3 Degrees of Separation

Supposedly there are SIX degrees of separation between any 2 humans. This is to say that person A knows someone who knows person B, who knows someone who knows person C, who knows someone who knows person D, who knows someone who knows person E, who knows someone who knows person F. However, as a Global Nomad who has lived and in 14 countries and taught on 4 continents, and who has traveled to more than 40 countries, and who, as a CouchSurfer, has hosted over 200 guests, I would imagine that I'm probably separated by just 3 degrees. I can't prove this, of course, but when I click on random CouchSurfers' profiles, I often find we have a mutual friend (by the way, the CS website USED TO show how you were connected to anyone else on the site by drawing arrows from one person to another until you were connected. Too bad their site now sucks!!) And I sometimes try to play the game of trying to find a mutual acquaintance with people I've met and, though I've never done a hard study of it, we usually can find some commonality.

I imagine this is the case for other Global Nomads (who have grown up traveling), nomadic travelers, Worldschoolers, CouchSurfers and other international people, so I'm not an exception. In fact, with more and more people traveling, we are becoming even more connected. So, how are YOU & I connected?!

In Education, The Key is Diversity

During a conversation I was having over my decision to Worldschool, I was told by a colleague that she had a friend who brought her children up in the slums of India. She told me that these children (who were Swiss or Italian) grew up like the other children of the slums... The reasoning, it seems, was that the parents wanted to help these communities and they felt it was beneficial for the children to grow up without feeling too entitled.

I may be missing some crucial information or my colleague was mistaken in her understanding of the situation, but that sounded like a very bad idea based on false logic. The false logic being that, just because children are deprived throughout their younger years, they will not feel entitled to things later on, and that being entitled is a far worse character trait than what they pick up living in a slum.

Entitled children or "spoiled brats" are indeed a scourge and I believe having children spend some time in a less affluent community is a very worthy experience for teaching children to be more grateful of what they have. However, bringing children up in the slums of India as foreigners would make them targets of the most depraved of society!

We all saw "Slumdog Millionaire", right? Those things such as maiming young children to get more money begging, human trafficking vulnerable women and children, and getting children in the streets addicted to drugs are REAL things. And if a child sticks out (like a foreigner in the slums?!), that is not a good thing!

Slums are very hot, dirty, cramped places, generally without electricity or toilets. Occupants live in whatever they can gather to make a hovel, such as corrugated steel boxes that are hot like an oven in the day and sound deafening when inside during the rain. People in slums don't live there in hovels because they want to. They are unimaginably poor, possibly spending hours picking through garbage to get money for any scrap of recyclables. And when someone is that poor, food is usually the most prominent thing on their mind. And when someone is THAT poor and hungry, s/he is usually pretty desperate to make money, making these places terribly dangerous for anyone, let alone children.

But for the sake of argument, though we have to suspend our understanding of what a slum is, let's suppose that this is a "safe" slum. These Western parents, who could live in a comfortable home, choose to live more simply, among the less fortunate. That is their choice. But when their children see what they COULD have, I'm inclined to believe that they will grow up feeling rather resentful of what they'd missed. Sure, they've gained an understanding and empathy for those less fortunate, but if they truly lived the same as those less fortunate, they suffered just as much. How is that a good teaching method?!

I'm drawing from experience here when I say I know what an Indian slum is like. I lived in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) for two years as a child, and, though I lived as well as one could, with servants and a huge home, I saw the slums on my way to school every day. Living in Calcutta has shaped me more than anywhere else because I was exposed to debilitating poverty.

In Calcutta, I lived well, but there were plenty of things I didn't have. There were no TVs in those days, little electricity due to the "loadshedding" that happened for hours each day, no malls, no supermarkets, (the market where my mom bought our food was a huge maze of tent stalls, full of half-carcassed animals hanging on hooks), no movie theaters playing Hollywood movies except for the American embassy where they played a family movie every Sunday night, no toy stores or amusement parks... Despite having a very good life, I had severe culture shock when I left, and, TO THIS DAY, I bare the effects of such an upbringing. American supermarkets full of shelves groaning with WAY too much unnecessary food, and places like Costco with their bulk crap give me mixed emotions. On one hand, I like to have all the choices, and on the other I feel guilty that we have so much - too much - that we waste it. I feel anger that it's so unfair. Sadness for all those who do without.

