every Sunday Paseo de la Reforma closed to motor vehicles. People ride their bikes on the multi-lane road.

To Mexico City, with love

AdaliaWhen I  spoke with Adalia in April 2017, she was living in Tegucigalpa. I was excited to catch up with her, now that she’s moved to Mexico City.


What are you up to in Mexico City?

I moved to Mexico City in July. I’ve been taking Spanish class and I’ve fallen into teaching English. I found a place that was looking for teachers and would help me get a visa. I’m teaching corporate clients, who tend to be pretty self-motivated students. This satisfies my desire to teach without the drama of teaching K-12. It’s not a new career, but it’s a good way to stay here legally while I figure out a longer-term career plan.

So what’s been your biggest challenge there?

I’m still wrapping my head around the traffic. It’s a consequence of cramming 20 million people into a metropolitan area. Driving just 2 miles can take about 2.5 hours. So I take the metro or the Metrobús instead of Uber, which is just going to sit in traffic. Even if it’s rush hour in the metro, I go ahead and squeeze in there with everybody else!

But my biggest challenge here by far was finding an apartment for me and my dog. If you’re willing to share a space, it’s fairly easy to find a really cheap place, but after trying that briefly I realized that it’s not for me. Very few people actually want to rent to people with a dog. So at first I stayed in a series of three AirBnBs. I booked the first one for a month sight unseen, which I shouldn’t have done, since it turned out to be not the best.

One-bedroom apartments are not very common here, maybe because Mexican families tend to be bigger, and young adults often live at home. So now I’m renting a furnished 2-bedroom apartment in Santa María la Ribera, which is close to the historic center. This neighborhood has potential to become the next Roma or Condesa, but for now it hasn’t been gentrified or filled with expats. Plenty of working class and middle class families live here.

I found my apartment on Craigslist, where most rental ads are geared towards foreigners, meaning it’s likely more expensive. But the building is only 5 years old, I didn’t have to buy a fridge; they even threw in a washer/dryer. Not having to buy furniture is a plus because even though I expect to be here at least a few years, there’s always a chance that I’ll want to go elsewhere sooner.

In Mexico City, most landlords ask you for a fiador — a cosigner who owns property in the city and is willing to vouch for you. Fortunately, my landlord didn’t require that. He just casually asked me, “So what do you do for work?” I gave first month’s rent and one month deposit.

Other than finding an apartment, though, I really can’t say that I’ve had major challenges here. Everything else is fairly easy. Compared to Tegucigalpa it’s a piece of cake.

overlooking the main central square in Mexico CityWhat do you do for fun?

I use Meetup and Facebook to find out what’s happening around town. There’s so much going on; I haven’t put a dent in my list of things to do.

I absolutely love Frida Kahlo’s Casa Azul and the surrounding neighborhood of Coyoacan. I did a food tour at Mercado Jamaica. It was so helpful to have somebody walk me around and explain ingredients and everything. There have been a bunch of trade fairs — an agave fest, a chocolate fair, with food vendors from all around Mexico. The week of the earthquake I was supposed to go a free Ricky Martin concert, also an art gallery open house. And I do a lot of just wandering around the city.

I’m going to southeast Asia next week for a couple of weeks, to Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and hopefully Singapore. I’m a little sad I’ll be missing some events like Day of the Dead, but of course I’m looking forward to my trip!

So how was it to experience the earthquakes there?

As a geography teacher, I knew that Mexico City is tectonically active. In the back of my mind, I thought about what could happen if I get stuck on the metro during an earthquake. So I always carry water and snacks in my bag just in case. Still, I hadn’t really thought through what it meant that an earthquake could happen at any time. Being from Houston, I know how to prep for hurricanes and tornados, but I had no idea what to do in the case of an earthquake.

I was asleep when the first earthquake happened. And 12 days later, just two hours after we’d had an earthquake drill, the second earthquake hit. I was walking down the street and felt just a little movement in the ground. Then I looked up and noticed the windows of a car dealership bowing in and out. I hear that it felt much worse to people who were inside of buildings.

