 My name is Judy Byron. I am the adult program coordinator, and I am so happy to see you. I'm happy that Barb is here. She is a season traveler. I met her a couple of months ago when she said, I've got something for you. And she's been around the world more times than you can shake a stick at. She's traveled to, I'm not even going to name all the countries that are probably in here. She is a seasoned teacher. She's taught 17 years internationally in sixth year in Vermont. She's done, she's pioneered in international schools. She's trained international teachers in English. She's collaborated with the US Embassy. And that's just for starters. So it is my pleasure to welcome Barb Reynolds. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks for that nice introduction. Anyway, I have been fortunate to have a job where I can go over season work. I started my career in Vermont as a special ed teacher after getting my degree at St. Mike's. And I thought that sharing information about travel and culture would be interesting, because so many people ask me about it whenever I come back to the States after a while. And a lot of teachers that I want to know what they can do once they retire from teaching. And traveling and culture doesn't really matter your age. You've got some sort of skill set, whether you're a teacher or not, that you can take overseas if you're interested in going overseas. There's plenty of sites where you can access that. Anyway, this first slide, travel and culture, the world is definitely your teacher. I am enriched by all the experiences I have had abroad. And I've learned so much. And I have a hard time measuring that. So this slide presentation is kind of a visual representation of some of that. So can we go to the next slide, please? We can go to the next slide. So these pictures here, this is just a smattering of some of the places I've been. This is Vietnam. My most recent latest, I was there for three years, from 2014 to 2017. I started my teaching career in Greece. That's the Acropolis. This is Vietnam, the Chinese, the Tet New Year. This is in Cambodia and these are the snow monkeys in Japan. So that's just some of the places I've been to. I've traveled to 52 different countries in my travels around the world. Next slide, please. I started my career owning a plant business in Waterbury. And I ran this plant business on the corner where the feed bag used to be. And I would open my plant business Mother's Day weekend and I was out there till the middle of June. And after that, I would landscape all the local places in Waterbury, Rusty Park Park, the elderly happening project. So that's why this slide is in there. That's the Van Gogh exhibition that was up in Montreal a few weeks ago. Next slide, please. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about how I got started on my journey. I was working in Vermont. I got my degree at St. Mike's in special ed. And there was a couple there I was working with. I was working in Heinsberg, a couple in the district. And they were on their way to an interview in Boston for a job in Greece. I'm like, what? You going to Greece? Wait a minute. I said, I'm going to come after I finished my master's to Greece. So hold the position for me. And I'll let you know when I'm done with my master's. Next slide, please. So I went to Greece. This is my kumbhara. And then she is sort of my meat of honor at my wedding. She was also my Greek language teacher. That's my husband, Peter, who's from New Hampshire. He came over the second year I was there. And because we met in Greece, we decided he wanted to get married. And I'm like, oh, OK. If we get married, it's going to be on the island of Santorini in Greece. So we had a wedding there. That's such a pity. Such a pity. I mean, there's so many beautiful Greek islands. We decided to go to that one. And that's where we got married. So then from there, next slide, please, we went to Sri Lanka and spent two years there. And those slides there on the top slide, they have these mahoots that take the elephants down to the river and wash them. And they're responsible for that. And this is environmentally fine. They're not abusing the animals like they are now. Back then, that was their job. They were responsible for these elephants. While we were in Sri Lanka, a friend of mine got married and invited me to a Sri Lankan wedding. So that's what this picture is. And then I decided to throw in where the food comes straight out of the jungle, the bananas, into the market. And that's about as fresh as you're going to get for bananas. And the reason that last slide is next to the bananas is because my husband was coaching basketball. And they had a basketball court in Sri Lanka that was open air. And the monkeys would come down from the jungle and hang out up in the rafters and watch the kids dribble the ball back and forth up the court. And it was so funny. So that's why that picture's there. So after Sri Lanka, I went to Columbia, but I didn't put that slide in because I was only there for a year. And that was a tough time in Columbia. That's when the FARC was running around. There was lots of drugs. And we didn't last long there. Anyway, my husband is a middle school math teacher, or was a middle school math teacher working in Essex. So we were sort of this traveling show. We would go to different places. But he decided after Columbia that he wanted to stay in the states. So he stayed in the states. And I was hired by the State Department through the School for International Training down in Brattleboro to go teach English as a foreign language and do some teacher training. And it was a 10-month contract. So I went to Romania for 10 months on my own and worked with the Ministry of Education in Romania and the US State Department. And while I was there, I trained 75 Romanian teachers of English and English language methodologies. And the interesting thing about Romania back then is there's this subculture in Romania called the Romans. And they