What I mean is that, despite having it all in Calcutta, I still felt the effects of not having what my fellow citizens took for granted. So when I returned to the US, it was very hard for me to put it behind me. Like survivors of concentration camps who hoard for the rest of their lives because they don't want to be in the situation of not being prepared again, how would these children growing up in a place of misery and lack of opportunity, be able to cope when their parents finally want to repatriate them?! (I'm assuming they don't want their children to live in the slums the rest of their lives). They would have such a hard time fitting in.

According to my colleague, the kids attended whatever school the other kids in the slum attended. How could THAT be a good education?! Sure, money doesn't always equate with good education, but surely kids in a slum in India are not getting better teachers than children who can afford uniforms and school costs. Most likely they're getting the teachers that couldn't get better jobs. And a school in a slum in India wouldn't be teaching in English, the language of the elite, so school would be in a local language totally unrelated to their home country language. When they return to their Western homes, how could they manage with an inferior education in any language?!

Having said ALL this against the idea that a family chooses to bring their children up in a slum, I'm an advocate of the experience (provided somehow this is a SAFE environment) for a short time - 6 months at the most. Giving children an insight into a life like this is an invaluable lesson, provided they are moving on from it and are able to use the lessons. So parents should mix it up and put their kids in different situations because variety is the spice of life and we learn from new experiences and we are stunted when we are in a static, unchanging environment.

January 2, 2017
It is one of my resolutions that I put more effort into this blog! I wrote this post a full 6 months ago before I started Worldschooling my daughter and in that time I have actually revisited Calcutta (a very good experience highlighted by an amazing tour http://www.tourdesundarbans.com/ which I should blog about some day!). In any case, I decided I must finally post some of my blog articles that have sat fallow all these months (due to lack of good internet access and time).

Tears are Shed - the Early Stages of Worldschooling

Have you ever asked your child to do homework in the middle of the holidays? Schooled children are used to working during school hours and doing homework straight after school, but generally, the longer away from school hours, the more proportionally resistant children are to doing what is perceived as school work.

My daughter has been schooled from PK3 until 3rd grade. We are barely a week into our trip and the beginning of Worldschooling and I feel like a monster because I'm asking her to do work that we had discussed and agreed on prior to setting off! The problem is, my daughter is having a hard time focusing on educational tasks outside the 4 walls of the classroom or our home. The open schedule, the open setting (at a cafe, or the beach...) is what is throwing her. So she drags her feet, pouts, grumbles, and gives me dirty looks.

Today it came to head. She was simply not trying to do the task (write an article for her blog), so I lost all patience and threatened to take her iPad away (the only thing she seems to want to do all day, every day!). Tears were shed. Then came the pleading. She begged for me to take it back and give her another chance. Knowing that the price would be her iPad if she didn't do her work, she was reformed. I felt horrible, but know I'm not asking all that much from her - a few blog posts on special topics here and there, some pages of math every couple of days, reading every day, and watching documentary videos that I've put on her YouTube playlist about the places we're going or other documentaries. I'm not interested in unschooling her. I have a curriculum for this year - a purpose for taking her out of school - and I want us to get the most of it!

Fortunately, after I got her to cool down and explained that the price she had to pay for being out of school was to do her work or else lose her iPad, she was very receptive and finished her work in just a few minutes. In no time she was smiling and we had moved past the ugly confrontation. But I fear that it will not be the last time. I hope that, as time goes by, she will get learn to work outside the classroom, and will do a lot of it of her own accord. It's one of my goals for her to take her learning into her own hands and be more independent. But I feel like she's still unlearning some habits of being in a classroom (cram & forget!) and learning how I expect to Worldschool. Fair enough. I'm sure my fellow Worldschool community has a fair number of participants who can relate.

