The beginning

A few months ago my husband and I decided that "a normal life" just wasn't for us. We could no longer see ourselves living in the house we had just bought, while collecting things we supposedly needed to furnish it, and continuing with jobs we kept only to be able to buy those things we didn't even need. We wanted something different, something more. There was a craving for adventure, travel and anything as far from the ordinary as possible that could no longer be ignored.

I'm sure many of you can resonate with this and it can often be identified as the need for change. My experience is that this need for change can easily be satisfied by upgrading your car, moving to a bigger house, buying a new wardrobe, switching to a higher paying job. And there isn't anything wrong with that if that's what makes you happy.  Dylan and I just couldn't see us living that life, the one where you work yourself dead to pay for all the materialist things you think will make you happy only to find out too late that you should have just done what makes you happy in the first place.

It takes time and experience to figure out what truly makes you happy and of course, it is forever changing and developing. I've found that it is best to be specific about what you want out of life. If you don't, life gives you everything and anything until you are able to narrow it down. We learned this the hard way. We both wanted to travel more and so naturally I would teach overseas while Dylan continued with his photography. Where did we want to go? No idea. What kind of situation did I want to be in? No idea. What did we need to earn to survive? I don't know. So naturally life helped me eliminate the things that I didn't want. This also meant that I had to experience them in order to find out it wasn't for me! I would check for overseas teaching jobs every day while working one here in my own country. We had decided that Asia would be best because we had done a lot of travelling over there previously and costs of living were low. There were hundreds: Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, and places I had never even heard of. I was overwhelmed and gave up quickly because I just couldn't make up my mind and lets face it, it was scary. I continued teaching here and struggled through it only to decide it was definitely not the kind of teaching job I wanted. But how could I just quit without knowing what came next?

This battle lasted seven months. Seven months. I gained so much experience in teaching and I really learned so much about myself that I really wouldn't change it for the world. But I now knew that I needed the change. I wanted a more simple life where I was living rather than running around like a headless chicken trying to get things done. I wanted to be conscious and purposeful and have time for all the things I enjoyed instead of wasting time walking around a mall looking for things to buy. I wanted to get down to the basics and teach the things I loved with passion. I resigned from my job with the intention to stay until the end of the year - I didn't want to leave my precious children before the year was over. Dylan and I would sell everything we owned and travel for a few months until I found a teaching job I wanted. This was extremely hard for me - not knowing how everything was just going to work out. But I trusted that they would and I was desperate enough to go with it.

The day I resigned from my current teaching job I came across a link for Teach in Bhutan. I had never heard of the country before but it was the first job I had seen that began in January 2015 (most schools begin in August in Asia). I filled out the application on impulse and hadn't even mentioned it to Dylan until I received an email asking for the first interview. Moving to Bhutan would mean I would only be teaching English which is what I am most passionate about, we would live in a village among the Bhutanese people rather than an urban city, we would have very basic living conditions and Dylan could continue with his adventure/sports photography in the Himalayan Mountains. I would not be earning much by any standard but we would be able to eat and survive off my salary which is all we needed. And by this stage we had really given up on the thought that money could ever make you happy.

It sounds like a dream come true and it really is for us, but it did not come easy. I really believe that if you truly want something, life is going to test you just to make sure you want it bad enough. These are the challenges we have faced and overcome so far (please note that this is two months before we leave so I might need to add to the list!):

1. My first skype interview for Teach in Bhutan went really well and I was positive that I aced it. The second interview went horribly! I was asked a series of questions about English language teaching and I had not heard of any of the concepts. I wasn't able to answer a single one. No seriously - I didn't answer a single one. But I killed them with enthusiasm and my willingness to learn. 
2. Dylan and I had recently married and my passport still had my maiden name. In South Africa this can take a really long time so I applied as soon as I knew I had passed the second interview and got it in two weeks!!
3. Waiting to hear if you have been accepted into the next phase for teaching in Bhutan can take a long time and can be very frustrating because you just want to know if you are going!
4. Realizing we are going to be leaving all of our family and friends behind is hard. My working visa allows two visitors to come visit us per year without paying the tourist visa fee so my parents are planning to come next September. 
5. There are many expenses that you need to pay for before you can go to Bhutan, especially because there are two of us. We've been saving like mad.
   
6. We have a lot of stuff that we cannot take with us and we really don't know if we will come back to South Africa which means its a whole lot of stuff to get rid of. We've managed to sell most of it but, if you live in Cape Town and are looking for a fridge - let us know!
7. We only have a 20kg baggage allowance. A years worth of things you will need in a foreign country which doesn't have much needs to weigh 20kg. 
8. Dylan's camera and lenses weigh 15kg. I don't know why this is on the list because it hasn't been overcome yet.
9. Apparently my luggage at present weighs 8kg and he thinks he can use some of my weight. Nope. Challenge overcome.