The Road Begins Again!

In 1996, Helene left Montreal to teach English in South Korea. This experience left a deep impression on her, and she’s been hooked on travel—and teaching—ever since.

In 2003, driven by our mutual desire to live abroad, we both quit our jobs, sold most of our belongings, and moved to Shanghai. The three exciting years we lived there as expatriates turned our world upside down.

We returned to Canada in 2006, but in 2009 we both quit our jobs again, this time to travel the world. From September 2009 to June 2010, we visited Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, India, Qatar, Turkey, and Syria. Daniel also visited Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine.

After spending the summer of 2010 in Montreal, we left again in November, and traveled six months in Mexico. In Puerto Escondido, on the Oaxacan Pacific Coast, we slowed down and began to ponder our future.

And then we realized something:

It’s time for us to get involved.

We have seen too much of the world to remain passive any longer. We want to make use of our professional skills (project management for Daniel, language teaching for Helene) and apply them to fields where we can make a difference.

This blog, Mango Blue, is part of our efforts to join the field of international development. We hope that this blog will help us to:

• Meet like-minded people who work in international development, or are also trying to join;
• Share our future adventures, discoveries, successes, and setbacks, in the hope they will help and inspire others;
• Keep our friends and families up-to-date on our efforts, and help them understand what we’re trying to do, and why.

That being said, we’d love to hear from you, dear new readers:

Suggestions? Questions? Go ahead and say hello!