Follow along next week as I travel to Guatemala City, Guatemala then take a bus between and around volcanoes as I travel to Tapachula, Mexico and explore the beautiful Mexican state of Chiapas.
I will visit with former students and visit schools where they are teaching English.
Many pictures and posts to come.
A few weeks ago , I wrote about how the travel bug bit me. Reflecting on that article, I realized that I may have left out a key piece of what started the burning urge to travel inside of me.
As a young kid, I grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. Pontiac is a suburb of Detroit with just about the same amount of problems. There is a high crime rate, a lot of gangs, a lot of drugs, and a lot of hopelessness.
When I was in school there, we never really addressed world geography and especially never talked about traveling the world. I feel that the schools there didn’t want to instill a false sense of hope in its students.
Continue reading What Lit My Traveling Fire
I was in my home country, fresh off of college graduation. I was wide-eyed and ready to go. I moved around within the country, trying to find work. It wasn’t going well. I was spending time on my cousin’s couch and then, later, at my aunt’s house in her spare room. I was desperately looking for work. I was willing to accept any position that came to me. I was applying everywhere. The problem with having a degree and applying for a low skill job is that they know you will not be a long-term employee. So, in turn, I wasn’t hiring material to low-level positions. Also, I did not have as much experience as other people who were out of work and applying for the same positions I was applying for.
You see, in my country, in 2010, there was an economic free-fall. We were involved in two wars. The markets had crashed. Unemployment skyrocketed. Fuel prices were driving up the cost of living and I was getting desperate. So, I began to look outside of my country. It didn’t take long to see greener pastures in a foreign land. The opportunities seemed bountiful. I was sold. Continue reading Life As an Illegal Migrant Worker
Worldwide Huff 