I ended up having to walk from the south of the city (where restaurants were still open) to the north. When I got to Roma, I started seeing loss of electrical power, building damage and active rescues. Condesa was really badly hit. I didn’t know what I would find when I got home, but it was business as usual. In my neighborhood, there was hardly any damage at all. The way that the community pulled together that was incredible.

Advice to women considering moving to Mexico City?

neighborhood in Mexico CityDo it!

Before you come for an extended stay, you probably should apply for temporary residency. You can’t even open a bank account without a residency visa.

Be sure to bring some really comfortable walking shoes. I average 4 or 5 miles a day!

Having some Spanish is good. Usually, I can make myself understood. But there have been very few places where I couldn’t communicate.

During wet season, (May through September/October) it rains a bit every day. It’s cooler than I expected in the morning and the evening. I have flannel sheets, which I’ve never needed before.

It sounds like you’re much happier where you are now.

In contrast to Tegucigalpa, there’s real street life here — people walking around, hanging out in cafes. My neighborhood is a little rough around the edges, but I haven’t felt unsafe. I’ve come home on the Metro at 10 pm and there are still people walking around and strolling through the park. Compared to other western countries, people might feel there are security issues. You’ll see the occasional armed guard. And there are some really rough areas of Mexico City, and I have no plans to visit them. But the sense of safety is much better here than in Honduras.

I feel like if I can live in Honduras, I can live anywhere. And it’s not that Tegucigalpa was so bad. It’s just that Mexico City is the kind of city I wanted to live in. I have the feeling that this is where I’m supposed to be. I’m very happy with my decision to come here. I’m having a blast.

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Tegucigalpa, Honduras by Soman

Adiós, Honduras: Next stop, Mexico City

Adalia

Adalia couldn’t find a lot about Honduras online before she moved there. But she was game for an adventure, and she had a teaching offer at a small international school there. Less than a year in, she’s planning her next move.

What’s your travel story?

I moved Tegucigalpa, Honduras in July on a two-year contract. I’ve been teaching for about 19 years, but here I have a non-teaching position as an instructional technologist, assisting teachers and students with integrating technology into the classroom.

As it turns out, the school is not in a great financial situation. They’re restructuring for the next school year, and not renewing the contracts of some of the teachers. They told me that I’d have to teach at least three classes next year in addition to doing my current job. It was also clear that they likely wouldn’t have funds to pay me beyond the initial two year contract. I asked them if there was any possibility of my not teaching, but it was not, so decided that I’ll be leaving at the end of the school year.

Initially, my daughter had no interest in living abroad. But she decided to come for a year. She enjoyed herself so much here that she was thinking she’d maybe stay for 2 years. But as it turns out, it’s academically much better for her to finish high school in the States. That made my decision to leave easier.

How did you decide to come to Honduras?

Going abroad was something I wanted to do my whole life. But I got married when I was 19 and had two kids. Going abroad was not my husband’s thing. I got divorced about two-and-a-half years ago. My youngest just turned 16.

I told myself I’d go abroad when my daughter graduated from high school. But last year I was in the classroom and I just found myself thinking, “I’m done.” I wasn’t sure if it was American schools, high school, or just teaching in general. This job in Honduras was an experiment to see what exactly it was I was done with.

I knew I wanted to learn another language. After trips to Thailand, China and Egypt, I decided I needed to learn a language where at least the alphabet was the same as English! So I shifted my search to Latin America.

I’d never been to Honduras before. Not that many people come here. Some people consider it a hardship post. But I thought, “It’s the capital, there’s got to be stuff to do….”

What are some of the challenges of living in Tegucigalpa?

People don’t typically hang out after dark because it’s really not that safe. All of the houses and stores are behind a wall or a gate; there aren’t really sidewalks. If you really want to hold onto your phone you don’t want to use it on the street. You just have to know how to carry yourself.

There are no city parks. I’m guessing that’s because there’s no money; and this is not a place where people hang out together outside much. We don’t have anything at school after dark. The school is having a concert this semester. The administration was very concerned about releasing the details of the event because of safety concerns.

There’s no mail service! When I set up my bank account, someone from the bank came to the school and brought me my ATM card. Because they couldn’t just send it to me!