are a subculture. And this guy is the king of the gypsies. They're called gypsies. And he sort of, it's kind of like a subculture where you pay dues to the king of the gypsies and you're part of their organization. And this tie that he's wearing is gold, by the way. Oh, my gosh. And you can see he's got rings on and also gold. So the king of the gypsies, I was fortunate to get to meet him because one of the districts that I was doing teacher training in, he was living in. So I said to this lead teacher, I go, you've got to take me to meet this guy. I have to see what he's all about. So I went and met him. And actually, back then, this is how a lot of the Romans get around. And this was in 2003, 2004 in horse-cared wagons. And they live in these, and they're very, they're gypsies. So they move around and they work picking vegetables and things like that. Do you have a facility with different languages? No. I usually can learn the basics when I'm traveling. I would say out of all the places I've been, the language that I know the best is Greek because I'm an incredible language teacher. In Romania, I didn't have a language teacher, but my background, my grandparents, Romanian, married to a Turk, the other grandparent, Russian, married to a Polish woman. So when I went to Romania, I sort of fit in. And I didn't really need to learn the language because people would talk to me anyway. And so I learned the basics. What time is it? What's your name? But because all of these, these were the teachers I trained. This is one group of teachers I trained. They all spoke pretty good English. And so I would spend 10 weeks going to three different districts, training teachers, and then modeling, going to their schools and modeling what we learned in the training in their classrooms. And that was the most fun job ever. It was really fun. Next slide, please. So does anybody, John, do you know where Astana is? Take a guess. Where do you think Astana is? Yes. Mr. Eur? You should. You're getting warmer. Anyway, after we went to, after I came back from Romania, my husband had finally decided he was done with public school too. And we went to a teacher recruitment fair. And there was an organization that were called Quality Schools International. And because I had my master's in education, the guy who ran this organization was like, I need a directive for a new school that I'm opening up in Astana, Kazakhstan. And would you be interested? And I'm thinking to myself, I don't even know where that is. So I had to go home and look it up on a map, because I didn't really know where Kazakhstan was. So we clearly took the job. There was no school there. All they had was a house. And they wanted us to transform this villa into a school. And they wanted us to live there too. And I said, I don't live where I work. Sorry. Anyway, we opened up the school with five students. And this organization had their own curriculum. They shipped the curriculum overseas to Kazakhstan and then had it trucked up to where we were in Astana. So we opened the school first year with five students. Fortunately, because we were connected with the US Embassy, the community liaison officer, who was part who's like the second in command at the embassy, his wife was a retired kindergarten teacher from Virginia. And she had just retired and shipped her container full of teaching materials as part of her shipment to Kazakhstan. So we had the best outfitted kindergarten. She brought all her teaching materials with her. So that helped to supplement and open up the school. So we started this school. So we get to Astana. And the one thing they hired was they hired security to keep the riffraff out of the building before we got there. They hired a translator for me, because I certainly didn't speak Kazakh and Russian, which is the two languages that they spoke there. So first, I had to hire a bookkeeper. And now that I had a translator, that worked out because the bookkeeper shows up because there used to be a communist country, Kazakhstan, with like every work visa she ever had. She was older. She was probably in her 50s. And so I hired her. And then I had to work out getting certified to open from the Ministry of Education in Astana, Kazakhstan. So I kept sending my translator and my bookkeeper to the Ministry of Education. And this woman kept sending them back. So finally I said, that's it. Get in the car. We're going over there. So we go over there. And at that particular time, George Bush was the president. And the president of Kazakhstan just happened to be visiting the United States of America. And it was on the TV in her office. So I walked in, and she didn't speak any English. And she was like, uh-oh. I go, look, I'm trying to open a school in your town. And you keep sending my people back to me and telling them no. I said, and I'm not leaving until you give me the correct paperwork so we can open the end of August. And she's like, oh. I said, yeah, oh. I go, look at the TV. Isn't that your president? Oh, yeah. Well, he's visiting my president. So I'm not leaving until I have the paperwork. And I sat down. And my bookkeeper, who spoke no English, is like, oh, she can't even believe it. And my translator, same thing. She was quiet till. And so back then, what they would do is they would make you fill out all this paperwork. And then if you didn't do it the right way, they rip it up and throw it out and make you buy another one. And I'm like, no more paperwork. I grabbed the she had whiteout on her desk. They go, we're going to borrow this whiteout. We're not buying any more paper. And you tell me what goes in each box. Because I'm not leaving until the job is done. And eventually, in about an hour, we got the correct paperwork. And we walk out of there. And my bookkeeper, who spoke no English, just burst out laughing. She goes, I've never seen anything like that before. I said, hey, I have a school to get out of. And that's a big responsibility. I take my job seriously. So we did get