Expat Life

By Sylvan Hardy and Deke Castleman Children pick up language easily. Their nervous systems make new neural connections at lightning speeds. Computer simulations of neural activity in the early years of life look like all the cars in Los Angeles squeezed onto the...

The blue hour is descending on Michael, but I want to absorb a slice of the diminishing light for myself. I want to preserve this precious moment and offer it to her as a farewell gift shortly before she slips into bed, before she sleeps through the night. Something...

Although it’s common to hear of expats whose primary motivation for moving abroad is to find a new relationship, surveys, including one taken in Cuenca, indicate that the majority are already in committed relationships when they relocate. In all, a survey by...

The novelist Jack Kerouac wrote in a letter to his first wife and lifelong friend, Edie Parker: “If you practice kindness, patience and generosity all day, and to everybody, you will realize you are already in heaven.” And yet, somehow, despite our sincerest...

By Alison Cramer Unlike Manta, Guayaquil and Esmeraldas, where drug-related gang warfare has reached "emergency" proportions, Cuenca's murder and violent crime rate has held steady during the Covid-19 pandemic. "We are lucky in this regard," says retired criminology...

With the night falling we are saying thank you on the plaza, bowing to pigeons, or proclaiming the sky, we say thank you we are standing by the water thanking it standing in the shadows looking out in our direction   back from a series of hospitals back from a...

I read an entry in Gringo Post the other day: We will be flying into Guayaquil. We are bringing our older dog of nearly 15 years and our 2nd dog of nearly nine years. We are looking for transport from Guayaquil to Cuenca via Santa Isabel and Giron because we are...

I recently joined folks at a relief center waiting their turn to receive a box of groceries. I asked them about the pandemic and if they were relieved that the tide was slowly changing. Most said they didn’t notice; they would remain afraid of the future for as long...

By Matthew Hayes When Ana Jane turned 60, she decided she wanted “a complete life change.” Approaching retirement, she was suddenly laid off from her job as an interior decorator in early 2009, during the peak of the financial crisis Having endured cancer, job loss...