Also, there are no addresses. I’m lucky that I live near a very well known landmark, because even taxi drivers don’t recognize the name of my neighborhood. If there are house numbers, they’re not in order. One house might be #33 and it might be next door to #2412. Some of the streets have names but nobody knows what they are. You can’t rely on Google maps here. Most businesses don’t have independent websites; they might have a Facebook page.

I’m from Houston originally, where there are tons of museums, concerts, so much going on. But in the capital of Honduras, there’s really not much to do. There’s one museum. You can go to the mall. That’s pretty much it.

What are some of the things you like best about being there?

My expectations with the standard of living were in line with reality. I knew it wouldn’t be able to drink the water, that kind of thing. Actually, the apartment they found me is way nicer than I expected. And the people have been incredibly nice.

I like some of the odd things. For the equivalent of 8 cents, you can buy water in a bag; it’s hilarious to me. Also, the rapidito buses are not centrally organized; each driver is independent contractor. So they pimp out their buses and blast reggaeton to attract more customers. ’80s music has gone to die in Honduras. It’s nonstop MTV hits from the 80s!

Overall, the food is not great; it’s typically overcooked. The signature dish is baleada, a thick flour tortilla with beans, eggs, fried plantains and crema.  But fried chicken is everywhere! On a given street corner, you’ll see three or four different fried chicken places.

Have you traveled much since you’ve been there?

Honduras is a really inconvenient place to be. It’s expensive to travel, even to other places in Latin America. There are no direct flights of from Honduras to Mexico City. Even flights to Panama are prohibitively expensive. Because of that, I knew that it wasn’t going to work long term.

The beaches are beautiful. But it’s not easy to get to them. We flew to Roatan for Thanksgiving. I purposely didn’t stay on the west side of the island, which is where the cruises go. We stayed far on the east side in a very small place, known for kite surfing. A population of Garifuna live on that part of the island. We stayed right on the beach, heard the crashing of the waves. It felt a lot safer there; people were still walking around after dark.

We took a bus to Tela, on the northern Caribbean coast. The Hondurans I work with told me that was kind of a dangerous idea because sometimes buses are targeted. A coworker told me not to put my bag underneath the bus, just in case someone stops the bus and sets it on fire! Also, you can’t travel at night from one city to another. I don’t think there are any lights on the highway; the roads are bad, and there are narcos or gangs on the highways. It’s just not safe.

What’s your social life like now? 

One of my coworkers (who’s 10 years younger than I am) has met the love of her life here! Another coworker is half-Honduran; she speaks Spanish and does muay thai and hangs out a lot with the people from her gym. But for me, it’s been very difficult socially.

I’m not going to hang out in the hostel bar. I’m not going out drinking and dancing; I did that once here and it was a bit of a disaster. The only guy who asked me to dance was maybe 60-something, and he didn’t speak any English. Most of the Hondurans and even the embassy and military guys are married. I just don’t think there are a lot of single men here.

But I’m an introvert, so it may just be me. Most of my fun involves doing stuff around the house. I sew, go to the movies, go out to eat. We get a long weekend every month, so almost every month we’ve traveled either within Honduras or beyond.

What’s next for you?

Honduras is surprisingly expensive. I couldn’t hang out here and live off of my savings, even if I’d wanted to stay. Now that I’ve decided I’m leaving Honduras, I’m in a position to do whatever I want!

Being here helped me clarify my must-haves: The next place I live needs to have a hub airport so I can easily go other places from there. It needs to be a large, relatively cheap city. And I don’t want to own a car.

I went to a site called The Earth Awaits, which lets you compare places based on cost of rent, safety, internet speed, whatever your non-negotiables are. I narrowed my choices down to Lisbon, Mexico City and Medellin. Over Christmas, I spent some time in Lisbon. I really enjoyed it, but the little Spanish I have didn’t help me.

I’m going to visit Mexico City in June. I’ve been to Progresso, Cancun, Guadalajara before, but not Mexico City. I’m concerned that the capital might be too big. So that’s going to be the recon trip that I didn’t take when I moved to Honduras. My daughter also is also happy for me to be there because I’ll be closer to Houston.

I’m not looking for another teaching job. After I travel this summer, I’ll enroll in an intensive Spanish course. And hopefully with my down time I’ll figure out some way to support myself before the money runs out. My daughter will be back in the States, but I’ll have my dog with me.

