Episode 2 shows and suggests how challenging it was to find jobs after we landed.  I wanted to clarify one of the crucial reasons why the process was so difficult and why it pummeled our morale.

Usually, getting jobs is supposed to be fairly simple – show up to a school, make a year-long commitment, and bam! you’re in the classroom dishing out some English and raking in some money.  Most ESL markets are afflicted with some teacher-school antagonism.  Schools change schedules, pay late (or not at all), and can just generally puppet teachers around.  Teachers have an unfortunate habit of disappearing before their contract is up, often without warning, and mysteriously just after payday.  Needless to say, it’s a bit of an unstable environment, and generally, it’s the students who lose.

The job search could have been much easier if we had just folded ourselves into this vicious cycle, taught for 3 months, and split for the next country.  However, I think that would have been disrespectful and dishonest, and this isn’t the message we want to give about traveling.  So it was agonizing to explain that we are only here for 3 months – in almost every interview, that prompted an “Ok, great, well we might have some classes opening soon, and if we do, I’ll give you a call…”

The job search was frustrating for many reasons, but this was one of the biggest.  It’s a principle we chose to stick to, and it didn’t come without cost.  At the end of the day, however, it’s more accurate to the story we’re trying to create and the message we’re trying to tell.