Today I have embarked on a journey that is months or perhaps years in the planning. I am sitting in an airplane beside my wife heading to Central America, not sure if or when I will return permanently. The airline is Avianca, a Latin American carrier I became familiar with after marrying my Salvadoran wife 12 years ago. Ahead of me is a tropical paradise and a lot of uncertainty. Will I like my new semi-retired life in a different country?
As I head south, I find that I’m nervous about my future. I know this could be fantastic and the start of a wonderful retirement or a total disaster. I’ve been too busy to think for six months preparing for this moment and suddenly it’s almost like a full stop. I know there will be plenty to do after we move, but this is the first time I’ve had to reflect on my feelings. For months I’ve been deconstructing my life. First the job, then the house, then the cars. Saying goodbye to family and friends: giving up most of my safety net, but trading it in for a new one. Finally we were almost homeless as we headed to the airport. It is terrifying. Still, it’s like the Beatles said “out of college, money spent, see no future, pay no rent, all the money’s gone, no where to go, but oh that magic feeling no where to go.” Maybe I’ve almost got that life. I can teach English in a new country and have a new life. Isn’t that what everyone needs right now: a new beginning?
For a number of reasons we had thought we would retire to El Salvador when we discussed the far off idea in the past. I was working as a civil and environmental engineer for the federal government for decades and thought that the change to a relaxed life would do me good. I also became interested in teaching English some years ago and imagined a retirement teaching as a good change. Finally, I knew the cost of living in Central America is lower than it is in the US, especially in the major US cities, and I imagined being able to enjoy a better standard of living. The flight to El Salvador is about 3 1/2 hours from Washington D.C. and so it seemed even closer than the west coast. It seemed like a reasonable long term plan.
Then in February 2025, the new Department of Government Efficiency offered federal employees a “fork in the road”. This fork in the road included continued pay and benefits through September 30 if desired using “deferred resignation.” One day a co-worker jokingly said to me “take the fork Ben!” I thought then about the possibility of accelerating the plan to begin immediately. It seemed to me that it only made sense if I could take deferred resignation and also full retirement. When I discovered this was allowed, I began to really think about it. I hadn’t really connected the changes at work and the long term plans with my wife until that day. Once I made the decision, I told another employee who told me they were leaving too and they said, “it’s time to go.”
I spoke with my wife in February and we realized this was a frightening, but exciting possibility. For several reasons we knew we could not leave immediately, but we also recognized several issues. Let’s call them macro and micro issues.
One macro issues was that I expected a changing housing market. We purchased our house in 2019 when interest rates were very low. My wife convinced me that we needed to take the plunge and stop paying rent. By 2025 the housing market had been a strong sellers’ market for years due to high interest rates. People with good mortgage rates (like us) were not selling their houses because if they bought a new home they would have a high rate and likely much higher payments. This meant that inventory was very low and buyers had to make good offers in order to entice the few sellers that were out there, Home prices had been increasing sharply in recent years and our home had been a good investment in terms of equity. However, it seemed to me that the changes in the federal workforce meant that the DC area was likely to see an exodus in the next months and maybe years as people moved out of the area for private sector jobs in lower cost of living areas like the midwest. It occurred to me that if we wanted to capture that equity before our home decreased in value or at least became harder to sell, we would need to sell the house sooner than later and not buy another house at a high interest rate. Moving to El Salvador right away suddenly seemed like a good financial move.
To make this happen we needed to get out fast. We met with our realtor right away when we made the decision to take the fork in the road. She went through our house helping us understand what would need to happen in order to make it sell quickly and for the price we wanted. The first step was when she pointed at things throughout the house and said “that has to go” and “that has to go” and so on. It was a little painful, but no pain, no gain, right? My wife and I had been accumulating things (books, furniture, knick-knacks, etc.) for about 6 years since we bought the house. These items we quickly boxed up and moved into storage.
My wife had also identified an international moving company that (for about $12,000) would pack all your household goods, load them on a ship and move them to your new country. We worked with an agent so that when the house sold, he would be ready to quickly get everything out. We moved about 60 boxes of stuff into storage; furniture plus more boxes would follow later.
A micro issue was that I have some chronic health issues. It was nothing that was slowing me down now, but everyone close to retirement age has heard stories of people who work extra years because they love their jobs (or the money) and then finally retire only to pass away soon after, barely getting to enjoy their post-work life. It is true that every year that I would have continued working for the federal government, my retirement would have improved a lot. Also I knew that many older federal employees who want to move to the private sector may have a hard time being hired and also, perhaps more importantly, a hard time adjusting to the change in work environment.
There was also the issue that my father-in-law was 84 years old and having some health issues. My wife wanted to be with him in his final years and when I spoke of moving to El Salvador, she became excited about the ida of living close to her father. Sadly he passed away a month before we moved, but that was one of the aspects of our planning.
If I was going to live in El Salvador, I was definitely planning to teach English. How did I come to an interest in teaching English? In 2019 there was a shut down of the federal government lasting almost two months. During this time I was doing volunteer work for a local not-for-profit (Community Reach of Montgomery County) and was asked if I was interested in teaching English as a Second Language (ESOL) classes. I tried it and loved it! I ended up teaching after work a couple times per week for about 5 years. I have taught mostly grammar classes, but also in the spring of 2025 (after I stopped working for the government in March) I taught two conversation classes. In the grammar classes the students followed a text book, but in the conversation classes things were less structured and I was to bring engaging exercise ideas to class twice per week. In either case, my classes were focused on helping immigrant students gain the English language skills they needed to survive and hopefully flourish in their new country. It was partly a way of sharing my love for the United States with students who had different birthplaces, but had left those behind in search of a better life. Helping them has been very meaningful to me.
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) is different than Teaching ESOL in the sense that the students are not immigrants. Their needs are different. As an example, consider an ESOL conversation class exercise, I might do a role play where one student is a doctor and the other is a patient and ask them to practice asking and answering different questions about body parts and symptoms. The purpose is to learn how to interact with English speaking doctors in the US when they are still learning English. Students in El Salvador will not likely need to speak in English with their doctors. I have never taught English as a Foreign Language, but hopefully I will enjoy it as much.
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