Advice to single women who are considering moving abroad?

If you’re bringing a kid, you have to think about schools. My school paid for my daughter’s tuition. In Latin America, you don’t make a lot of money, so that was really important. There are some places where you can let your child go to the public schools; this would not be the place.

My general advice: Go for it. It can be done. It’s not a difficult thing to do. I never had the thought of, “Can I do this?” It was more like, “How am I going to do this?”

Where you can find her

Instagram: @pickygirltravels
PickyGirlTravelstheWorld.com


Dear Reader:
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it’s time to move on?
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green hilly landscape in Chiang Rai, Thailand

Starting a new life chapter in Chiang Rai, Thailand

Deb Linehan photoDeb Linehan is a life coach at the New Life Foundation, a mindfulness-based recovery program in Chiang Rai, Thailand, which is a 3-hour bus ride north of Chiang Mai.

So what’s your travel story?

Before coming to Thailand, I hadn’t traveled a lot in life at all. In my 20s and then again in my 30s, I went on a trip to Europe, a place that was fairly safe and easy to get around.

I’m 46 now. When I turned 45, I got hit with the travel bug. It was like “it’s now or never.” I’m single, with no kids never been married. (That’s not a sad thing for me; my life has gone exactly the way I’ve wanted it to.) And I was at a point in my life where I didn’t have anything holding me back—no mortgage, no student loan debt. So I was able to cut the cord and just go.

I didn’t have the resources to just fly around and travel. I needed to figure out how to support myself while seeing different parts of the world. I’m in the beginning stages of figuring that out.

I’m a life coach. Right now I work with people in addiction recovery. The New Life Foundation is a community in Chiang Rai for people in recovery—from grief, burnout, depression, anxiety, as well as addiction. It’s a place where people come to further their mindfulness practice. I have a lot of autonomy. I’m able to work within a team and independently, which is really awesome.

I live at the Foundation, so my room and board is taken care of. I get a small stipend. So I’m basically breaking even. But it’s so freeing compared to how I was living in the States. I was living behind the eight ball, always trying to make ends meet. This is such a beautiful opportunity. I can just live here. For the first time in my life I’m not worrying about money.

It’s been wonderful to be a part of the community here and think about what the future has in store.

What were you doing before you moved to Thailand?

I had been working in the corporate world; then I created a bridge that enable me to move into coaching. Now I’m a CCAR addiction recovery coach. I also do Danielle Laporte’s Desire Map. I do a lot of work taking people through the desire map methodology.
deb-linehan-quote

I also got training for hospice and palliative care at the New York Zen Center. I did my clinical at Lenox Hill Hospital. As a chaplain intern, I worked one-on-one with people in all kinds of conditions—people with a broken toe, or a broken heart, people who were actively dying. I saw the whole spectrum.

Having done hospice work—seeing day in and day out how quickly it’s over—it feels more dangerous to not catapult yourself into whatever it is you want to do.

I’ve been in addiction recovery myself for six years, so addiction recovery is near and dear to my heart. My work with hospice care is connected to addiction recovery work because I view active addition as dying. In so many ways addiction is like death; it’s a slow suicide. It’s a very scary place. But I keep thinking of that scene in Monty Python: “I’m not dead yet!”

When I’m working with someone in recovery, I see what’s possible. I see that spark in someone that’s still there. I’m able to hold the space and help them fan the flames and be with them as they deal all the things that caused their addiction.

So I did my training, but I didn’t know what was next. I was really scared. I was trying to force it, trying to get back to that place of safety and knowing what was next. My education teaches me, “It’s all going to become clear.” (I have t-shirts that say “Don’t freak out!”) Still, it was hard to just chill out.

I was talking to one of my teachers, a Zen priest at the Center. I told him, “I don’t know what’s next and I have to figure it out!” As Zen priests do, he just sat there and held the space for me to talk about it. Of course, he wouldn’t tell me what to do.

One of my teachers had run a retreat here at the Foundation. One friend had been here as a coach. Another friend had been a resident here. So I always had it in the back of my mind. My coach said why don’t you send them an email? So I did and they happened to looking for a coach at the time. So everything fell into place from there.

