It's official. We are departing Puerto Rico for good, four months from today.
Are you surprised? We are too.
Exactly one year ago we went to an international school job fair in Iowa, where Mickey was offered two positions within hours of our arrival. One was in Tokyo, the other, Puerto Rico. We quickly realized that Tokyo would be a financial stretch for a family of five. We would need more living space and more food than a typical Japanese family. Even though they were offering what sounded like a small fortune in yen, we knew that it wasn't sustainable. Puerto Rico, on the other hand, seemed possible. The headmaster who was recruiting us said the salary and housing stipend he was offering was more than adequate for us to live comfortably. He was wrong.
I've written before about the staggering cost of groceries, but did I mention the electricity and the water? The headmaster told us that his electrical bill was $8. Our electrical bill is roughly 40x that amount. The November water bill was $500, because it turns out that there was a pipe leaking deep beneath the cement bathroom floor. Our oven died in a short-lived, but white-hot, ball of flame, and the car's air conditioner and electrical windows went south--all in the same week.
Mickey worked many late nights analyzing our financial future. There were pie charts, bar graphs, and spread sheets. They all spoke the simple truth. We were rapidly consuming our savings, rather than making money or even breaking even. He told the school that we were struggling, but that we hoped I could find work in order to stay a second year. The school told us that they needed to know if Mickey was committed to staying for next year within 7 days. I couldn't generate a job in that time frame, and that sealed our fate.
My heart is heavy. I don't feel quite finished, but maybe that will pass as I readjust my expectations. We worked so hard to get here, and we had hunkered down for the long run. We kept trying to plug the financial dam with our fingers--no air conditioning, no restaurants, no scholastic book orders. I deferred graduate school indefinitely. Our efforts weren't enough. It's been a long week.
So today, I am changing my focus. I am done with futility, and I am beginning to feel lighter. There is most certainly an adventure ahead.