the paperwork. We opened the school. In between all of that, we had to find somebody to make us desks. Because there were no, I said to my assistant, my translator, I go, where do you buy desks in this town? She goes, desks. I go, yeah, school desks. So it's my husband. He was kind of, he had carpentry skills. And we measured for small kids, middle-sized kids, and big kids. And we needed a few desks for each one of them. Sure enough, we found a guy. We drove from the town. We found a guy who had a workshop, where his door was open. So I walked in. I'm like, hey, I need some desks. And I need them by August 30. It was like a week before school started to open. I don't have any furniture. And he's like, well, I'll try. I'm like, no. You have to have them done. I'll pay upfront, as long as you deliver them by this day. Money talks. Money is like the talks everywhere. So I had my desks. We opened the school on time. And that was the story with Astana. So after the first year, we had some pretty important Kazakhstan-y parents that enrolled their kids in our school because their kids didn't really fit anywhere else. And one of them was the number one wheat exporter for the entire country. And so they start talking to people. Next thing, we had to move to a different villa because our population went up to 30, from 5 to 30 the second year. So we had to find another spot and relocate. Fortunately, the US Embassy had a satellite embassy in Astana. And they were moving into a bigger facility because they were built in a new facility. So the ambassador calls me up and he goes, listen, we're moving. You want any furniture? You come over right now, bring a sticky note, and just put your name on whatever you want. You can have anything in the building. Whoa, it's like Christmas. So we went over there. He goes, look, we're on the sixth floor. You figure out how you're going to get it down in the elevator and to the school. I said, OK. So we were able to move to another villa courtesy of the consulate embassy. And he was happy to give us furniture. And he was very supportive. So that was the other reason. If you have good people on the ground, good translators, you don't really need to speak English. But you do need translation and learning the culture when you're there. Very interesting culture in Kazakhstan. How did you do your initial recruiting of the kids? I would say when we opened, whoever wanted to pay tuition, was it through the embassy or through your company? They would come into the school and register, actually. So then, same company. Now, Kazakhstan's a very cold place. The sun could be out, the sky could be blue, and it's negative 30. And it just, so we use that as our teaching tool for the kindergartners. Go read the thermometer. What does the thermometer say? And that's how they learn their numbers. They also had an ice village that they built in the center of town starting in November. And it didn't melt until April, where they created the Eiffel Tower out of these bricks of ice. Impressive. I don't have any pictures of that, sorry. So anyway, two years in a sun, really, really cold, then this company says, how would you like to go to East Timor? John, do you know where East Timor is? I think. Where's East Timor? Judy wants it. I want it. It's in the Polynesian island. Am I right? Indonesian. Indonesian. Sorry, it's in the South Pacific somewhere. Anyway, you have to, so I thought warm weather, I'll go. So they asked me if we would go to the school and expand it because they were in the next phase and we'd already done the expansion at that school. So we went to East Timor. And to get to East Timor, you had to fly through Bali to get to East Timor. Now, Australia's up over here. That's where Darwin is. As the crowd flies, it's closer to Australia than it is to anything else. But Indonesia owned East Timor and decided they didn't want it anymore. So they sort of gave it back to the Timorese and gave them democracy. Now, this is a country that was ruled with iron fist, so they had no idea what democracy was. So the United Nations was on the ground there. The Australian National Defense Force was on the ground there. There were tanks on the ground there. They were like, what have we gotten into? So yeah, so we went there. It was like the wild, wild West in East Timor. But it was a lot of fun. And we lived right on the beach and kept the school going. And while we were there, interestingly enough, transitioning into this new democracy, the president that they put in power was out jogging one day. And somebody tried to assassinate. And the assassinator got shot and killed by his security detail. And don't you know that where the sky lived was right near where the school was. So we had to close the school down during the funeral because it wasn't proper or respectful to keep it open until the sky's funeral was finished. And these kids were from all over the place. This little group of kids. There was Australian kids. I had some really great Filipino staff. There was an American teacher there. But the kids were from all over the place. And as you can see, varied ages too. So yeah, so that was the experience there. Next slide, please. And then, let's see, from East Timor, we went to Norma American College in Cairo, Egypt. And what's the famous structures in Egypt called? You're pretty famous. You can't see them anywhere else in the world? Germans. Yeah, yeah, Germans. Oh, yeah. So anyway, we went to Egypt. I went as the principal of this elementary school called Norma American College. I went from kindergarten up until grade 12. This is some of my staff below. We kind of went on these little excursions to the desert and messed around just to maintain our sanity. Because I don't know if you've ever been to Egypt, but it's kind of a crazy place. And they have amazing hieroglyphics, and we had a lot of fun in Egypt, a lot of fun. In fact, here's an interesting story. About two weeks ago, I had to go to the periodontist in South Burlington. And