What’s daily life like for you in Chiang Rai? What are some of the things you like best about being there?

woman sitting in a sunlit gardenIt’s beautiful here, very rural, with gardens and sustainable agriculture. It’s quiet, with butterflies and ducks and cows and lakes. We eat a lot of the food we grow here.

My weekday life is pretty regimented, because it follows the therapeutic community’s schedule:

  • The gong goes off at 6 a.m. At 6:30, there’s yoga, mindful walk or meditation.
  • Breakfast is at 7:30 in the dining hall.
  • At 8:30, we hold our community meeting in a big open-air space with a roof, when we welcome new people and say goodbye to those who are leaving. We do little bit of meditation together.
  • Then from 9:30 to 12:30, I meet with clients. (Residents have two life coaching sessions per week.)
  • Lunch is at 12:30.
  • In the afternoon, maybe I’ll hold a workshop or organize an activity.
  • In the evenings we have all sorts of activities, like women’s group or men’s group or life story, where a member of the community gets up and tells their life story.
  • Then there’s noble silence after 9:30 p.m.

Sometimes we’ll rent a songthaew and go into town. I’m sometimes on duty on the weekends, but otherwise it’s pretty flexible. Some weekends I go into Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai. Once I managed a retreat for one of our Buddhist teachers, then I took a week off in Chiang Mai.

In Chiang Mai, the older part of the city is surrounded by a moat. There are temples and touristy stuff for tourists and expats; there’s a big digital nomad community. Beautiful coffee shops, and the food is amazing. Then there’s the rest of the city beyond the moat, but that’s where I mostly hang out when I go to Chiang Mai.

There’s  fairly big expat community in Chiang Rai as well. It has coffee shops and restaurants, some guest houses, a health food more — like one of everything you need. It’s not quite as charming as Chiang Mai.

Are there some things you miss?

I’m realizing that I do want some sort of landing place in the States because I have a lot of connections there. I miss family and friends more than I thought I would. The thing about missing family, though, is that with Skype, WhatsApp, FaceTime, Facebook video — it’s not like being away, in a lot of ways. Communication is easy, but but the time difference makes it tricky. Plus there are times when I could call but I don’t want to disturb people who are in silence.

I also miss cooking; I don’t get to cook here because the Thai staff does most of the cooking. But we have really beautiful fresh ingredients.

What have you learned while living there?

Quote: Here, I have one towel and one mug. It's empowering to learn that I don't need so much.I’ve learned to live on what’s there. Back home I was so much more of a consumer. I really leaned into the consumer thing whenever I had discomfort. So it’s helped my practice to be with discomfort and my feelings when they arrive, rather than trying to run away from them by buying something new.

Here, I have one towel and one mug that I use for cold and hot drinks. It’s empowering to learn that I don’t need so much.

It’s also enlightening to see how inexpensive some things are here. In the U.S. I was paying like $250/month for phone service. Here it’s maybe $30/month, which includes data.

What’s your social life like?

There are 50 or so residents, eight people on the life coaching team, plus other staff and volunteers. It’s a really great sociological experiment — the subgroups and subcultures, who’s drawn to whom. Our team is really strong and we have a lot of fun and we appreciate each other. We bond on a professional colleague and a friend level.

Since we all live at the center, it’s important to like the people that you work with. So its nice that we’re also friends. Friendships to a certain degree can be made with the residents. We don’t want to cross any boundaries, but there’s a friendliness. If its game night, everybody plays together. Team members are friendly and supportive.

How do you meet people outside of work?

I’m starting to form relationships outside of the community.  I’ve been starting to get to know people in the greater community, who are involved in the local recovery support groups. I could use more of that.

I was hoping that would learn more Thai, but it’s pretty challenging. We do have people from the community who are here – but we don’t have the language in common. Also, a lot of the clients are from Europe or South Africa, so we speak English with them.

It’s very challenging for me to make friends with locals. The owner of the cafe that I go to recognizes me. I can say hello and thank you to the women at the store where I sometimes buy milk or soda. We recognize each other and share big smiles, but it hasn’t gotten deeper than that. I know there are people who have been here longer, who have learned more Thai who have been invited to local people’s houses for dinner having beautiful experiences sharing dinner.

How do local people react to your being a single woman?

