Job Discussion Forums

[naturegirl321]

I think as you get older and more experienced, the novelty of inconvences, (re no lights, water, etc) wear off really fast. Here in Peru, almost all the international schools are in Lima, in the city where we plan on living, there's one, but it only pays 700 usd a month, not much.

I've decided that the only way for us to survive is to start a couple of businesses. Property being one and a Spanish-English language school being the other. Teaching Spanish to foreigners who will pay 250 for 10 hours of classes is better than teaching English to those who will pay 100 for 10 hours of classes.

Anyways, we've started doing property and it is ok, but you have to budget from the time you buy to the time you sell. We figure we're still young, so hopefully in a couple years we'll have evertyhign worked out.

As for Latin America, although I'm not completely happy here, I realise that I could have a nice lifestyle. Buy houses with cash, no mortage, same with cars, no loans. Have a nanny and a maid. Save a bit, not heaps, but probbaly more than I would in the US (or so I've heard, I'0ve never really worked in the US, just left right before I graduated)

[MO39]

[Guy Courchesne]

[ESL Hobo]

Justin,

My first job was in a Tobbaco Warehouse in North Carolina, I was 10 years old, it was a summer job, and I got paid a dollar a day!!! Even though I was a kid it was a serious job driving a small tractor and unloading bails of tobbaco 10 hours a day, my dad was the guy who weighed the tobacco. For lunch me and the other boys would go outside and climb the grape vines and eat loads of muscodine grapes,LOL.

I guess I had 30 odd jobs growing up until I started TEFLing and stuck with it. I took off from TEFLing for 2 years to work in a mental hospital for emotionally disturbed children, AFTER that I could teach kids classes anywhere without blinking an eye and think they were all angels.
Nothing compares to the a life of travel and adventure, a la Bohemian ESL Teacher.

Naturegirl,

Have you considered "Quilting" as a form of extra income. Like most Hobos I do lots of arts and crafts to keep busy during my free time. I have loads of old clothes and it occurred to me yesterday that I could cut these up and make quilts and sell them in the night market. Not a real fancy qulit but a simple 'Rag Quilt' made out of abstract shapes like a picasso painting. With a sewing machine I could make one in a weekend and sell it for whatever the market will bring, people tend to pay more for handmade stuff. I think I will start off making baby blanket quilts, smaller and easier, before I try making a full size quilt. Besides people everywhere are wild about buying baby stuff, for themselves friends or people they know who have babies!

[ESL Hobo]

Hello again James,

When I was 17 years old I left home and hitch-hiked 11,000 miles, from Texas to California, to Pennsylvania, to south Carolina and back to Texas(3 months).
I started my journey with a bed-roll, a change of clothes and 3 cents in my pocket.

I went for days without eating or diggin through Mickey Dees rubbish bins after they closed, as they would throw away complete bagged meals that they hadnt sold at the end of the day. Another good source of food was rubbish bins behind supermarkets, as they would throw away whole boxes of cereal that had been crushed and out of date milk, very nice, breakfast of Champion Hobos!

I slept out under the stars, in old derilect school buses, washed up in roadside rest stops or creeks. Got chased out of town by local teenage bullies. Almost died in the desert from scorpion bites and 3 days with no water, no ride.

Those were the good old days.

I was young and free as the wind, not being run or ruled by any person and I guess thats why being an ESL Hobo appeals to me, I can always leave my job if I feel too pressured by management and move on, being independent and no one's slave. Although, it has only happened a couple of times as I beleive it's better to complete a contract when at all possible and then move on.

One more thing, I know a guy named Joey, who has spent most of his life paralyzed and living in his bed at home. His adventures are all on the computer and he is a very good writer, but whenever I feel low or downtrodden, I always remember Joey and think, "Hey things arent that bad."

The ESL Hobo
"Hopping the next train to anywhere...."

[MO39]