Day 2 - The Importance of Landmarks

Have you ever been somewhere a long time and felt at home there, left for a prolonged period, then returned again? While you're away, in your head you're feeling like you know the place. You have memories there, you know your way around, you spent TIME there...

In Western Europe and much of the United States there is some dissonance between what you remember and the current situation when you return. Some new shops have opened. Some have closed down. A new apartment building here, an old house torn down there. But by and large, it's the way you left it. However, in Asia the changes are so very fast and drastic that when you return the memories and the changes cause your brain whiplash! And if you're gone years, there can be so many changes that there is so little the same to cling to that you feel like you're a stranger in a new place... But then those very subtle unchanged things - a street, a lone shop you remember, a bridge - feel like a dream. An anchor. Proof of your past. You have shared history. All of a sudden that building is like a lifeline to your past.

And what about the buildings that are gone? They may just be buildings, but for the homes and schools I've lost over the years, they may as well have been treasured friends. I've grieved for them. And for the schools in particular, THOUSANDS of children lost a part of their history. I will never be able to show my daughter those parts of my history as my Swiss mother was able to show me her family home and school (which still stand now, even after she's gone). I feel saddened by this loss.

I realize this is not how everyone feels. Not everyone feels sentimental about their old haunts. But I would say most of us do feel some grief when a special building is lost. I remember how Santa Cruz locals mourned the loss of the Cooper House when it collapsed during the 1989 earthquake. And I know my fellow school mates were saddened when our school was demolished...

Time marches on, I get that, but we all need landmarks to relate to. It's jarring and discombobulating to not be able to relate to your own city. Cities I've lived in such as Beijing, Shenzhen, Calcutta, and Manila are vastly unrecognizable to their residents 20 years ago (I'd guess that most Chinese cities fall under this description).

This makes me think of the older residents. An old person in those cities probably can't find their way around because of the huge changes. Of course, the elderly in those cities probably stay within a short distance of their home so as not to get lost. But for anyone venturing around their city, I'd think it'd cause quite a bit of psychological trauma to constantly be confused about getting around your own city. After all, small changes can be fluster an elderly person, imagine not being able to find your way around the only city you've lived!

So, I hope the huge construction going on in Asia eventually slows, and instead of building cheap, shoddy buildings that need to be replaced in 20 or 30 years, they build more to last and really take care of their landmarks, for the sake of its residents. So that people don't feel like strangers in their own cities or adopted cities. So that we build something lasting for our future.

Preparation for the Trip... The Big 9

It is my daughter’s 9^th birthday today (May 21)! As I sit in this indoor play area, Funarium, (complete with bikes, roller blades, slides, trampolines, climbing walls, etc.) WITHOUT wifi,  I have a rare moment to reflect on our impending trip without much distraction. It’s T minus 40 days and counting down to our planned one-year Worldschooling adventure and I am losing quite a bit of sleep over it. I wake up in the middle of the night & my mind focuses on something I have yet to do – something I still need to buy, shots I still need to get, visas I still need to apply for… Or I simply worry about possible dangerous scenarios – losing my daughter in a crowd, being robbed, not getting a visa, getting malaria, running out of money and not finding a job, or even getting kidnapped by a terrorist group! There are so many scenarios to keep a mother awake at night!

Although I would love to be able to travel exclusively with carry on, I am simply unable to cut down to such few items. My initial intention was to stick to areas I am familiar with or well-traveled areas with many other tourists, but there are a few places that will be rather remote which have malaria, therefore I am packing a pup mosquito tent as a precaution. This takes up quite a bit of space. We’ve packed & repacked our back packs multiple times, but they are still heavier than ideal. However, we will be carrying some souvenirs and teaching materials that we will leave with children and teachers along the way, which means that these items will not be with us throughout the trip. So, my daughter will carry her small backpack with personal items, I will carry a large backpack with day pack and we will have one suitcase that is small enough to be used as carry on when necessary.

