A New Chapter

It began with the only family we had a relationship with in Ruwais deciding they were going to leave after this school year for a position somewhere else. As Ruwais is a little isolated and insular in some ways, it takes time to develop relationships and between work, life and not much to do, we just hadn't been around a lot of other people at that point. This, combined with several other reasons:
-Our children are getting older, and we want them to learn another Romance language more naturally from immersion in the culture.
-The weight of the artificial feel of things created and placed in a desert environment and
-The difficulty we've noticed people having of staying healthy here (along with other things) all combined in a decision to find a new position at the end of this contract.

I love what we have learned from this culture. I respect the people and their amazing hospitality. I appreciate the ways they have created awe-inspiring things in the desert. I am blessed to have met Muslims who very firmly believe in peace and who are trying to show the world that the terrorists you read about are not the only Muslims. I will miss with a vengeance the beautiful expats who reached out to me when I was pregnant and without support in a new place. It has been so nice to get to learn about the cultures of people from countries we haven't been in contact with before: Philippines, South Africa, UK, Holland, Nigeria, Ireland, Jordan, Egypt, India...The people are the best part of the desert.

However, we will definitely come away with a new appreciation for living green things.

(The punchline: The family who originally inspired us to start looking for a new position, will probably stay here for next year after all.)

Another "Unscripted" Part of Our Saga: Goodbye for now Guatemala...

When we moved to Guatemala, we weren't sure if it would be a permanent move or not. We knew we wanted to continue to live abroad after our contract ended, but Guatemala, specifically, was not our end destination. We value 3 main things for our family:
1) Our faith.
2) Our own little family and the values that hold it together and,
3) Freedom; in many things- including the ability to be flexible in deciding where our next destination will be.

Because of #3, my husband has been building his online businesses for awhile, and when our contract was up with the international school in Guatemala, we could stay or leave, whichever. We had a wonderful midwife in Guatemala who we were looking forward to delivering with in December. However, Guatemalan bureaucracy and the uncertainty of the length of time it would take to get the paperwork to leave the country after the baby were born really made our decision, since it limited flexibility in choosing our next step.

We decided to have the baby in the States, where paperwork is a bit more reliable and citizenship not so tricky. I have another amazing midwife here. And, we are excited about figuring out the next step in our family saga, with our new addition! Who knows which country we'll end up in next, but I know we'll learn just as much or more as Guatemala taught us! I plan to continue posting things I learned from Guatemala, or find interesting and, when we make our next move, posting about all of the new things we are sure to learn there.

I suppose the part of this transition that makes it feel more "unscripted" than others is the amazing blessing of flexibility and choices we have available. We're so blessed to be able to move quickly when we need to. It was a hectic couple of weeks, but a successful transition.

Here's to adventure and the next step in our saga, which, at the moment, is still "unscripted."