How It All Started
I’m all pumped about VIPKid, that much is evident. Anyone who asks me what I do inevitably gets a long story that includes great moments with students, my pleasure over the level of convenience and flexibility this work brings me, as well as an invitation to join the team — if they’re from North America. I can’t help it. I really like what I do. And anytime in my life when I’ve found something that really works for me, I become a sort of “evangelist”, sharing the good news of that thing and why you should want to jump in on it too. However, I never set out to be an online English teacher. I’d never even heard of it. And when the pieces all came together, I couldn’t help but look back and be grateful. So let me tell you the story.
I was living in the USA, but had a deep desire to move on. I’d lived abroad before and I was never the same after that experience. I’d had the opportunity to build frienships with people from all across the globe who expanded my worldview and the experience really changed me. Suddenly, I needed to see more of the world and I knew that the US was not where I belonged. I traveled to a handful of places and fell in love with every single one of them. Then I went to South Africa for a wedding and something different happened. It got under my skin. I think I actually cried on the flight home. And I tried to coach myself through letting it go. I would tell myself that I’d had a lovely vacation but that doesn’t mean I needed to move there. But the experience just wouldn’t let me go. When I attended an international conference where I got to know a team of people from South African, something clicked for me and suddenly I saw a door opening. The experience wouldn’t let me go because I was meant to go there.
I have a good friend who lives in Cape Town who I’ve known for a quite a few years. I reached out to her when all this was going on. If only you could see the pages of WhatsApp messages that flew back and forth during that time. I could not believe I was actually considering this crazy idea. But I consulted some mentors, talked it through with some of the folks I now knew in South Africa and suddenly, it became the only thing that made sense. But how?
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I committed to volunteer with an organization in the Durban suburbs. They were keen to have me come and help with their project, but they had no clue how to help me with the logistical side of coming to live in South Africa. A source of income? A place to live? The immigration side of things? They had nothing to offer. They were only able to focus on the task of launching their project and didn’t have the capacity to deal with anything beyond that. They had never worked with someone from overseas before and didn’t know where to start. I understood this, of course. I just had no idea how any of it could come together.
To be honest, I was feeling a bit inadequate at this point. Here I had this huge dream that I’d worked myself up over. I was feeling like my life now wouldn’t make sense unless I pursued it. But I had no idea how to make any of it a reality. Every week I would drive past the airport and feel a heaviness in my heart because I needed to be on one of those planes and I just couldn’t figure out how to make it work.
I saved a bit of money, but realistically I wasn’t making close to enough money to save for a move across the ocean with time to find a job. I just didn’t have the resources. I shared this with my Cape Town friend and one day she just casually suggested looking into teaching English online. What?! What are you even talking about? That must be a scam. I didn’t take it seriously at all for a while. It took about a month before I was finally feeling desperate enough to do some research and see if this could be a viable option. I’d set a date, you see. I had a lease that was ending in about four months’ time and I told them I wouldn’t be renewing because I was moving to Africa. So, with precious time slipping through my fingers, I decided to investigate this online English thing and see if there were any possiblities.
VIPKid came up as the number one result, over and over again. If you were going to pursue this career, these were the people to work with. I started seeing videos on YouTube by folks like Nancy Taylor and Angela Silva, talking about their experiences and I started to believe that perhaps there was more to this than I’d originally thought. Perhaps it would be worth my while to give it a shot. It wouldn’t cost me anything, other than my time and a few props from the dollar store. Little did I know, that decision would help change the course of my life in a major way.
Let’s finish this story tomorrow. There’s so much more to say and I look forward to telling it. But if you’d like to know more about joining the VIPKid team, please visit vktourguide.com. I’ve got a ton of resources to get you started in the process and I’d be delighted to help you get on your way.