I haven’t gotten pushback for being single. But I do have a friend who found people were taken aback that she was a single woman traveling alone on a motorcycle.

In Thailand if you have a tattoos, the stereotype is that you’re in the mafia or some kind of organized crime. I carry around a shawl so if I find myself in the company of older folks or on a bus — the bus will often get pulled over for an i.d. check — I’ll use my shawl to cover the tattoos on my shoulder.

What’s next for you?

This is a transitional community. Nobody stays here forever, including the staff and long-term volunteers. My stay here will come to an end at some point. And then there will be the next stage. I haven’t gotten the complete download on what they looks like yet!

Thought about going to Burma for a while to do a 1- to 3-month silent retreat in one of the monasteries there. It’s been a goal of mine. I also want to check out a monastery in Australia. That’s a little more extravagant, since from here Burma is really close.

Maybe get some more education to further my coaching skills. I would love to have some experience working in a place that’s between a rehab and a sober living space. I can also see myself working in hospice care again.

Maybe later in life I’ll do something more ambitious and longer term. I always fantasized about making some type of network where there are home bases (not time shares), but some network of homes away from home that allows people to cooperate and share.

Any advice for women who are considering moving abroad on their own?

Do it, absolutely.

Start weaning now, start letting go of stuff. But if you’re coming to Thailand, know that sizes here are smaller. For example, it’s hard to buy a bra here, so bring those with you!

Get your affairs in order as far as end-of-life stuff. That was part of the process in the Zen hospice care training; we did our own end-of-life planning. That there’s a sense of freedom that comes when all of that is done!

The logistics stuff is easy to Google. Plus you’ve got Google Maps, translator apps, currency converter apps, which make it so much easier to go somewhere alone and feel safe.

So do your research, but don’t get stuck in 50 years of planning! There’s only so much research you can do.

Where to find Deb

Coach for Life@DebLinehan

So, dear reader:
How might your work
enable you to move to abroad?

Working abroad in Bogotá: It’s not all salsa dancing

This interview touches on the longing for home and human connection. It’s a reality check for anyone who thinks that working abroad is easy.

Sheila has been in Bogotá, Columbia, for about seven months, working for the U.S. government. Before Bogotá, she worked in Nairobi, Frankfurt, and was briefly in Tokyo. Her work takes her to different countries, so she travels a lot within the region.


Where is home for you?

I grew up near Chicago and spent summers in Wisconsin. I spent nearly 20 years in the Pacific Northwest. Home for me is the Pacific Northwest or northern Wisconsin or even Washington, DC.

Before applying for this job, I’d never even considered moving abroad. I don’t think I fully understood what I was getting into. But I went ahead and signed up, when I was 40.

I do feel like, a lot of the time I’m living abroad, I’m biding my time until I go home. I’m a nester. I love creating a home. Not everybody likes to be tied down by a house. I’m so envious of people who don’t have that need, but I need to be anchored. I like having something to go back to, so I do have property back in the States.

Quote: I'm not going out salsa dancing every night. I'm more likely making salad, hanging out with my dog, and going to sleep early.What’s your daily life like?

I travel a lot for work, but when I’m in town, my lifestyle is very routine. I normally work 9 to 10 hours a day plus commute. I enjoy my job, and especially the local staff I work with, but I don’t really socialize with people from work.

I really enjoy the low-key downtime in my house. I’m not going out salsa dancing every night; I’m  more likely making salad, hanging out with my dog, and going to sleep early.

How’s your Spanish?

I can get by in Spanish. My employer gave me some “diplomatic Spanish” lessons. I try to watch Spanish TV or English TV with Spanish subtitles.

When you’re younger and traveling, you have a lot of the same conversations over and over. Like where are you from, where have you traveled, what do you like to do for fun, that kind of thing. But as an adult, you have responsibilities, like managing a house. Here, I’m talking to the plumber or the dog sitter in Spanish, or explaining to the electrician that I want him to replace the electrical boxes. You don’t get that kind of language training and vocabulary in school.

What are some other challenges you’re facing now?

Quote: My trifecta for happiness is community, personal, and professional.When I’m in the States, I have a lot of social connections and social anchors. What’s missing for me now is the soul connection. Here, I don’t have that go-to person to call up and say, “Hey let’s go out dancing!”

