It calls for making unorthodox decisions, and trying something different. I live in the rice fields of East Java on about $3 per day with my 1.5 year old baby girl and wife. I grew up in Brooklyn, NYC and spent most of my time in urban areas.
I also have two older children whom I raised during their youth with my ex-wife in rural NJ when we decided to leave Manhattan. They grew up with a fresh water lake, no motorboats, with bears, deer and raccoons among other wildlife.
My new baby girl is growing up with fresh bananas, mangoes, papaya, and of course, rice right outside our door, and beautiful sunsets and sunrises over the rice fields. There are chickens, goats, geckos, cobras, beetles that look like gold, and colorful birds, and we live in the shadow of a dormant volcano. We live very minimal. Most of the floors in the village are just packed dirt with a bamboo mat pulled out to use. My home is tiled - had to have that!
Funny thing is my internet is spotty at times, but much cheaper, and it goes with me and my phone wherever I am. I get 500 KB/s at times, with an average of 175 KB/s. This allows me to Skype my Dad and older children several times a week with video and share my world. I love my freedom, health and the world of wonder I am learning about. I have been in SE Asia for over 7 years, and in the village for almost a full year now. I might grow tired of it, and move on, but it will be to the next different thing, like a sail boat with short jaunts to other islands. Am I rich? No! You'd be amazed at how much you can accomplish if you set your mind to it, and have some passion about it.
People live in fear. Not the terrifying type of fear you might experience in an immediate life or death situation, but in a sort of self-imposed fear of change or anything different. I like to imagine our world takes place in an imaginery little bubble around us, and if we don't kick and push its walls, stretch them, exercise them, they close in, and we become imprisoned in this gnawing, subtle fear.
It goes hand in hand with the quote attributed to Einstein. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
People know why they're unhappy; they just don't listen well to themselves, or are paralyzed by this subtle fear that drives their whole life.
Bit of both. I saved a bit from working elsewhere in SE Asia, however, most of it went to support my family that lives back in the US. We live off of a fifth of that here.
And remember, I said minimalism. Where I live you get by on $3 per day per person. That's for food you don't grow yourself and other luxuries like internet, razors, soap or toothpaste. I use my phone's 3G service tethered via WiFi to my computer when I need it or want it. It's my biggest luxury item. I could even cut it in half. I currently spend about $25 dollars a month for it, or 1/3 my daily expenses!
As I wrote above, most people have dirt floors here, and refrigeration and electricity came not too long ago to this village. Each home has just under 900 Watts of power available, usually on a single 4 Amp/220 Volt (880 Watts) breaker. That's the deluxe plan. You can opt for 450 Watt service! You pre-pay for your electricity.
I am just starting on the ground work for a house similar to this: http://www.domegaia.com/ All in all, it should cost me less than $15K for the land and the house. Less than two years of property taxes for my house back in the US.
I am vegetarian, and it is great to be able to eat local produce. I have bananas, mangoes, papayas, jackfruit, peanuts, rice, and chilis right outside my home, and potatoes, carrots, corn, and other leafy greens from the vendor who comes down the road each morning at 6:00am.
There are plenty of chickens and goats around if that's your thing. Roosters start up around 4:30am!
There are also mongoose and king cobras, and I am buying an antivenom kit (finally after a year!), since there's no way to save someone from a positive bite other than antivenom. King cobra bites are very rare, but the nearest facility with antivenom is over 3 hours drive from here mainly due to the road conditions and the distance. You only have 30 minutes tops after a good envenomation by one. I am no doctor, but I have done some reading on extreme medicine over the years, but luckily I have not had to test most of that knowledge!
Bottom line is that I always wanted to travel and experience life throughout my life, not only when I was over 60 like most people plan to do. Funny, but when most people have saved and not traveled or lived differently, they tend to stay put and never do it. At least from those I grew up with or knew. I think there are a lot more 30-something millionaires now than ever before, but I ain't one of them; I wish I were 30-something again, and a millionaire ;)
Interesting. What will you do for education when your kids reaches school-age? There are lots of people living off the grid, on boats, all over the world. A common choice is to return to the US when the kids hit middle-school and would benefit from the facilities at secondary and higher schools.
I lost the argument to home school with my first wife, and our children went through the system there in the US. They both did, and are still doing well, but both of them independently came to the conclusion, as well as my ex, that the homework load is insane. More than 3 hours per night, and my kids are pretty fast at doing it. Some friends were taking 4 to 6 hours! Unnecessary, and not education in my book. My son did the same as me, and works on his own projects outside of school mainly in the summer due to the homework load. My daughter reads her own books late into the night, and is developing my old habit of staying up too late!
I am not fervently against the school system like others can be. I just think the world holds enough wonder and obstacles to teach children. I've traveled enough to meet and speak with homeschooled children from boats, to remote areas, and I just like what I see and hear. Besides, I love spending time with family; I'm selfish that way!
I don't think any parent needs to be too academic either. It just takes love, patience and basic aptitude, since the materials are more readily available than ever, and attitude goes a long way to children opening up to learn rather than mechanics. Side benefit: the parents relearn along with the children. It's wondrous. A few focused hours per day maximum should accomplish more than 7 hour day at school confined to a room, and to administering a lot of the time away.
If I were to consider any school for my latest child, it would have to be project-based. I like applying as many disciplines to a singular project a child is impassioned about rather than teaching the discriminate subjects. They can focus later on, but getting how things work together in the real world is more valuable to me. Less is more in this instance.
Here, daily life is a learning experience, and social life is across the ages like when I grew up in Brooklyn, where it seemed to be an urban immigrant thing more than an American suburban thing. I don't believe in age segregation in schools. It was instituted about 170 years ago in America. I think the experienced elderly are an untapped resource, and it would benefit young and old to rediscover this.
I grew up with my Irish grandmother next door, and I learned a great many things from her, and the other elders around me - history, music, storytelling, and just life. I befriended a childless couple on our block who taught me so much too. The man was a very literate, sober, milk-drinking, pipe fitter who was like a very older brother, or more like a second father to me. He taught me the basics of celestial navigation, took me on a sail on a sailboat a group of workers co-owned to afford it, and would invite me over for dinner with his wife to discuss literature, philosophy, history, Latin, the classics and film. I will never forget those moments. They proved to me what a rich life a person can have at the poverty line.
The young children in the village here are naive to the world's history, politics and urban life, but they seem to have a lot more common sense at an early age than what I recall of my urban peers when we were children. I started an informal school here to give them some additional help with English, mathematics, music, literature and art. I had four girls show up daily, until a few of the boys that were making fun of us from the road, joined us. At one point, I counted 11 heads not including my baby girl walking around and creating havoc ;)
I plan on putting on a bit of extra space in the house I am building as an informal classroom, or at least where we start off.
I am buying some King Cobra antivenom just in case, since it takes over 2 hours drive from here to get to a facility that purportedly has a stock of antivenom. Attacks are very, very rare, but rather safe than sorry, given I videoed a 7 ft cobra at the edge of the rice fields in a patch of teak trees several weeks ago. Handlers or performers are generally the people getting bit like the singer Irma Bule who died in West Java this past April [1].
