to say the least. It started off fast, then got faster, and never really slowed down.  Now the classrooms are packed up, exams are done, and it's time to shift into official vacation mode. Looking forward to the most epic vacation of all time (at least it better be since its taken 16 months to plan it...)

Wish us luck. More to come!

Viva Espana!!!

क्या कहाना K&E

Back to Blogging: Perth, Australia 2010

Kevin has been asking me since Christmas to write posts for our blog. This is a reasonable request since you does all the processing and uploading of the pictures and videos from our vacation. However, I've been using my grad school classes as an excuse to not write. I'm happily done with this semester and have a bit of time before my next big grad school project starts. In other words, no more excuses, so here goes.

I thought I would start by sharing my experience in late March to Perth, Australia. Once I again this year, I was lucky to be invited to join the Middle School ISTA trip as a chaperon. ISTA is the International Schools Theater Association. Last year I went to Hong Kong due to the N1H1 scare, the school wanted an extra adult. This year, the trip happened to fall on the days of Parent-Teacher-Student conferences, so instead of sending another teacher who would than miss the conferences, they asked me again.

I have to say it was a wonderful trip. We took 9 middle school students who were all fantastic kids. The host school was the Presbyterian Ladies College, which had a beautiful campus. I even got the chance to check out their newly remodeled library which was an added bonus. Russell and I stayed at a nice hotel on the beach about 5 minute drive from the school. However, we took advantage of the lovely scenery and walked back and forth to the school as much as possible. The walk was between 15 and 30 minutes, depending on how fast or slow we were walking. The neighborhood the school is in was a beautiful, upper class neighborhood with amazing, historical houses as well, which was fun to see.

Again, I have to mention how totally I'm impressed with our students, with the ISTA organization and with the ensemble leaders. The whole program is 4 days, which is about 2.5 days of creating a totally original piece of theater based on the theme for the week. This years theme was Stories for the Oceans Shore: Aboriginal Stories. Each trip has a field trip to help inspire the students and this year we got to go the the Sculptures by the Sea exhibit that was happening at the time. We had a very nice picnik lunch and then had about an hour to walk around and explore the sculptures. Like all art (in my opinion) there was some amazingly beautiful pieces, and extremely strange ones as well. I'll be putting pictures up in our gallery soon. Russell and I had an especially nice time reading the artists descriptions and contemplating the meaning of art and life (read *sarcasm*).

Overall we had a great time, walking on the beach, walking to and from school, doing a little bit of shopping and generally relaxing. I have to say that Australia, or at least Perth reminded me an awful lot of the US (if you are from Australia, don't hate me for saying that) which made me a bit homesick.

I'm definitely looking forward to coming back to the US in July even if I'm not going "home". But there is a lot we have already done since my Australia trip and a lot more to do: namely, South Africa and the WORLD CUP! More posts to come covering the last few months, and hopefully a lot more blogs while in South Africa.

क्या कहाना
K&E

Christmas in April

Finally, a blog post!! It's been a busy year but we are trying to catch up on sharing the big things that have happened in the past several months. The first big adventure since the last post was our Christmas vacation where Elizabeth's family came out to Mumbai and we spent 3 weeks traveling around Northern India and Rajasthan. We are trying to avoid writing a novel about all the details so instead we have all been putting together photos and comments in a Google Slideshow which is embedded below. Take a look through the photos, videos, and comments to see all that we did. We will try to get some perspectives and reflections on the trip to put up soon as well. You can see all of our pictures here (they are split up by city, all titled "India Christmas")

So a quick overview of our trip starts with a few days in Mumbai where we toured around the school, downtown, went to the Dharavi slum, and spent Christmas at our place. We then headed north to Varanasi, one of the oldest cities in the world and the center of cultural and spiritual life in India. We spent some time visiting temples and taking some serene boat rides by the ghats on the Ganges. It was then off to Delhi and Agra where we visited a number of monuments, temples, landmarks, and of course, the amazing Taj Mahal.

From Agra we headed by train to Ranthambore, a park and wildlife reserve where we went on a couple safari tours (saw some deer and birds but no tigers) :-( A highlight of this trip was Pip missing our stop on the train and having to turn around and catch a new train back to the station. All we can say is thank goodness for technology. It's really crazy how different this whole trip would have been without cell phones and portable internet.

It was then off to near-by Jaipur by van to catch a flight over to Udaipur. After 4 hours in a van to the Jaipur airport (with everyone feeling pretty ill for various reasons) we found our flight was canceled. The only option quickly became a 7 hour continuation of our van ride all the way to Udaipur. Let's just say it was a day that we would all like to forget.

Luckily, Udaipur was a gorgeous last stop on our trip and we had a lot of time to just relax, enjoy the scenery and take in all of India for another couple days. Then it was back to Mumbai to say goodbye and get back to life as normal. It turned out to be a really amazing trip and it was great to share the experiences of India with our family and for them so see what it's all about. It really is something that you really can't understand until you experience it first hand, and it's nice to share that common experience.

That being said, enjoy the photos and slideshow and if anyone else wants to come and visit we're ready!!


Christmas in India Slideshow (for larger view click here)



क्या कहाना
K&E