My trifecta for happiness is community, personal, and professional. It seems like I’ve been able to get two out of three, but not all. In Nairobi I had two: a great job and community. In Columbia, I have just one: a great job, but no community. Plus, my love life has taken a big hit!

I was delusional in thinking that living overseas would be how it was when I was younger. When you’re in your 50s and traveling for work, you’re wearing business clothes, you’re carrying your laptop. There are few instances of randomly meeting people like there were when I was traveling in my 20s with a backpack and staying in hostels.

I try not to look at my old life with rose-colored glasses. But my stay in Columbia has been very hard. Every day I think, “Why am I doing this?” I’m going to decide by December if I’m going to extend my stay. If I don’t get a better feel for the community, then I won’t extend my stay here. It’s not worth it; human connection is too important.

My feeling is, if it’s not working for you, it’s not a failure if you leave. If your needs are not being met, you should move on.

Here in Bogotá, it’s been an exceptionally hard time building a community. In Nairobi, I stepped off the plane and it happened for me socially. Finding some sort of informal network or getting involved in the community gets very difficult when you’re working all the time.

When I lived in DC, there was a bar not far from my home where I’d go have a drink; I’d usually meet someone to have a chat with. Here in Columbia, just going into a bar and starting a conversation with someone random, you don’t do that. (My 25-year-old colleagues might have a different perception.)

How have you tried to make connections with other people?

I do a lot of sports. I cycle, so I’ve met people through biking. I go on weekend bike rides when I’m out of the city. I’ve played ultimate frisbee in 25 counties, but for some reason getting into it here has been really difficult. Maybe because the communication is online and I haven’t figure out the digital communities yet.

My dog is a fat, brown Kenyan dog. Having a dog helps  with meeting people. People come up to me all the time; I’m constantly having conversations with people thanks to my dog.

I can’t say that all of my reaching out here has reaped rewards. In the expat community there are events, I find those to be challenging. When I tried to reach out to expats here, I got no responses. What helps is that there’s a new crop of people coming in at my work.

Here it’s easier to hang with locals, Columbian warm and friendly and awesome but still, people around our age have their families. They tend to do things in groups; Americans are more used to being alone.

Introverts are comfortable being alone, so if you’re introverted, you might be fine without a strong community around you. But  if you’re an extrovert, you might miss people more. As you’re thinking of moving abroad make sure you find a way to connect with people back home regularly. I spend a lot more time online here, connecting with people digitally.

It sounds tough. What are some things you like best about your life in Bogotá?

Chorro de Quevedo in La Candelaria, Bogota, Columbia

Chorro de Quevedo in La Candelaria, Bogota. Photo credit: Pedro Szekely

I’m grateful for the material benefits. I have financial security. I live in a beautiful apartment with 50 feet of windows facing the mountains.

I enjoy the warm Colombian people, and the weather that’s never too cold, never too hot.

The service industry is huge here. You can pretty much get anything delivered, which is key with the traffic here. I have household help. Having a housekeeper enables me to go to Pilates a few times as week without feeling guilty about leaving my dog.

What advice do you have for women who are thinking about moving abroad?

Don’t move abroad to escape.

Also, figure out what gives you the most happiest and make sure you have that in your life. Every time I go biking I’m really happy.

If you’re moving to a large city, make sure you live in a neighborhood where the things you like to do are available and easy to get to. When you’re younger, you have more energy to go out and be social on the off-chance that you meet someone you want to be friends with. Now you don’t always have the energy anymore to cross town after work. So make sure you’re living in the right area of town for your interests.

You have to get over any ageism. You might be hanging out with people in their 20s or people in their 60s. If it doesn’t already exist, the cooking club or the book club, be prepared to be the one who creates it.


While Sheila’s current post is challenging, there are at least two mitigating factors: Because she works with other people, she’s in daily contact with others face-to-face. Also, her job gives her the option of transferring somewhere where she might have better luck building a social life.

This leads me to wonder how expats who work alone as freelancers and consultants manage to build thriving social lives. Watch this space….

So, dear reader:
Do you worry about being lonely abroad?
What are doing now to build your village?