From Canada To Costa Rica - Here Is My Story

My name is Madame Karine. I am a French immersion teacher from Calgary, living in Costa Rica with my family.

Back in my early years of teaching, a parent told me she was planning to take her kids out of school for a year to travel the world. ‘I want to rock their world a bit,’ was how she put it. I remember thinking that, THAT, was a brilliant idea. When I have kids, I want to do the same.

And so, 20 years later, I did.

Family memories from our world trip

We decided to visit 3 parts of the world:

Europe, South East Asia and Central America. In 2017-2018 we had saved our money, rented our house and applied for a year sabbatical. Instead of ‘Eat, pray, Love’, for us; it was ‘Discover, Experience, Live’.

Our kids were at the perfect ages of 10 and 7 years old; curious, eager for adventure and my favorite: still loved being with their parents.

Our first 6 months of the journey was full on traveling. We took planes, trains, buses, cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, bikes and walked….a lot!!! We were on the move; visiting various landscapes, trying different foods, taking in beautiful art, architecture, monuments, ruins and colourful cultures. We listened to many languages and smelled the spices of life all around. It was expansive on all levels. All our senses were alive.

We homeschooled

We homeschooled through visiting museums, looking at maps, studying diverse ecosystems, learning different languages, drawing the sights, journaling our days, writing postcards and adding up our expenditures. Never a dull moment.

It wasn’t always a walk in the park though.

Traveling together means being together most of the time; unlike regular home routines where everyone has their own little things going on. Teaching your own child isn’t always the easiest task. Yet, through tons of card playing, games, walking, long bus rides, heavy luggage lugging and mishaps/adventures, we all sincerely loved it.

I got to see sides of our children I didn’t even know existed.

We experienced so much together and I got to see sides of our children I didn’t even know existed. Although I had been a stay-at-home mom, there were sides of my kids I had never seen before and wouldn’t of observed if it hadn’t been for this trip.

When you travel; situations, trials and incidents happen and everyone has to deal. Right there….in the moment. Of course, we all handle things differently. Watching my kids during these times was the most intriguing. They are also evolving beings, that are taking it all in from their perspective…which also means reacting from that place.

Costa Rica won our hearts

The last 4 months; we decided to spend in Costa Rica; specifically Playa Sámara. We wanted to test “could we live here?”.

Within a month of being in Playa Sámara; we met people and discovered a little French school that had just opened. The kids loved it and so our little ‘pretend life’ here came to be. The next 4 months we flowed into a routine here; the kids went to school, I did my yoga and daily beach walks, my husband and son surfed and my daughter started Acro scarf classes.

4 months was just, not long enough.

After 4 months of paradise living, we returned to our ‘real life’ and home in Calgary. The kids went back to school, my husband was back at work and I decided to go back into the classroom after having done 8 years as a ‘stay-at-home’ mom and private French

tutor. My intention though was that we need to figure out financially how to go back to our beautiful ‘pretend life’ and spend a whole year there.

Low and behold, I subbed a few weeks and then landed a temporary contract until the end of the year. It was a position as a grade one teacher at a Francophone school. Something I had piles of experience in. As I worked full time, I also continued my tutoring business.

We made extra money and my husband’s job agreed to another leave for a year (this time unpaid, obviously). The same lovely family that had rented our home wanted to rent it again.

Everything aligned perfectly…and so, it was meant to be.

The kids and I were thrilled to go back to the little French school. I worked there part time; while also doing private tutoring and other fun jobs on the side. These included making jewelry and selling food at the local market. My husband worked on our house and built a little guest suite on our property. Our life was looking more and more real each day…and it was wonderful.

Then COVID hit, and here we were.

Our experience in Costa Rica was quite different than what I was hearing about abroad.

There was definitely uncertainty about everything going on, but no feelings of deep fear were felt. We were fortunate that life here is mainly outdoors. Being in a place like this gave us the opportunity to step back and observe all that was happening verses being in the thick of it. For that, we felt so grateful to be where we were.

When we returned to Canada, we realized our hearts were still in Costa Rica. If there

was anything that COVID had taught me was that we need to live in the NOW. We don’t

know what the future holds. The present is all we truly have.

My private tutoring was already mostly online at this point which was perfect to do from anywhere. Within 6 months back, we sold our home in Calgary and came back to what now became our ‘new life’….or at least ‘new journey’…. for NOW.