Europe and North America are easy, but as we will be traveling through Asia and Africa we have had to get many shots. Fortunately for my daughter she was on schedule and only had to have 2 extra shots for this trip. Unfortunately for me, most shots expire after 10 years, so I have had to have 8 shots!! Of course, these are not covered by insurance & are costing me hundreds of dollars. Not to mention, I’m trying to get anti-malarial drugs (Malarone). This may not be an issue for people in the West, but I live in Bangkok, Thailand, and I have been cautioned that it is very difficult to find REAL Malarone here due to the prevalence of fake drugs in these parts.

We still have a number of hurdles to jump before we're out of here... My daughter's birthday pool party next weekend (can't wait to get THAT out of the way!)., finishing up the school year (always a hectic time for teachers), packing up and storing my stuff, closing accounts, & saying good-bye to name a few. Phew! Always something to stress over. 

But today it's my daughter's day. She's made the itinerary and we have a number of stops to make. After this there's ice skating at Central World, then dinner at Swiss Corner. She already opened her "presents" which consisted of stickers with her name on it to tag all her possessions, a Friendship book, to have all her new friends along the trip sign, and a coupon book of experiences I made for her to cash in on along our trip, such as a camel ride, a snorkeling trip, a picnic hike, etc.

Happy Birthday, Lovebug!! It's going to be an eventful year!! :)

Welcome to Global Gypsies

Welcome to Global Gypsies on the Move!

I have begun this blog to chronicle my daughter & my adventures on the road. First, I want to address the title that I have chosen, as it may seem insensitive to some more politically correct readers. I want to be clear that I am not a Roma, whom this term is offensive to. The Roma are an ethnic group who resent the name "gypsies" given them.  I am, however, a gypsy in the definition that the non-Roma identify with - I travel the globe without a clear home, and I have been doing so since birth. Therefore, I use the term gypsy to refer to the nomadic lifestyle my daughter & I have.

Now a little about us. My daughter and I are Global Nomads or "TCKs". We have both lived the majority of our lives outside our passport countries. I was born in Pakistan to an American father & Swiss mother, therefore I am lucky enough to have both these passports. My daughter was born in China, where I adopted her at 10.5 months old. She inherited these passports, too. At 2 years old, she & I moved to Bangkok, Thailand. I currently teach in a Swiss international school here where she is in the 3rd grade.

We've been in Thailand for 6.5 years, and are planning on leaving this summer on a great adventure! My plan is to travel around the world stopping at various places to volunteer. In different countries we'll do different projects. I hope to do something with organic farming (through WWOOF), environment, wildlife & marine conservation, clean water, women & children in need (hopefully refugees), and any other interesting opportunities that come along, but each volunteer project costs a pretty penny, and finding projects that allow a 9-year-old are few & far between, so I'm not sure how many we'll actually be able to do.

While traveling, I’ll have to WORLD SCHOOL my daughter. As a teacher with 20+ years of experience, I'm excited about getting out of the classroom and bringing education to my daughter in the setting that is most conducive to learning: the real world! 

I took a COETAIL course (Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy) which required me to keep a professional blog. Although I can't claim that this class prepared me for doing this trip, it did inspire me as I was compelled to dig deep and explore my true feelings about education and what experience has shown me about what works best when teaching. And my experience tells me that travel is the best teacher, hence my plan to World School my daughter was born.

Computer technology will be a big part of our lives!! I won’t be able to fit books into our backpacks, so we will have to rely on e-friendly projects and tools which she can access on her iPad. I want to go paperless, but there will be some assignments that I will have a workbook or print-outs for (math, for example). But honestly, I want her main focus to be on EXPERIENCING her "lessons". Whether it's cleaning animal cages, planting seeds, or simply setting eyes on a historical site, I want her to witness it first-hand and not rely on reading about it alone. 

Growing up in Developing Countries taught me that people don't appreciate what they have unless they experience not having it. Therefore, as part of my educational style, my daughter & I will be volunteering for 2 months in a remote village in Ladakh where there is no electricity or running water. I have lived like this before (Peace Corps Eritrea), and it gave me a greater appreciation for these modern miracles, so I want this to be one of my daughter's lessons early on in the trip.

It will be an interesting adventure & I hope to keep a personal blog (this one) & a professional one (this one). So, stay tuned!

Any thoughts or suggestions are very much appreciated!

Latcho drom!