I see this guy's name. I'm like, that looks Egyptian. I looked the guy up, and sure enough, he's Egyptian. I go to meet him, and I said, so you're Egyptian, huh? He goes, yeah. I go, where are you from in Egypt? He goes, well, I graduated from Norma American College. I'm like, are you kidding? He's like, no. I said, well, I used to teach there. I was the principal in the elementary school, so you never know where you've been running to. Did you still have a boyfriend there? Yeah, I'm like, is this safe? Well, he graduated from that school. He went to dental school in Egypt, and then he went to Tufts University in Boston. So I think once I heard that story, I'm like, yeah, I guess you can work on it. But the hygienist that was with him in the office, she was like, how do you two know each other? Yeah. She used to work at my school. I go, yeah, you know that family that owned that school? He goes, yeah, my dad took my younger sister out of there because the education kind of was going downhill. I said, yeah, I'm not surprised. Anyway, just that kind of connections that you make with people. You know, we're all sort of attached globally, is all I could say. One photograph on the bottom, is that kind of sandstone or something that's eroded away? That's in the white desert in Egypt. Yeah. Yep. It's really impressive. And there's all sorts of fossils and all sorts of things in there. And gems, I have a few of them at my house, and I have to say I brought some back with me. But yeah, Egypt's a pretty remarkable place. There's so much history, and they're still discovering stuff now, even now. They've recently discovered some stuff in Luxor, which is 4,400 years old still. So you never know. The grave robbers haven't stolen everything in Egypt yet. So that's a good thing. I definitely recommend Egypt. It's kind of calm down now. It's probably okay to go there. In fact, when I was there, Obama came for a visit, and it was such a big deal. The Egyptians were so happy when he showed up, and they transformed the market. His face was on the swing, in front of the pyramids, I mean, everything Obama. And the Egyptians were really pleased that he showed up there for a visit. So that was kind of fun, too. That's why. So from Egypt, I had a phone interview from a guy called me, and he says, I need somebody to come to Qatar in Doha, in the Middle East, to start a gifted and talented program. Would you be interested? And I said, well, what kind of budget do you have? Because most of the time when people want to start those kind of programs, there's no money. Well, not in the Middle East. There's tons of money. So I said, oh, that kind of budget. He goes, but the budget you have, you can start a whole school. I said, I'll take the job. So then I went to Doha and worked there for five years as a gifted and talented coordinator, and developed a gifted and talented program in a Muslim country, which was pretty unheard of, actually. And I also developed a scholarship program and took some cuttery kids to Carnegie Mellon in Philadelphia in the summertime for their gifted and talented program. So that was part of the deal for the first few years. They since have canceled that program and also started working with Johns Hopkins University after Carnegie Mellon stopped their program. I also started working with mentors from, we had some really smart kids that weren't a cutaries, but were from other countries that were raised in Doha, Indians especially, the best Indian food ever in Qatar. Oh my God, better than going to India. So that specific student would come and mentor my gifted and talented kids and taught them how to program robotics and that sort of thing. And boys and girls? The boys and girls, except, yeah. And the other thing that I introduced into that school which was very funny, and I just reconnected with that person too, is there was this bunch of Egyptian guys living there who were into break dancing and rapping and all of that stuff, but they needed a place to practice. So I saw them in a shopping mall and I said, you guys are great, I'm a teacher. Why don't you come to my school and teach these kids how to dance? He's like, really? Well, if you give us a place to practice, we'll do it for free. But only boys, no girls. So the girls were not happy with me. I'm like, look girls, I'm really sorry, but I don't make the rules around in this Arab country. So sure enough, they did a training with a bunch of boys that were interested in doing it. And at the end of the school year, we had a big assembly and they performed with the kids. It was fantastic. In fact, I just reconnected with that guy on LinkedIn like two weeks ago. This guy, Hakim, who was Egyptian, was now living in the Netherlands. I'm like, are you still dancing? He's like, I am. The crew is in New York City and sometimes I go down there. He's like, he's head of a hotel. He goes, listen, next time we come to New York, you have to come to New York and see the crew and I'll put you up at one of the hotels that I manage and we'll reunite, that would be great. So again, another connection you just never know. So next slide. So this is the most recent job I had in Vietnam. Those two lovely ladies were my secretaries and they kept it together for me while I was there. We also dressed up for Vietnamese New Year for Tet and wore more traditional dress. I almost thought about wearing one of those but it's just too cold outside. It's not made for this kind of weather. Anyway, so I was in Vietnam for three years as the assistant elementary principal. In a school that was about 350 kids in the elementary school, in the whole school, probably about 1,200 kids. Right now this school, there's no kids in the school because of the coronavirus. There, 40% of the kids did not come back after Christmas break because they go on holiday and then this whole thing hit and now they're teaching them electronically on the computers and there's no kids in the school for a moment. So I'm kind of happy I'm not there at the moment. But a wonderful country, Vietnam, fantastic people, beautiful food, I was there for three years, not once. Did anybody say anything to me about the Vietnam War? Nothing, because it was 40 years since the war. Nobody said a word to me about it, not even once. I was really surprised. And they loved Americans there. After what we did to that country, I'm surprised but never encountered that while I was there. Where were you in Vietnam? Guachiman City, formerly known as Saigon, yeah. And the interesting thing about that city is there's these giant trees in the middle of town. I mean, massive, they have beautiful parks and somebody had the sense to, I guess not wrap them because they've been there a long time. But it's craziness. Everybody drives motorcycles and it's noisy and crazy. There's no place as quiet as Vermont, trust me. I know this for sure. Next slide, please. Okay, so then this summer, my former secretary got a scholarship to go study in North America, in Canada. And I hadn't seen her since 2017. And so she came to visit. That picture's Musmetal Lodge. She's up at the tree house, walking around. So she came and stayed with me for 15 days and I went to do reverse American culture with her. I also took her to the Morse farm because she'd never had a maple creamy before. And she's like, this is delicious. And so she stayed with me for 15 days but I need to back up and tell you what she went through. I mean, her parents, she's the only child in her family and her parents were like, you're going to North America? Oh my God. So I volunteered to take her in and be responsible for her while she's here. And they take that very seriously and so do I. So she flew from Vietnam to Toronto and then took the bus from Toronto to Montreal. And I actually had a friend who I worked with in Doha who was living in Montreal and I'm like, you gotta find this girl a place to live. She goes, it's really expensive. I go, don't you have any friends that want to rent out a room or something? So she had a friend, her friend was like, look, in exchange for some cooking and childcare, she can just live with me. I'm like, beautiful. So that happened, which was really good. So she decides she wants to come to Vermont before school starts, which didn't start till the end of August. So she shows up in the middle of July and spent like 15 days with me but she had to take the bus from Montreal. There's a bus that goes to the Burlington International Airport that comes across the border. So all these people in Vietnam were telling her all these horror stories and I'm like, look, I don't know who you're talking to but what you need to do is sit behind the bus driver when you get on the bus and don't talk to anybody, you'll be fine. Well, don't you know that what they do at the border with the way things are right now, they make all the foreigners get off the bus at the border, at Highgate Springs and I'm in Burlington waiting for her. What was that, Graham bus, you know? So they make everybody get off. They put them in this room, shut the door and they start checking everybody's papers and she was the second to last one left back on the bus and at this point she's terrified because these guys get on the bus with police uniforms and this is her first experience in North America, she's terrified. So I'm in my car in Burlington waiting and then I look down on my phone and I see that there's a call that I missed and it's from immigration at Highgate Springs. So I call the number back, I'm like, hello? Oh, this is immigration at Highgate Springs. I'm like, where's my friend Trump? Is she on the bus or not on the bus? He goes, let me check. So he puts the phone down and he goes, 10 minutes and he finally comes back on the phone and he goes, she's back on the bus. She'll be in Burlington in 45 minutes. I'm like, she gets off the bus in Burlington and she is traumatized, seriously traumatized from that experience, let me tell you. So I bring her to my house up on Crosshead Hill and she's like, this is like heaven on earth. And it took her a couple of days to just kind of calm down and I'm like, look, you know? I'm really sorry about that experience but that's a sentiment that's happening right now. I can't do anything about that. How was her English? Her English is perfect. Writing, she worked in this international school that I worked in for eight years. She can write and read perfectly. She converses on the phone. She can go in and out of Vietnamese and English like that. There's nothing wrong with her English, it's perfect. So that was not the issue at all. But there was another woman I guess on the bus that she was sitting next to that had some shaky paperwork that was Japanese and kind of traveling around for six months. They didn't let her get back on the bus. So what are they doing? I don't know. I don't know. So anyway, fast forward. So after 15 days in Vermont, she loves Vermont. She's on the phone with her parents twice a day. Her mother's relieved. She speaks no English. I'm talking to her mother. And she knows my face visually. That's the only way we've met when we met in Vietnam. And she's so relieved that she's at my house and she's safe and fine. So I drive her back to the Burlington Airport to get back on the bus the end of August. She goes back up to Montreal. She's there for, I don't know, maybe two weeks. She decides, you know what? I'm from a very noisy country. She goes, I really like Vermont. It was so quiet. She says, I think I'm gonna transfer to Nova Scotia because it's quieter there and they have an opening and then the accounting program that I wanna take. I'm like, so you're moving to Nova Scotia? She's like, yeah, I am. So I drive up to Montreal to see her before she gets on the bus, 21 hour bus ride or something to get to Nova Scotia. So she's now living in Nova Scotia. And I talk to her weekly. She tells me what's going on. And actually she came, I went home for Christmas to see my mom and she flew to New York and met me down there because she wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. So we went down to New York for Christmas. Said she liked Nova Scotia. It's cold. But the good thing is when she was here for two weeks, all the thrift shops in Vermont are like given away their winter clothes. So a friend of mine who was a retired teacher took her shopping and got her a coat, gave her some boots and we outfitted her with everything she would need to lay her up. But she's getting used to the cold weather. It's an adjustment. And I keep telling her, I think anytime you go anywhere in a foreign country, it takes at least six months to get adjusted to the culture. And I think you really have to spend, my rule of thumb is I just spend the first month or two just kind of observing and watching to see what's going on because you don't wanna make anybody too upset. And certain gestures in this country you can't do in other countries because it's just not, it's offensive. And you don't really know what they are but I always do my research before I move anywhere because I wanna know what they are. For example, when we were in Sri Lanka, like I'm left handed, you don't eat with your left hand. That's like the dirty hand. You're supposed to eat with your right hand but they don't even use utensils there. They sort of move everything on the plate and kind of roll it in a ball and eat with their hands. So you gotta do your homework wherever you're going just to be culturally sensitive. Anyway, next slide. Okay, who can answer this question? Now before you say anything, look at those pictures carefully. There's one topic that every culture has that in common and they wanna know about. What do you think that is? The first family, I guess, and who runs our country? That's nothing to do with politics. Because everybody has one, whatever it looks like. It's about blacks. No? No. Because look at the other picture. No. Family? Family, that's it. Everybody has a family. That's the one universal thing that anybody wants to talk about. In every culture it looks different but that's the one common denominator. And it doesn't really matter where you're from but whenever I travel I always bring photographs because they wanna see what your family looks like. That's the most important thing to any culture. Whether it's Africa, whether it's Southeast Asia, whether it's South America, it doesn't matter. They all wanna know what your family was like especially when I went to Romania and did teacher training I took a photo album with me and every single teacher pawed through that photo album and usually that's what they wanna see. And when they come to your house and visit where's the pictures, right? They wanna see pictures of your family. That's the one thing that's a universal thing. So reasons why you should consider traveling, working and living in another culture. I saw this picture and I'm like, oh yeah, that's going in the slideshow for sure. Next slide please. As I said when I started it's really hard to measure how much you grow as a person and what you learn about the world and cultures and people. I think cultural intelligence is your ability to function and communicate effectively and efficiently even when you don't speak the language. Across cultural barriers is really important and I think it helps to build the pharmacy and understanding in a global world which is where we are. And as a person, your problem solving skills, your troubleshooting, brainstorming, teamwork, they just go up exponentially. And lots of families, teachers that I've come across that raise their kids overseas, when they go back home those kids are way more marketable because they're much more versatile and kids have never left their town, their state or gone anywhere outside of their own little bubble. They're, these kids are much more adaptable and smart. And they have a high tolerance for ambiguity, that's the big thing. So many people don't. And I think that's, you know, you're more interested in, you're more flexible, you're more confident, you're willing to take risks and you're curious and you're sensitive to diversity and inclusion which we need now more than ever. And there's also a lot of fun, fun, skintages. Let your smile be your passport. And I think this author, Pollock, he does a lot of writing about them, culture kids that are brought up in foreign countries and then go back to their own country and some of them readjust and some of them realize that they don't really like their home country very much because they've never really lived there and then they go back and they usually know lots of languages and those kids can pretty much work anywhere. I actually, going back to Kazakhstan, my contact person in Kazakhstan, her name was Natasha, she met me at the airport when I landed in Kazakhstan. I shipped, I don't know, a dozen boxes from the Burlington International Airport to Kazakhstan. I'm like, yeah, I'm never gonna see those boxes again. Well sure enough, they all arrived. Natasha meets me at the airport. We become very good friends. She is hanging around with this Belgian guy, this divorce, she's divorced. They wanna get married, neither one of their countries will allow that. Don't you know they come to Vermont, get married at my house, register at the Ducksbury Town Clerks and Greg at Moose Medal Lodge officiated the wedding on my porch. I love it. Because, and they couldn't believe it. They're like, you mean we can come to your house and get married? I go, yeah, just bring your passport, that's all you need. And we walked into the town clerk's office in Ducksbury and there Natasha looks at me, she's a Russian, big tall Russian volleyball player. She's like, this is too easy. I go, okay, that's why I said, let's do it at my house. So we had this little wedding at my house up on Crescent Hill. And that was back in, I don't know, 2004 maybe, I guess. Anyway, yeah, that's what I think. Oh, that's what I mean, yep it is. Wow. Any questions? Oh, that was fun. What are you doing now? What's your second act? My second act, that's a good question. As I said, if Trump gets reelected, I'm probably moving to Costa Rica. So we can tag along, I'll carry your bags. Yeah. You can talk about compost. Right. So when you went, I will turn it in that direction. When you went to these different countries, did you find any cultural differences with getting rid of trash and all the different aspects like that? Oh yeah. Unless there were a lot less. Well, let's just say, when I was in, when I was working for Quality Schools International, they had had that tsunami in Thailand. Well, in Bande Ache. And at that time, I was in Vermont working at, up in Orleans at Lake Region Union High School. They were looking for a reading specialist. So I was here for a year when that happened. And then I went to work for QSI. And QSI used to have their annual meetings in Phuket. And Phuket was hit pretty hard by the tsunami. And it's, how do you clean up after that? I don't know. I mean, look what happened in Fukushima in Japan. And all that stuff went out to sea. And it's just kind of now washing up in Hawaii and everywhere else. So that's a problem. And that stuff's radioactive. So I don't know the answer to that. I think. When I've gone to different countries, I find a lot of cases where they had, they burned the trash, they opened the fires. But one of the most fascinating ones was going to Aruba, where on the side of the island, where all the luxury hotels were, they took all of the edible trash and dumped it on the other side of the islands in the water, because the sharks and other kind of critters would come and he didn't stay away from that side of the island, just as a little campus place. That would probably save us place to swim. Yeah, so that was the only way to avoid problems with that swimmer. I think other countries are starting to realize that they need to do something about that. But they're miles behind where we are. But we used to send all our trash on big barges to China, and China's like, no, we're not taking your garbage anymore. So we've got barges out in the middle of the ocean. God knows what they're doing with the trash out there. Probably dumping it in the ocean, because nobody wants to take our trash, and we certainly generate a whole bunch. So as much as we can recycle and try to be a role model for that, we don't do a very good job, I don't think, because we still generate a lot of trash. I think that's probably the biggest difference would be that the degree of packaging is probably a lot less in some of the third world countries. They wrap their stuff in, like in Vietnam, if you go to the market, they wrap stuff in banana leaves. They don't use plastic, and you can go to the market. There's a lot of learning to be done for that. And that's very, why wouldn't you do that? Why don't we do that? I think we're moving in that direction now. We need more banana trees in Vermont. But I need just wrapping stuff up in natural fibers instead of using plastic. There's way too much plastic out there. I mean, even, I went to Costa Rica in 2018, and you can't even find a straw in that country. You don't use them, they ban them, because they know it's not good for the wildlife, so. Yeah, this is what connects us all globally, is this trash problem is a big problem. This global warming is part of that. You can't really eat anything out of the ocean anymore, you take your chances if you do. Stuff's floating around. I think that this is why we need these smart kids to come back to their home countries and develop these sort of devices and solutions to this problem. This is why this Greta Thunberg girl is, you know, she's a smart girl. She may have a disability, but you know what? She's smart, that's her disability. And she's, you know, set a big example and move the needle in a big way towards people paying attention to that stuff. Is there a country or an area that you haven't been to that you want to go to? I haven't spent a lot of time in South America. I've been to Columbia briefly. I've traveled to the Galapagos when I was in Columbia, but I haven't really spent a whole lot of time in South America. And it's actually close, so that's a possibility now. My mother's still alive, she's 94, and I've been traveling around for a long time, so it's my turn now to be here while she's still alive and help out in that situation, because I've been traveling around for a long time and my siblings are not that happy about it. But my mother has always supported, this is what you do, you're an international teacher. Because at one point when my dad passed away, I said to my mother, you know, I didn't say anything to her. I was interviewing for the job in Vietnam, but my dad had passed away and my mother was still living in the house, so I didn't say anything and I was waiting for her to ask me. So finally one day she says, what's happening? You haven't talked to me about your new job, do you have one? And I said, well, they offered me a job in Vietnam, but I don't know if I can take it or not. Well, of course you're gonna take it, that's what you do. So my siblings are like, and with her blessings I went for three years and then I came back. Great. She's a good mom. She's a good mom. As a rock star, she is. She's not trying to hold on to you. That's good, that's great. Yeah, that's hard. My son lives in Sweden and so he's now got a little citizenship. And last time, one of them, about a year ago, I was there, he took me to the recycling facility. The only problem is, and I don't remember what he said that they do with the stuff, but they have this huge facility that's got everything you need to recycle. There's a place for it. There's bins and stuff. So you just go there and there's everything you can get rid of. What they do with it after they get that, that's where they go. There's a lot to learn from other countries in all those areas, I think, with what to do about homeless people, how do you take care of them, housing, affordable housing, all of that. There's a lot we can learn from other countries, which is another reason why we need to go there and see what's going on so we can share the wealth. And I would say, one of the things that's pretty important is if you do travel, you need to be a conscious traveler. I mean, yeah, you could go to Paris, but instead of going to Paris, go stay in a little village in France and then you get more of the culture and you learn more about what they do in France than just going to the Eiffel Tower and seeing all the sights. I think going off the beaten track is the way that you learn about a country. Going on a cruise or a package tour, there are some good ones that are small. I mean, when I went to the Galapagos, I was on a boat with 20 people. I did go on a boat when I was in Vietnam with 20 people, but that's about my limit as far as boats go and the number of people. Have you seen the new technology with these Hanto translating devices where you can ask a question in a certain language and you can ask it to a person in a different language and they speak the different language and then they can respond to you and give it back to you? I have seen it, have I used it now? Translation takes forever. Try doing a parent conference with a translator. It takes a long time. When I went to Japan, I went to visit a friend of mine and she took me into the grocery store and there was no English whatsoever. So we're using Google Translate and I'm going up to like all these things and go, what the heck is that? And you just didn't store for hours on end. I mean, that's as far as I've gotten with translating devices, but I'm sure there are better ones now, more efficient ones, but yeah. And I think that you can download those onto your phone and go anywhere now. Right, the challenge, if I was in the Hague last spring, I had to change trains because of a problem with a ticket and none of the signs were in English and the speaker system was all in Flemish. Oh, Flemish is a hard language. Flemish was a challenge. Yeah. And I made it back the same day, so I felt good. So what device did you use? I just looked around and thought I was on the right train. I got on one train and I was the only one in this one car and I sat down and they were getting ready to go and a conductor came in and he said, oh, this is first class. Get out of this car. You're on the right train but you're in the right one. Right, exactly. I had no idea. Yeah, that's funny. But you know what? That's what makes it fun. You know, that's, you just go. You do the stories. That's how you get the stories, yeah. I mean, when I went to Japan, nothing was in English and I'm thinking, how the heck am I gonna get to see those damn stone monkeys? My husband wanted to go skiing. I'm like, okay, you wanna go to Japan and go skiing? We gotta combine it with the snow monkeys because I'm not a big downhill skier but I'll do it. So he found a place that was near the park to where the snow monkeys were and it was in a town called Yamanuchi and I'm like, okay, we're going up to Yamanuchi and then trying to navigate the train to get up there. Nothing in English. Oh my gosh. But we made it. Very good. Yeah, I got close to those snow monkeys. They were pretty cool. So have you been to Australia? I have, but Australia is a big country. I've been to Melbourne. I flew there from Vietnam because there was only a 10-hour plane ride as opposed to flying from here, which is really far. And I had a friend that I used to work with. That's the other thing. You make friends with foreigners from other countries and then when you go to their country, you can go visit them. You get a whole different experience. I went to Melbourne with a teacher that I used to work with in Qatar. She's like, oh, you're in Vietnam? I'm from Melbourne and I was there during the tennis. And I could have gone to the tennis thing, but I stayed in her house and watched it on TV because it was much nicer. But we drove around and she took me to a lot of cool places. The other thing is if you're going to a country that's large in size, you don't want to try to hit all the sites because if you spend too much time trying to see everything, you don't really see anything. I mean, it's better to concentrate on a few things and then maybe go back again later so that you at least have a memory of what you did while you were there because no matter what, you're going to be jet-lagged. And that takes a few days to get over. That's for sure. What about food and eating? Did you find, other than using your hands, did you find some of the food was less and more palatable than other things? Well, those foods are probably unique. I mean, if you go to Thailand and you go to the market and you see this big bin of cockroaches, I'm probably going to buy those. But I probably wouldn't order them in a restaurant either, but I can work chopsticks pretty good and there's certain foods I just don't eat once I see what they are. You're not into the insects. I'm not into eating insects. But I like rice noodles and the food in Vietnam is delicious and very good for you. I mean, that girl that you saw on that slide, she's like this big around and she can eat in the middle of the afternoon because part of the employment at the school was, lunch was included for all of the Vietnamese staff. They would eat these tremendous amounts of rice in the middle of the day. But that was their meal of the day, the big meal of the day. I'm like, how do you fill all that rice in that little body of yours? She's like, I don't know. And you know, it's what they're eating. They're eating rice, they're eating vegetables. They eat, oh, fresh. Plant-based diet is what it is. Oh, fresh. And it's fresh and it's, you know, you can name the ingredients around here. You see more than four ingredients in your food. You shouldn't be eating it, but that's my opinion. Anyway. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Great. Thank you all. I'm gonna like that.